Mark Harper did not break law over cleaner's visa, says Eric Pickles

http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2014/feb/09/mark-harper-immigration-law-cleaner-visa-eric-pickles

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Eric Pickles, the communities secretary, has said Mark Harper, the immigration minister, did not break any law when he unknowingly employed an illegal immigrant as a cleaner, and predicted Harper would return to government soon.

Harper, widely seen as one of the most competent and meticulous Conservative ministers, quit when a records check undertaken by the Home Office on his behalf revealed that his cleaner did not have indefinite leave to remain, as Harper believed he had been told.

Government sources said Harper had not broken the law because the cleaner had been self-employed. Harper says he decided on his own accord to double-check the visa status of his cleaner as he piloted the immigration bill through the Commons, including passages that will place a new legal onus on private landlords to check the nationality of their tenants. The bill also increases fines for employing an illegal migrant to £20,000.

Harper's five-year difficulty in establishing the exact visa status of his cleaner was taken by Labour as a sign that parts of the immigration bill placed unreasonable burdens on landlords and employers.

In his resignation letter, Harper said that when he first took on his cleaner he took a copy of a Home Office letter, dated 26 January 2006, which stated that she had leave to remain indefinitely in the UK, including the right to work and engage in a business. Yet when in mid-January he rechecked her status he could not find this original Home Office document.

Conservative sources say Harper made the checks on his own initiative and his decision to go public was not prompted by any imminent newspaper revelation. On 4 February at his request, the cleaner again presented a document that was thought to give her indefinite leave to remain, but Harper then checked this document with the Home Office, and civil servants informed him that this what not the case.

Colin Yeo, a barrister who specialises in immigration law, said Harper had a legal duty to retain a copy of the document, and the defence that she was self-employed was disputable. If she had been employed by Harper, and he was unable to produce the document, Harper could be subject to a £5,000 fine, he said.

The Liberal Democrat MP Tessa Munt voiced scepticism about the responsibilities being placed on employers and landlords. She said: "I do wonder, if he [Harper] can't work out the system, how on earth anybody else is meant to."

But Pickles said: "If Mark had been a doctor or a nurse doing this check there would have been no question of him committing any kind of transgression, it's just because he's the immigration minister and therefore the standard is that much higher. I don't think it will be too long before he's back."

Section 8 of the Asylum and Immigration Act 1996 created a criminal offence of employing a person who does not possess permission to work. Failure to retain documents can lead to a penalty of £5,000, as in the case of Lady Scotland, the former Labour attorney general, when she failed to retain documents.