Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps her Department has taken to make individual with limited or indefinite leave to remain aware of the 2014 changes to the right to work rules making an expired travel document with a valid visa no longer sufficient proof of an individual's right to work.

The Home Office conducted a public consultation in 2013 on changes to the regulations specifying the document checks that employers should undertake to establish an excuse under the Immigration Asylum and Nationality Act 2006 in relation to the prevention of illegal working. In that consultation, the Home Office signalled its intention to tighten the system of right to work checks and to focus these on more secure documentation, in order to simplify checks for employers and better prevent illegal working.

When implementing the changes in May 2014, we published new guidance on the relevant pages of Gov.uk and communicated the changes to employers. Employers have a crucial role to play in informing migrants applying for jobs what documentation is acceptable as evidence of a right to work under the regulations. The Home Office has been rolling out biometric residence permits to non-European Economic Area (EEA) migrants granted permission to enter or remain for more than six months in the UK, which provide a simple means of evidencing lawful immigration status.