Consultation on illegal working civil penalty scheme

Today the Home Office has launched a consultation on proposals to strengthen and simplify the civil penalty scheme to prevent illegal working. The consultation will run for 6 weeks.

UK employers already have a responsibility to check that their employees have the right to work in the UK and, since 2008, this has been underpinned by a civil penalty scheme. The Home Office is proposing to further refine these requirements in order to "get tougher" on employers who continue to exploit illegal labour and increase the sanction to reflect the harm they cause". The Home Office is also proposing a number of measures to significantly reduce the administrative costs of complying with the requirement to make right to work checks.