Seven years ago a young member of the shadow cabinet called Mark Harper with a background in Accountancy employed a lady to clean his home. At the time he claims he insisted on checking that she was entitled to carry out this work for him, He “undertook a number of checks beforehand. This included consideration of the HMRC tests as to whether the cleaner was performing her work under a contract for services on a self-employed basis which I concluded she was. However, even though there was no legal requirement for me to check her right to work in the UK, I felt that it was appropriate to do so. I therefore took a copy of her passport to verify her identity and also a copy of a Home Office letter, dated 26 January 2006, which stated that she had leave to remain indefinitely in the United Kingdom, including the right to work and engage in a business.” The years passed by and as the cleaner continued to clean the shadow Ministers home, he gained promotion and then after the 2010 General Election, became a Minister in the  coalition Government and finally in September 2012 was promoted to the post of Immigration Minister. As Immigration minister he helped to develop the ‘Go Home’ vans and took on responsibility for the new Immigration Bill. He writes:

“As I took the Immigration Bill through Parliament in autumn 2013 I talked a lot about these matters in the context both of employers and landlords.   What we do, and will, require of both is that they carry out reasonable checks and take copies of documents.  We do not require them to be experts or spot anything other than an obvious forgery.  Given this focus on these matters, I thought it prudent to check that all my documents were in order for my cleaner.  I undertook an extensive search to locate the copies of documents I had taken but unfortunately I was unable to locate them. As a result, in the week commencing 20 January 2014 I asked my cleaner for further copies of these documents which she provided on 4 February.  On 5 February, I asked my private office to check the details with immigration officials to confirm that all was in order. I was informed on the morning of 6 February that my cleaner did not in fact have indefinite leave to remain in the United Kingdom.”

Clearly Mark Harper and this unnamed lady have maintained a working relationship in the relative intimacy of his home for seven years, presumably on the basis that she has been a good cleaner and someone he trusted with his private belongings. There is no indication regarding the other elements of her life and the extent to which she contributed to the community, perhaps unbeknown to the Minister. As he wrote in his resignation letter “I immediately notified the Home Secretary and my Permanent Secretary.  This is now a matter for Immigration Enforcement.” This lady typifies the sort of person who Mark Harper wants to see removed from this country. It is people like her who he has legislated over and who he expects employers, landlords and administrators for the NHS to assess and to challenge in a manner that he as an Oxford graduate and Accountant, let alone an MP and Immigration Minister has been unable to do. Whilst he is clearly doing the honourable thing in resigning his post, I hope that he has enough humanity to reflect on the extent to which his cleaner is about to have her life turned upside down, possibly for reasons that she was unaware of.

I don’t wish Mark Harper ill will, indeed I feel sorry for the man who has just taken a difficult decision and who now has lost a post that presumably meant a great deal to him. However his actions in this case and more generally as a Minister have caused untold misery for people like his cleaner who have arrived in this country willing to work hard and contribute to our society. His legislation has also put demands on people who do not possess his educational background, and professional training, yet who are liable to be prosecuted if they do as he has done and fail to properly follow the processes he has designed for them. I believe this legislation is a travesty for a country that has benefited so much from people like his cleaner, but if he believes in it, indeed if his party believe in it, then surely they and he owe it to us to ensure that the full vigour of this law are applied to him. If this does not happen, then conversely I believe that the law must be reviewed! As a final point surely he should explain why it took so many months from the point at which he had his revelation in the Autumn to 20th January when he asked her for access to her papers!