Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, if she will hold discussions with the Secretary of State for Justice on the potential merits of increasing the range of (a) financial penalties and (b) custodial sentences available to courts for (i) landlords who repeatedly house and (ii) employers who repeatedly employ irregular migrants.

In some areas where access to work, services or benefits is regulated, the measures require a third party to take action such as checking an individual’s eligibility to access work or rent a property. Sanctions exist where these requirements are not complied with.

In 2024 the Right to Rent Order amended the Immigration Act 2014 (the 2014 Act) to increase the maximum penalty that may be imposed on a landlord or agent who contravenes section 22 of that Act. The civil penalty was raised to £5,000 per lodger and £10,000 per occupier for a first breach, with repeat breaches set at £10,000 per lodger and £20,000 per occupier up from £500 and £3,000 respectively. There is no upper limit to the penalty amount, it is calculated on a per-person basis.

The Immigration Act 2016 introduced the criminal offence of leasing a property whilst knowing or having ‘reasonable cause to believe’ the tenant does not have the right to rent’, which supplements the 2014 Act and is aimed at targeting criminally intent landlords who continue to flout the rules.

In tandem, changes also came into force to reflect that the civil penalty for employers, was increased to £45,000 per illegal worker for a first breach from £15,000, and up to £60,000 for repeat breaches, from the previous level of £20,000. There is no upper limit to what an employer could be penalised, penalties are imposed on a per-person basis. In criminal cases, a conviction for illegal employing a person carries a sentence of up to 5 years and/or an unlimited fine, for the most serious cases, those exploiting migrants could face criminal conviction for facilitation or trafficking offences and a maximum sentence of life imprisonment.

The Government is leading a UK-wide crackdown on illegal working as part of a whole system approach to tackle illegal migration and to ensure fairness, order and control within the immigration and asylum system. This includes measures in the Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill to clamp down on illegal working, Home Office Immigration Enforcement teams intensifying operational activity across the UK as well as the recently announced introduction of digital ID by the end of this Parliament.