The boot’s on the other foot now…
The government must be feeling pretty sheepish now that attorney general Baroness Scotland has been caught out by the tough regulations on immigration status and employment which she helped to get through the House of Lords just three years ago.
I’d imagine few businesses will be able to muster much sympathy for Baroness Scotland, as they have been faced with keeping on the right side of the complex regulations which made employers into de facto immigration officers since February 2008. Few migrant workers will have any sympathy either, particularly since Scotland is now accused by her former housekeeper, Loloahi Tapui, of falsely claiming that she had checked Tapui’s passport before employing her It looks like Baroness Scotland has been unsuccessfully trying to wriggle free from her own net.
What’s most depressing is that almost all of the media coverage of this has leapt upon this as yet another ministerial scandal. The real story is that Baroness Scotland has inadvertantly exposed how absurd the regulatory system she has helped to introduce is - and its implications for migrants living and working in the UK. The regulations and UKBA enforcement system have not been effectively ‘rooting out illegal working’ - many employers are still unaware of how they are to stay on the right side of the law and thus far small ethnic minority catering businesses have been the overwhelming focus of UKBA civil penalty fines.
But those that are really paying the costs will continue to be migrant workers - both those who are undocumented, who have virtually no enforceable employment rights and risk being pushed even further underground by the regulations; and those with the legal right to work in the UK, but who are likely to find employers are increasingly wary of taking them on for fear of hefty fines.
Perhaps Baroness Scotland’s embarassment will develop some appetite for a full review of the ‘civil penalty regime’ and its implications for workers in the UK. In the meantime, have a read of this Guardian article, which looks into some of the human issues behind the government bluster: www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2009/sep/26/lady-scotland-housekeeper-undocumented-workers