Shadow Home Secretary raises concern over lack of 'proper employment checks' on ID for migrants

8 November 2022, 10:14 | Updated: 8 November 2022, 10:26

Yvette Cooper raises concern over lack of 'proper employment checks' on ID for migrants

Shadow Home Secretary Yvette Cooper has voiced her concern over a lack of "proper employment checks" on ID for migrants.

The Labour politician expressed her view, during an exchange with LBC's Nick Ferrari.

During the exchange, Nick referred to a story in The Times today about Labour government could introduce “basic” ID cards to help to figure out how many people there are in Britain and to reduce the level of illegal immigration.

He then said to the Shadow Home Secretary: "If this story is correct, what is a basic ID card and how does it work?"

Mrs Cooper responded: "So actually people actually already have that.

"So there are already biometric residence permits. There are already requirements that people have if they want to come and work in the UK.

"The problem is that they aren't checked. So we don't have proper enforcement. That's the real issue.

"So, at the moment, although you might have all of the ID or not have the ID in order to be able to work, if you are working illegally or if you're being exploited - because some of this at its worst is modern slavery - then there aren't any proper employment checks that take place because the government, although they promised to introduce a single enforcement agency that would do those checks, they haven't done so.

"So what Labour is looking at is having stronger enforcement of those basic employment standards and making sure that that system works."