Legislation covering private security is defective, the Conservative Opposition claimed as the Security Industry Authority had to defend the fact that illegal immigrants have worked as SIA-licenced.
Speaking on Radio 4’s Today programme on November 12, Andy Drane, SIA deputy chief executive, who was acting chief executive this year until September when Mike Wilson started as chief exec, said: "We set our criteria for licences back in 2004, and at that time we primarily relied on the employer’s responsibility which is enforceable through criminal sanctions to cover the right to work in this country of their employees. " Earlier this year, he went on, as a result of new information systems, better working with the immigration department, and intelligence, the SIA carried out a number of operations and identified there was a risk of illegal workers working with licences in the security industry. The SIA changed its procedures immediately, Andy Drane added. As for whether the Met Police was to blame for having illegal security workers, Andy Drane replied that the ’employer’ could be the security contractor, providing the service. As for how many people are working with SIA licences as illegal immigrants, Andy Drane did not give any numbers but said: "We do know from our records how many people do not have an automatic right to work in the country; they are not UK or EU citizens; we know how many of these foreign nationals there are with licences and the majority of those are perfectly entitled to work in this country." <br><br>Shadow immigration minister Damian Green speaking earlier on Today for the Tories said: "The legislation is pretty defective," and said the reason the government had not admitted the problem earlier was ‘thin’, claiming that what he called a ‘cover-up’ was worse than the actual problem. He added that it was a bit rich for Government ministers to say it was the employer’s problem when among the employers who failed in this regard were government departments and the Met Police. Some of the most sensitive buildings in the country, Mr Green claimed, were guarded by people checked inadequately. The news that the authorities had for some months not gone public about this identified problem – what Mr Green called the cover-up – was reported in the Sunday Mirror on November 11. Mr Green made the point that this was merely the latest ‘fiasco’ involving the Home Office and illegal immigrants. <br><br>http://www.sundaymirror.co.uk/news/dailynews/2007/11/12/illegals-got-the-home-office-ok-89520-20095350/<br>
The SIA today stressed that the legal responsibility for checking the right to work of employees lies firmly with the employer. A spokesman said: “There is no legal responsibility for the SIA to carry out right to work checks; that is the role of the employer. We work closely with security companies to remind them of their legal obligations and best practice when establishing the rights of their potential employees to work but employers should not accept the possession of an SIA licence as proof of this right. No licences have been knowingly issued to illegal immigrants, nor to those who do not have the right to work in the UK. Where it is subsequently discovered that a licence holder does not have the right to work in the UK the licence will be revoked. However, it is inevitable that criminals and illegal workers will seek to obtain licences to which they are not entitled.”
