The government has announced the latest instalment in its ‘crackdown’ on illegal working by extending right to work checks to businesses hiring gig economy and zero-hours workers. In principle, this is logical and reasonable – prevention of illegal working should rightly apply to anyone working in the UK regardless of their worker status label. However, any change in the law must be supported by carefully-drafted guidance (which hasn’t always been the case in this area). Many businesses who fall foul of the UK’s complex right to work rules are certainly not ‘rogue’ employers, but just in dire need of clear guidelines on what they need to do.
Under s.15 and s.21 of the Immigration, Asylum and Nationality Act 2006, employment of an adult subject to immigration control who does not have permission to work or is working in breach of their visa conditions exposes the employer to a civil penalty (currently set at a maximum of 60,000 per person) and/or a range of other sanctions including an unlimited fine, business closure, director disqualification and potential prison sentence of up to 5 years. S.25(b) IANA specifies that employment for these purposes is “employment under a contract of service or apprenticeship, whether express or implied and whether oral or written”. UK businesses are therefore currently only at risk of sanctions in relation to employees working illegally but the Home Office has been trying to close this loophole for some time.
In September 2024, the Home...
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