asked Her Majesty's Government:
In each of the last five years, how many employers have been prosecuted under the Asylum and Immigration Act 1996 for employing illegal immigrants; how many of these prosecutions were successful; and what sentences were given.[HL6883]
Data held on the court proceedings database on the number of defendants prosecuted at magistrates’ court, found guilty at all courts and sentenced for employing illegal immigrants in England and Wales for the period 2000 to 2004 can be found in the attached table.
Prosecutions should not be seen as the sole indicator of the enforcement activity carried out to tackle illegal working. The Immigration Service regularly disrupts illegal working activity and will continue to do so, even where there is not a case for prosecution against an employer. Removing their illegal workers results in additional recruitment and training costs for employers as well as potential loss of contracts and orders and bad publicity.
Information for Scotland is a matter for the Scotland Office and that for Northern Ireland for the Northern Ireland Office. Court proceedings data for 2005 will be available in autumn 2006.
Defendants Employing a person subject to immigration control who has attained the age of 16 (3) Prosecuted Found Guilty Sentenced Fined 2000 (4) 10 4 4 4 2001 8 1 1 1 2002 2 1 1 1 2003 2 1 1 1 2004 11 8 8 8 Source: Office for Criminal Justice Reform Our ref: PQ 169-06 House of Commons Number [HL6883] (1) These data are on the principal offence basis. (2) Every effort is made to ensure that the figures presented are accurate and complete. However, it is important to note that these data have been extracted from large administrative data systems generated by the courts and police forces. As a consequence, care should be taken to ensure data collection processes and their inevitable limitations are taken into account when those data are used. (3) The principal statute for this offence is the Asylum and Immigration Act 1996 s.8. (4) Staffordshire police force were only able to supply a sample of data for magistrates’ courts proceedings covering one full week in each quarter for 2000.