There is no legal responsibility for the SIA to carry out right to work checks; that is the role of the employer.
So the SIA has stressed in a statement on its website after the wide publicity about illegal immigrants working in private security with SIA badges. <br><br>The statement reads: "Since July this year we have worked with the Border and Immigration Agency (BIA) to carry out right to work checks on 100 per cent of those applicants that are non-EEA nationals (EEA nationals have an automatic right to work in the UK). Swift action has also been taken to ensure that all current and previous SIA applications undergo right to work checks through the BIA.<br><br>Where it is subsequently discovered that a licence holder does not have the right to work in the UK, or the right to work has expired, the SIA licence will be revoked. However, it is inevitable that criminals and illegal workers will seek to obtain licences to which they are not entitled and we continue to work closely with BIA to share resources and information to target illegal working."<br><br>The SIA tells security buyers that if you buy in contracted security services you should seek assurances from your security supplier that they have carried out the necessary checks on their staff as required under Section 8 of the Asylum and Immigration Act 1996.<br><br>A question left unanswered in the House of Commons on November 13 – why did it take more than a year from a Tory backbencher raising the issue to it blowing up in a public controversy?<br><br>After Home Secretary Jacqui Smith made a statement, for the Tories, Shadow Home Secretary David Davis said: “The response of the Home Office so far has been blunder, panic and cover-up: blunder when it set up the Security Industry Authority and did not ask it automatically to check when granting security licences to potentially illegal workers; panic when it was first told about that in April; and cover-up when it decided not to tell the public …” Jacqui Smith answered that she has taken action and will report further to the House of Commons. <br><br>Most tellingly, David Davies (not the same man; the Tory backbench MP for Monmouth) referred to the questions he tabled in September 2006, ‘in response to industry insiders who were telling anyone who would listen that that was what was happening. Why did it take the Home Office an extra seven months [until April 2007] to discover something that a backbench Member of Parliament and anyone in the security industry knew about in September [2006]?<br><br>Rather than directly answer the question, Jacqui Smith merely repeated that it is the responsibility of security industry employers to check the right to work of those people whom they employ. For the Lib Dems, Jeremy Browne claimed there was an ‘entire culture of spin and obfuscation’ at the Home Office. Jacqui Smith replied that there was no blunder: “In fact, the issues were identified because of improved joint working between the SIA and the BIA [Border and Immigration Agency] going beyond the requirements of the SIA licensing regime in order to make sure that there was a belt-and-braces approach to ensuring the right to work of those applying for a SIA licence.” <br><br>Among the party-political points, Frank Dobson for Labour asked the Home Secretary that private sector employers are prosecuted for their criminal offence in employing people who should not have been employed: “Where they are holders of Government contracts for security, will she ensure that they lose them, even if in some cases it makes it more difficult for them to give funds to the Tory party?” And former Home Secretary and Tory leader Michael Howard described the affair as a ‘fiasco’, which Jacqui Smith denied. She was able to turn the occasion to make an argument for national identity cards, claiming: “It is the responsibility of employers to check that, but it will be manifestly easier to do so if the people who have a right to stay and work in this country have ID cards.” She also took credit for improvement in security since the authority came in: “Before the SIA, the security industry in this country was unregulated. Although many in the industry carried out good work, there was certainly an opportunity for those who were not interested in either the security of the people and places they guarded or the employment of their staff to get away with it.” <br><br>Hansard full transcript of SIA debate:<br><br>http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200708/cmhansrd/cm071113/debtext/71113-0004.htm#07111328000005
Perhaps the last word in the mainstream media on the affair was said on the PM programme on Radio 4 on November 14. The presenter Eddie Mair facetiously asked Jacqui Smith if there was anything else she was not telling us about; the Home Secretary said no. If there had been a November election, would the illegal immigrant worker affair have been kept quiet? he asked. Jacqui Smith answered that letters had gone to 2000 private security companies, hardly keeping it quiet. "Why was there no press release?" Eddie Mair asked. "There wasn’t a press release because there was no press story," the Home Secretary replied.
