Report - Guardian

134 The LSE Identity Project Report: June 2005- Strengthen the Government’s controls on tackling illegal working by making iteasier for the United Kingdom Immigration Service to take action againstemployers who deliberately use illegal labour. 352Under section 8 of the Act, it is a criminal offence to employ someone who has no rightto work in the UK. Employers are given a statutory defence against conviction foremploying if they check and copy “certain original documents belonging to youremployee”. The penalty for failing to comply is £5000 for each illegal employee.If this current system is not working well, simply adding ID cards to the list of approvedidentity documents is not likely to improve matters. The only measures that couldchange the situation are a compulsion on all individuals to carry ID cards in order topermit spot-checks by the Home Office, a requirement on all employers to report, and arequirement to verify the data against the national register. The Regulatory ImpactAssessment for the Bill acknowledges this when it states that:“The scheme will have greatest impact on illegal immigration andillegal working if it became compulsory to register with thescheme.” 353Even if there is a requirement to register, it is not clear what is likely to happen in asituation where a biometric ID card does not match the details of the potentialemployee. At present, the Government's advice on finding out whether a person iseligible to work in the UK states that the employer is entitled to refuse employment and“may want to call the Employers hotline”. 354 Presumably an ID card will obligeemployers to play a more significant role.This points to the likelihood that internal checkpoints could be constructed acrossBritish society. Some professional bodies have already expressed concern about takingon the role of policing identity. The British Medical Association has stated that it is:“concerned about the possibility that doctors would themselves beasked to police access to health services. A doctor's primaryprofessional duty is to promote the wellbeing of his or her patients,and to provide health services on the basis of clinical need. Such aresponsibility would create a conflict of professional interest fordoctors.” 355Similarly, when the current Home Secretary, Mr Clarke, was Secretary of State forEducation, he said that there were no plans for schools “to check on the immigrationstatus of children joining a school to see if they were entitled to free education.” 356The obvious concerns in the Health and Education services about the principle ofimplementing such checks are likely to be shared by employers throughout the UK.352 ‘Changes to the law on preventing illegal working: short guidance for United Kingdom employers’, Amendmentsto document checks under section 8 of the Asylum and Immigration Act 1996, The Home Office, April 2004,available at http://www.workingintheuk.gov.uk/ind/en/home/0/preventing_illegal.html.353 Bill RIA, Paragraph 38.354 Ibid, page 6.355 ‘BMA raises questions about ID cards and access to healthcare UK’, Medical News Today, July 23, 2004.356 ‘Schools rebuff Blunkett’s ID scheme’, Alan Travis, The Guardian, April 28, 2004.