Borders and Asylum

Alex Baker Excerpts

Monday 1st September 2025 Commons Chamber

[Yvette Cooper]

The right hon. Member will know that there are different identity checks as part of the asylum system. Those are tested through the courts. One of the reasons asylum claims can be turned down is if there is a lack of credibility in the application. That can be a lack of credibility because of concerns about deliberately lost documents, for example, or not having proper identity information. It is important that we do that. It is why we are also increasing the digital ID and biometric checks as part of the ways to prevent illegal working, and linking that back to the biometric asylum system.

[Alex Baker (Aldershot) (Lab)]

Illegal working not only undermines the integrity of our immigration system, it erodes trust in our communities. In Aldershot, constituents have raised concerns about people continuing to work illegally even after reports have been made to the Home Office. That risks leaving local people feeling that the system is neither fair nor properly enforced. I welcome that Home Office illegal working raids are up 50%, but what action are the Government taking to strengthen enforcement and how is the Home Office ensuring that reports are acted on swiftly, so that trust in our communities can be maintained?

[Yvette Cooper]

My hon. Friend makes an important point. We have increased illegal working arrests and raids by 50% and significantly increased the fines for employers engaged in illegal working. Further to that, the organised immigration crime domestic taskforce, which brings together policing here in the UK, is looking at the ways in which organised immigration crime networks are linked to organised crime and the exploitation of illegal workers in the UK, so it is about going after some of those employers operating bogus tactics, alongside the existing raids.