Ending the Asylum Scam

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ENDING THE ASYLUM SCAM

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Summary

Reform UK has a comprehensive plan to fix Britain’s broken borders by stopping the boats in the First 100 Days, and then detaining and deporting all illegal migrants and instituting negative net migration. This paper outlines key additional measures to supplement Operation Restoring Justice and Operation Fortress by ending the abuse of our generosity by economic migrants who arrive illegally.

A Reform UK Government will end the Asylum Scam and:

• Suspend the asylum system, voiding pending applications and marking new and current applicants for deportation.

• Immediately close “resettlement” routes and reverse all refugee grants issued through these channels.

• Introduce strict penalties for non-compliance with immigration law, including criminal liability for corporate executives profiting from illegal employment and substantial civil fines for landlords facilitating illegal housing.

• Conduct a comprehensive national population audit using official records to identify, detain, and deport individuals residing in the country illegally. This could take the form of an emergency census. We will also be honest with the public about the full extent of migrant crime.

• Mandate the immediate detention and deportation of foreign national offenders upon conviction, regardless of sentence length.

• Embed immigration enforcement at all levels of local and national government by incorporating routine migration checks into standard regulatory inspections.

• Protect the status of Ukrainians and BNOs, ensuring they only return once safe to do so.

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Foreword by the Party Leader

Britain is being invaded. Over 213,000 illegal migrants have arrived on Britain’s shores since 2018, brought in by governments more concerned with laying on a ferry service from Calais than with securing our borders.

The results have been a disaster for this country. We have spent a fortune to house and feed people who should have no right to be here, who arrive unvetted and take with nothing to contribute.

British people who have worked hard, paid their taxes, and done the right thing have watched, aghast, as Conservative and Labour politicians use their own money to outbid them for housing, or let loose dangerous criminals onto the streets to brutalise women and children. Establishment politicians have proven time and time again that they care more about illegal migrants than pensioners or veterans.

This must stop. This will stop. Today, we are setting out further details of our plan to end the Asylum Scam. Our approach covers the full spectrum of policy measures, dismantling the pull factors that draw illegal migrants to the UK, physically interdicting illegal migrants in the Channel, and removing those illegal migrants who do make it to Britain.

Within 100 days of Reform UK taking office, we will stop the boats, putting the Royal Navy in the English Channel to detect and intercept every boat attempting to enter British waters. That is our pledge to you: that no illegal migrant will set foot on British soil.

Small boat migrants will be escorted to the country they departed from in Royal Navy vessels. When it becomes clear that attempting to enter Britain is pointless, the crossings will end. I’ve been told again and again that stopping the boats is not possible, that the French would never agree. Well Jordan Bardella and I signed an MoU at Reform party conference this year pledging to do just that.

Simultaneously, we will commence Operation Restoring Justice, and implement domestic deterrents. Together, they will make it impossible to live in Britain illegally, and impossible to remain here by abusing the asylum system. The Uniparty has been content to allow the hospitality and kindness of the British people to be abused. We will end the Invasion.

Nigel Farage MP Leader, Reform UK

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Introduction

In Operation Restoring Justice and Operation Fortress, Reform UK set out the first steps we would take in government to restore control to Britain’s borders. We have pledged to stop the boats in the First 100 Days of a Reform Government. This document sets out further details of our plan to end the asylum scam, end the invasion, and stop the Uniparty facilitating large scale economic migration under the guise of humanitarian protection.

Our approach is simple. We will dismantle the pull factors drawing illegal migrants to Britain and enriching unscrupulous employers, we will remove the barriers to deporting illegal migrants and asylum applicants, and we will detain and deport illegal migrants, asylum seekers and foreign criminals, while finally being honest with the British public about the real costs of the asylum system.

To achieve this, we will begin by addressing the root cause of illegal migration: a dysfunctional asylum system that has become a backdoor for economic migrants. We will suspend the asylum system, and stop grants of refugee status or humanitarian protection in their entirety, dismissing claims and deporting illegal migrants. Alongside this, our welfare reforms, strengthened asylum detention, and a clampdown on illegal working will greatly reduce the economic incentives to come to this country.

We have set out plans in Operation Fortress to intercept, detain and return those attempting to enter Britain illegally by boat. We will also end the use of resettlement schemes, deport those brought in through Labour’s new routes, reverse the Afghan resettlement schemes for those who didn’t actually help our troops, and review previous grants of refugee status or humanitarian protection while removing barriers to deportation.

We will put a stop to the migrant crimewave, strengthen laws on the deportation of foreign criminals, and publish in full data on the nationality of offenders which the Labour Government has sought to conceal. We will also audit the scale of the problem facing Britain, conducting a full assessment of the size of the illegal population, and embedding immigration enforcement throughout state functions.

In combination, these steps will make it impossible to enter Britain to claim asylum or live and work illegally, and finally give the British public the truth about the failures of Uniparty policy.

The remainder of this document is set out as follows. Section one sets out our plans to dismantle the pull factors bringing illegal migrants to Britain. Section two sets out our plans to suspend the asylum system, end the Afghan ‘resettlement’ program, conduct a full reassessment of refugee grants, and return illegal migrants to their home countries. Section three sets out our plan to combat the migrant crimewave and conduct an audit of illegal migration, and finally section four sets out plans to embed immigration enforcement throughout the state.

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Dismantling the pull factors

Perhaps the most important draw factor for illegal migration to the UK is the prospect of ready access to welfare when claims are approved, and of illegal employment in the gig economy while claims are assessed or even after they are declined. The Conservative and Labour parties have turned a blind eye to the abuse of the British welfare state by illegal migrants, and together have effectively decriminalised illegal working.

Under a Reform Government, this will change.

No access to welfare

As things stand, asylum applicants receive support and successful asylum seekers are granted instant access to benefits. Government advice states that “as soon as you’re granted refugee status, you should apply for benefits”.1

At present, there are over 130,000 refugees without British nationality claiming Universal Credit, and an additional 52,000 people with grants of humanitarian protection.2 If their share of Universal Credit claims is proportional to their share of non-British Universal Credit claimants, this implies an annual cost to the taxpayer of almost £1.7bn in Universal Credit alone.3 Given the disparities in incomes between Britain and the countries of origin of many refugees, these payments are a powerful draw factor, particularly when combined with access to the UK labour market and potential undeclared income.

Under Reform, the practice of enticing economic migrants with the prospect of humanitarian protection and Universal Credit will end. Access to Universal Credit, Housing Benefit, taxpayer- funded free childcare, and most other non-contributory benefits will be restricted to British citizens. Asylum seekers and refugees, like other foreign nationals, would be denied access, with exceptions for Ukrainians and BNOs.4

This bar to welfare access would include social housing. Almost 1 in 40 social homes let in the last year of data were allocated to refugees.5 This is not an appropriate use of a limited housing stock built at the expense of the British taxpayer. Reform UK will bring this to an end.6

An end to illegal working

Under Reform UK, the practice of using illegal labour to lower wage bills will end.

We will pass the ‘Deliveroo’ Law making CEOs and Directors of large companies personally and criminally liable for profiting from illegal working. The law will also impose fines of 10% of global turnover levied against companies, and establish tip lines for the public to report suspected illegal activity with follow-up enforcement mandated.7

To prevent illegal migrants from moving to smaller businesses, we will complement the Deliveroo Law with a delegated power to issue penalties for illegal working to local councils (in addition to existing enforcement powers). This will enable all council licensing, trading standards, fire inspection and similar officers to do automatic immigration checks on their visits. In the event that officers feel there is a reasonable suspicion of illegal working taking place but there is a credible threat to council officers (in line with the widespread intimidation of Trading Standards inspectors), they would also forward the case to the immigration authorities.

Liability will be strictly subject to an adequate procedures defence, similar to that employed in the Bribery Act. Councils would also be empowered to create additional licensing regimes for frequent offender industries such as vape shops, corner shops, Turkish barbers, and others. To prevent ‘phoenixing’ to remove liability, we would rapidly suspend licensing for offenders via amending the Licensing Act 2003’s summary review process to include illegal

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working, and require either surety bonds or liability insurance from prior offenders to start businesses again.

These measures will sit alongside the Deliveroo Law and the associated changes to trading standards, changes to the licensing regime around vape shops, and the illegal working tip line. In combination, these steps will make Britain significantly less attractive as a destination country for migrants seeking illegal employment.

No more hotels, no more subsidised housing

Operation Restoring Justice has committed Reform UK to building baseline detention capacity for up to 24,000 illegal migrants. With Operation Fortress ending Channel crossings into Britain, this capacity will be used to detain illegal migrants currently present in Britain, and to process any arriving on legitimate visas who attempt to claim asylum.8

We will end the use of migrant hotels and dispersal accommodation, repealing the current legal right to accommodation and subsistence for illegal migrants and processing those currently in accommodation for removal. The prospect of detention followed by guaranteed deportation with no opportunity for illegal working or subsidised enjoyment of Britain’s towns and cities will further reduce the attractiveness of Britain as a destination.

Operation Fortress: stopping the boats

In conjunction with the policies set out above, Reform UK will take active steps to combat the crisis in the Channel within the First 100 Days after forming a government. Operation Fortress has set out our plan to task the Royal Navy with intercepting small boats at sea, detaining the smugglers and those aboard their vessels attempting to enter the UK, and returning them to their country of departure.9

Modelled in part on Australia’s highly effective Operation Sovereign Borders, this operation will be a full interagency collaboration headed by a Joint Task Force Commander appointed by the Chief of Defence Staff. We will disembark migrants onto a Naval vessel which will transport them back to the French or Belgian coast.

Every boat that is launched into the Channel will be detected, tracked, intercepted, and the migrants on board returned, with or without the cooperation of the French authorities. Operation Fortress will be a lawful exercise of immigration powers under maritime law, compliant with the duties of contracting parties under UNCLOS (United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea) and SOLAS (International Convention for the Safety of Life at Sea).

Emergency legislation will be used to give the Armed Forces the necessary immigration powers to detain illegal migrants. In the interim before primary legislation is passed, immigration officers will supervise the detention of illegal migrants by military personnel. Therefore, Operation Fortress will lawfully be able to commence immediately, stopping the boats within 100 days.

Should Rassemblement National emerge victorious in the French elections, we would put into effect the Memorandum of Understanding signed at our September conference.10 Should a Macron-style globalist choose to continue the degradation of France by turning an effective blind-eye to the activities of people smuggling gangs, we will return them regardless of cooperation.

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Suspending the asylum system

A Reform Government will suspend the asylum system and grants of humanitarian protection in their entirety.

We have already pledged that any migrants who entered the United Kingdom illegally, overstayed a visa, or originated from a safe country will be ineligible for asylum. This would effectively preclude any current asylum claimant from ever having their case heard, making the asylum system superfluous.

A Reform Government will therefore suspend the asylum system entirely for a full parliamentary term. All applications in train at the point of suspension will be voided. All applications made during the period of suspension will be immediately declined, and the applicants marked for deportation. No grants of humanitarian protection or refugee status will be made. Home Office staff will be reprioritised to reviewing and overturning previous refugee grants.

As new cases will not be heard, and ongoing claims made by illegal migrants will be voided, there will be no immigration and asylum tribunal claims. The tribunal has for too long acted as a major block to deporting illegal migrants and the average time for asylum and humanitarian protection appeals to clear the first-tier of the immigration tribunal currently stands at 72 weeks.11 There are currently 90,341 outstanding asylum and humanitarian protection appeals within the tribunal system.12 Under a Reform Government these will not be heard and the claimants will be deported. Outstanding European Economic Area (EEA) and EU Settlement Scheme (EUSS) claims, and other immigration claims, will continue as internal Home Office appeals subject to limited judicial review.

Ending “resettlement” schemes

In addition to asylum seekers arriving in the UK through illegal means or under false pretences, under successive Labour and Conservative governments Britain became the second-largest recipient of UN sponsored refugee flows in Europe.13 Some 481,804 people were brought to the UK through “safe and legal routes” between 2015 and 2022.

The current Labour government has signalled its intent to greatly expand this flow, with Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood stating that she will reopen the UK Resettlement Scheme immediately. Particularly large flows of Afghans and Palestinians are expected to arrive without any democratic consent whatsoever.

Reform UK’s position on this matter is clear. There is no mandate for any such scheme. A Reform Government will close them immediately. Anyone who has arrived in the UK through these reopened routes prior to the election of a Reform Government will have their right to remain revoked, and be deported to their country of origin or to a safe neighbouring country.

Alongside this step, we will undertake a full review of the Afghan resettlement schemes. The Conservative Government expected “it would need to resettle around 4,000” Afghans, yet chose to smuggle in 39,000.14 We will publish the full cost to the British public to date and the full impact of their criminal behaviour. In addition, Reform UK will revoke the right to remain of anyone that is not considered to be in any danger in their home country, and deport those that have taken advantage of our country. Afghan veterans verified using MoD records will be protected, although we consider that this number will be in the hundreds. Afghans will be sent to a safe third country where it’s not appropriate to return them to Afghanistan.

Conducting a full reassessment of previous grants of refugee status

The Labour government has stated that refugee status will become temporary and subject to review for current applicants.15 This does not go far enough. A Reform Government coming into power in 2029 will extend the review to all those awarded grants of refugee status or humanitarian protection in the preceding 5 years (this time limit does not apply to our

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review of the Afghan resettlement schemes outlined above).

Those who entered the country illegally (e.g. via a small boat, clandestinely or using fake documentation), overstayed their visa and then claimed asylum, or whose country of origin is now deemed safe by the government will lose their leave to remain.

Those individuals that have their refugee status revoked will then immediately become eligible for deportation under Operation Restoring Justice. This revocation of refugee status will also apply to all dependents of the person in question.

Upon the formation of a Reform UK Government in 2029, we would expect over 400,000 people to be in scope of this policy. Note circa 55% of asylum applicants arrived by small boat, clandestinely or without relevant documentation over the last five years (based on Home Office data) so the vast majority of people in scope will have their humanitarian status revoked.

Removing barriers to deportation

As stated in Operation Restoring Justice, a Reform Government will leave the European Convention on Human Rights, repeal the Human Rights Act 1998, pass the Illegal Migration (Mass Deportations) Bill, and disapply the 1951 Refugee Convention. In combination, these steps will remove the legal barriers to necessary action while protecting the rights of British citizens.

Forcing countries to accept their illegal migrants

While this will remove domestic barriers to deporting illegal migrants, countries around the world currently view the British state as a soft touch. There are multiple documented instances of foreign states refusing or threatening to refuse returns of illegal migrants, with the full knowledge that Conservative or Labour governments view this issue as low priority.16-17

If a country refuses to allow deportation flights to land in their country, a Reform UK Government will apply maximum diplomatic pressure to ensure compliance.

For those countries that have a significant legal foreign national presence in Britain, and thus a significant interest in maintaining access to British visas for their citizens, we will institute visa bans. This will include the likes of Pakistan, Somalia, Eritrea, Syria, Afghanistan and Sudan who all have large illegal migrant populations in the UK.

This will apply in the first instance to any new applications for British visas, with varying levels of severity depending on the extent of the other country’s non-compliance. This policy will cover all of a country’s nationals in due course as we will abolish Indefinite Leave to Remain (whilst maintaining EU Settled Status, subject to restricting welfare access) as an immigration status and all foreign nationals will require renewable visas.

For those countries that do not have a significant legal foreign national presence in Britain, and thus would not likely be greatly affected by sweeping visa bans, we will institute tariffs on goods and services originating from that country. We expect this method to be most effective for developing countries with little incentive to take back their foreign criminals, yet which have significant trade relations with the United Kingdom in natural resources and other basic goods.

Such countries would include those who have relatively low numbers of foreign nationals living in the UK, but for whom trade with the UK makes up a disproportionately large share of their national exports.

If the above measures are not sufficient to ensure compliance, we will apply further sanctions,

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including banning a country’s airlines from British airspace and their citizens from transit. In extreme cases where no country is willing to take custody of an illegal migrant or it is inappropriate to return them to their home country, we will negotiate deals with third countries allowing for their deportation.

We are under no illusions. Ending the flow of asylum seekers to Britain will involve ending the flow across the Channel, the abuse of the visa system and the abuse of the Common Travel Area. While Operation Fortress and our behind-the-border enforcement measures will greatly reduce the appeal of Britain as a destination for asylum seekers, we will do everything in our power to ensure that those who do slip through the net are removed, making Britain a poor choice of country for those shopping for a destination.

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Ending the migrant crimewave

Detaining and deporting immigrant lawbreakers

The Home Secretary has the power to deport any immigrant whose presence in the UK is not deemed as conducive to the public good.18 It is to the detriment of the British people that this power is not fully utilised, often due to the ECHR.

Under the current rules, automatic deportations only apply if a foreign national receives a custodial sentence of 12 months or more.19 It is evident that even this automatic deportation category is ineffective, given that there are currently over 10,000 Foreign National Offenders (FNOs) in British prisons, 12% of the total prison population.20 Further, EEA nationals with settled status are currently exempt from automatic deportation despite their nationals being amongst the highest represented FNOs in British prisons.21 The cost of FNOs has increased by 50% since 2019 and they now cost the taxpayer £643m per year.22

Reform UK has already detailed plans for the routine removal of all FNOs given custodial sentences over 12 months to serve their full term in third countries which offer prison spaces for rental, including El Salvador and Kosovo. Under our policies, on completion of their sentence these FNOs will be returned to their home country and handed a lifetime bar on re-entry to the United Kingdom.

However, this policy will leave many repeat offenders off the hook. In 2025, 1.2 million offenders were convicted across all criminal courts in England and Wales. Just 3% of those convictions resulted in a custodial sentence of 12 months or more.23

There are 13 million immigrants living in Britain.24 Even if the rate of crime amongst foreign- born populations were as low as among the British-born population, it would imply that approximately 220,000 immigrants are convicted per year. If just 3% of these result in a custodial sentence of 12 months or longer, then 200,000 non-British nationals are convicted each year with a sentence which does not make them liable for automatic deportation. For comparison, last year there were just 9,679 enforced deportations.25 There is no doubt that there are hundreds of thousands of non-British nationals, walking free in Britain despite having committed a crime.

It is important to note that the crimes in this category should not be considered as minor. Shoplifting, assault, and possession of a knife are all crimes which routinely result in short sentences.

Reform UK believes that a British visa is a privilege, not an entitlement. If, as an immigrant, you violate the laws of the land, you should lose this privilege, and your presence be seen as no longer conducive to the public good.

Reform UK will legislate, as part of the Illegal Migration (Mass Deportations) Bill, that deportation must be considered during the sentencing of FNOs, with the judge or Home Secretary handing down a deportation order. If non-British, upon conviction, regardless of the sentence handed down, the individual’s visa will cease to be valid and they will be detained and deported.

The operational decision regarding the deportation method will sit with Deportation Command. The FNO will be detained until deportation.

Full disclosure of national origin of offenders

Consecutive Conservative and Labour governments have refused to publish the nationalities of foreign criminals.

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In July 2026 David Lammy even took legal action to ensure that this information would not become available.26 In June 2025 the Centre for Migration Control had asked the Ministry of Justice for convictions in England and Wales from 2018 to 2024, broken down by nationality and offence. The request was refused.27 The little the Government does publish shows why it is fighting to hide the rest. Foreign nationals accounted for one in seven of all sexual offence convictions last year.28

The MoJ compiled the figures for 2021 to 2024, then told the Information Commissioner the request was too expensive to answer because it had taken five days to do so. Whilst Reform UK expects this data to become less relevant over time, as we deliver net-negative migration and deport all foreign criminals, we would nonetheless ensure that important data like this is routinely made available.

The reluctance to be open about such a pressing issue for the British public is a Uniparty trend. The Ministry of Justice confirmed in June 2025 that its approach to publishing nationality data “is in line with that used during the previous Conservative Government” and that it does not break down offences by nationality.29 For fourteen years, Tory justice secretaries chose secrecy.

Reform UK will withdraw the MoJ’s appeal and publish the full convictions data by nationality and offence. We will make nationality and immigration status a mandatory field for every arrest and charge through the Home Office counting rules and the Annual Data Requirement. For the maximum transparency the British people deserve, we will publish quarterly statistics on arrests, charges and convictions by nationality/visa status and by offence.

Following best practice in Europe, we will publish an annual crime index on the Danish model: convictions by country of origin, standardised for age and published separately for men and women, with the national average as the benchmark, so that the public sees rates not just raw numbers. These statistics have been produced in Denmark every year without controversy, the British people also deserve the same respect.

Failure to count the illegal population

The last time the Home Office tried to count the illegal population was in 2005 when it believed the number to be around 430,000.30 The National Audit Office confirmed in 2020 that the department “has not attempted to estimate the total illegal population since”.31 Twenty one years on since that count, more than 200,000 small boat arrivals and the largest wave of legal migration in British history later, we still have no official updated estimate.

This issue is particularly pressing given the notable failure of successive governments to track and match departure records against those of arrivals, creating a situation in which visa overstayers can remain in Britain with little or no risk of enforcement action being taken.

At the end of June 2026 there were 93,293 asylum seekers receiving Home Office support, 16,021 of them in hotels.32 The Home Office selectively releases data. For example they have told us that Glasgow holds 3,938 supported asylum seekers, Birmingham 2,136, Liverpool 1,961, Coventry 1,700 and Belfast 1,540, and that the North East and North West carry the heaviest burden per head of population.33 In the year to June 2026, 33,374 people arrived by small boat, and five nationalities, Eritrean, Sudanese, Afghan, Somali and Iranian, accounted for two thirds of them.34 Given the lack of data for areas that the Home Office itself acknowledges carry the heaviest burden, it appears that officials have been attempting to conceal the true size of the disaster taking place in northern towns. Reform will put an end to this and open the books.

Opening the books

Reform UK will order a full audit of government records after taking office. For the first time, there will be an official publication of how many of the people who arrived since 2010 are still in Britain, by nationality and the route they came on (including clandestine Tory people-

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smuggling routes), their current status and local authority, drawn from Home Office, HMRC and DWP records rather than ONS estimates. This will close the data gap between population estimates derived from net migration figures and census data, informing the public of the betrayal carried out by former governments.

As outlined above, one of the most scandalous aspects of the decade of state-sanctioned illegal migration to Britain is that we have no confirmation of the scale of the problem. A former Head of Immigration Enforcement suggested that the illegal migrant population in Britain could number over 1 million in 2017.35 Given the gross incompetence of the Home Office, and the decade of illegal migration since then the true figure is likely to be significantly higher.

Using all the levers of state, including Local Authority and NHS data, a Reform Government will produce the first official estimate of the illegal population since 2005. Illegal migrants identified in the audit will be detained and deported.

Exposing illegal migration profiteers

Shamefully, the invasion of Britain has been monetised by morally derelict profiteers. Serco, Clearsprings Ready Homes, and Mears Group are all contracted by the Home Office to house foreign criminals and rapists in the heart of our communities. Typically this involves leasing House of Multiple Occupation (HMOs) from local landlords. Where it is in the public interest, Reform UK will publish relevant details of commercial landlords who have made significant revenues from leasing properties to Home Office contractors. This will be primarily targeted at commercial ventures rather than individuals, however, anyone currently facilitating the housing of illegal migrants should consider themselves on notice that their commercial relationship with migrant housing providers is unacceptable.

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Embedding immigration enforcement throughout the state

A Reform UK Government will direct every organ of the British state, both local and national, to make it impossible to live in Britain illegally. This will involve several large policy shifts, and many smaller changes. Overall, we expect it to produce a major increase in voluntary departures.

Currently, Immigration Enforcement capacity is extremely weak. Just 12,791 illegal-working visits were conducted in 2025.36 By contrast, there were 350,000 food hygiene visits,37 51,020 non-domestic fire safety audits,38 and 13,200 HSE workplace inspections.39 There were tens of thousands more across trading standards, environmental health, housing and licensing inspections.

Currently, these visits do not include an immigration check. But this could be easily incorporated. Immigration checks do not require highly technical qualifications, and the officials that conduct these visits should be trained to also conduct a basic migration check. This would increase Immigration Enforcement capacity by a factor of at least 10, and up to 40.

These checks would feed data back to Deportation Command and the Migrant Identification Centre, increasing their ability to identify illegal migrants, leading to a large increase in voluntary and enforced departures. Revenue shared with local governments generated via fines on those employing illegal workers will encourage local cooperation, which in turn will generate more data for Deportation Command.

Housing

Reform UK will also end the use of hotels and dispersal housing HMOs. Homes will no longer be leased to Home Office contractors such as Serco to house illegal migrants in local communities. This will return at least 6,000 properties across the country back to private use.40 We will further introduce new measures to crack down on landlords aiding and abetting the invasion of Britain, preventing illegal migrants living outside of the purview of the state from accessing private rented accommodation.

Local authorities currently issue civil penalties administratively for private sector rented offences, up to £40k for continued breaches. We will issue Right to Rent penalties through this mechanism, with a higher cap for repeated non-compliance. As with the above measures on illegal working, a Bribery Act model of strict liability with an adequate procedures defence would be used. If illegal migrants are found present on a property, the landlord will face liability unless they could demonstrate they meet a high standard of procedures specified in law (that would be sufficiently tight to render violations very rare).

Revenue from Right to Rent fines would not be earmarked for housing purposes and would be available to councils for general expenditure. Unpaid charges will be levied as a local land charge, accruing interest and collected on land sale. Current penalties are £5k/lodger and £10k/occupier for a first breach, double for repeat offenders. These charges would be raised considerably to a higher flat rate regardless of first time offences.

Detection will be possible via many channels, a number of which local councils are already employing for similar purposes. Councils already hold council tax records and the electoral roll, and can check this data against information supplied by the Home Office and Deportation Command. “Invisible” illegal house-sharing and multiple occupation can be detected using data on water, waste or electricity usage shared with them, aerial imaging, housing benefit registers shared from DWP, complaints from neighbours or simply officers already on the premises for some other violation such as noise complaints. Much of this is routine and has been employed to different ends. In 2013, Slough Council, to crack down on “beds in sheds”, hired a thermal imaging aircraft to map outbuildings to detect those that were likely inhabited.41

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Even at a relatively modest detection rate of 10% of illegal occupiers per year, the fine revenue from this would represent a significant boost to local authority funding, and further incentivise cooperation.

Driving

Currently, there is too little attention given to catching illegal drivers, and a Reform Government will stop turning a blind eye.

Driving licences will be set to automatically lapse on the end of immigration status (unless that immigration is superseded by acquiring British citizenship or otherwise switching onto another visa). The powers for this already exist under section 46 and 47 of the Immigration Act 2014, which allow refusal and revocation of a licence on immigration grounds, which are currently only executed on an ad hoc basis by the Home Office.

This will be combined with motor insurers being required to verify status before granting insurance. As the Motor Insurance Database feeds automatic number plate recognition, this would make illegal driving visible. Insurers persistently servicing illegal migrants would be subject to penalties.

Those found to be driving illegally will have their vehicle seized. The large number of migrants driving without insurance are doing so illegally, upon detection their visa will be revoked and their deportation facilitated.

Companies House

Companies house does not currently verify immigration status at incorporation, we will ensure that it does so. Likewise, sole-trader Unique Taxpayer References and Construction Industry Scheme registrations will require identity checks to avoid illegal workers migrating to these smaller schemes. This would also be re-verified upon registration for VAT and PAYE.

Cross-cutting immigration enforcement

Under the policies outlined above, every organ of the state will work to aid Deportation Command in its role of deporting illegal migrants through co-enforcement and data sharing with the Migrant Identification Centre. As enforcement on the part of local authorities will deliver funding from fines levied, they will be incentivised to self-finance the build out of their enforcement capacity, increasing state capacity even further. Every housing, food safety, licensing, environmental health and trading standards inspection will become another part of Operation Restoring Justice.

Data sharing with Deportation Command will be mandatory, providing the centre with enormous inflows of data from inspections and enforcement. It will then send councils verified cases involving employers, landlords, properties and businesses for them to enforce.

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Endnotes

Source references reproduced from the official policy PDF. Links open in a new tab.

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Promoted by Reform UK, Millbank Tower, 21-24 Millbank, SW1P 4QP.