Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether her department has considered the potential merits of increasing the judicial penalty for illegal working in relation to riders for food delivery companies.

Clamping down on illegal working is a critical part of this government’s work to restore fairness, order and control within the immigration and asylum system. We have changed the law to ensure companies who utilise flexible worker models, as seen in the food delivery sector, are required to conduct right to work checks to prevent illegal working when they contract workers to provide services under their company name.

The existing penalty regime attached to the Right to Work Scheme will apply to these new arrangements and penalties will be enforced, set at £45,000 per illegal worker encountered for a first breach and up to £60,000 for repeat breaches. The penalties sit within this government’s programme of intensified enforcement activity which has seen a 63% increase in illegal working arrests.