Clause 2 - Labour market enforcement strategy

Part of Immigration Bill – in a Public Bill Committee at 10:30 am on 27 October 2015.

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Photo of Sarah Champion Sarah Champion Shadow Minister (Home Office) 10:30, 27 October 2015

I give another example. During the witness session, I asked Professor Metcalf whether he believed that there were sufficient resources and he said,

“Probably not, but in the consultation document and, I think, in the Bill, it does not actually set out quite what the resources are.”

I went on to ask him what he thought they should be and he said:

“One understands the difficulties with the public finances, but we probably do not have sufficient resources. In the low-skilled report, we calculated that you would get an inspection from HMRC once every 250 years and you would get a prosecution once in a million years. That suggests that we do not have enough resources. In turn, that takes you to the potential trade-off between the resources and the punishments.”––[Official Report, Immigration Public Bill Committee, 20 October 2015; c. 19-20, Q36-37.]