Immigration and Border Control

Small Boats and the Agreement with France

Dangerous Channel crossings enrich organised criminal gangs, place lives at risk and undermine confidence in the immigration system.

In the year ending March 2026, around 39,000 people arrived by small boat. During the same period, 2,750 people who had previously arrived by small boat were returned from the United Kingdom.

Britain has committed £500 million, plus a further £161 million, to the latest UK-France programme. That spending should be accompanied by transparent targets and measurable results.

What I would lobby for

• A much wider and faster returns agreement with France for eligible adults whose unauthorised Channel journey departed from France.
• Clear annual targets covering prevented departures, arrests of smugglers, returns and reductions in successful crossings.
• Future funding linked to independently measured results.
• Faster asylum decisions and appeals so protection is granted quickly where justified and removal can begin where it is not.
• Greater action against boat suppliers, money handlers, transport networks and criminal organisers.
• Regular publication of the number of people returned under the UK-France agreement.

Illegal and Black-Market Employment

Illegal working is not a victimless offence. It can exploit vulnerable people, undercut lawful workers, reduce tax revenue and reward employers who ignore the rules.

During 2025, Immigration Enforcement carried out 12,791 visits and made 8,971 arrests connected with suspected illegal working. Employers received 2,438 civil penalties with a stated value exceeding £130 million.

Those figures show that black-market employment is a substantial enforcement problem. They do not mean that every person arrested was convicted, and enforcement must still follow proper legal processes.

What I would lobby for

• Better data sharing between the Home Office, HMRC, Companies House, licensing authorities and police.
• Personal financial penalties for directors and controlling owners who knowingly organise or repeatedly permit illegal employment.
• Director disqualification where illegal employment is repeated through replacement or phoenix companies.
• Confiscation of criminal profits where wrongdoing is proved.
• Faster suspension of licences for businesses using illegal labour in regulated sectors.
• Protection for workers who are being trafficked, threatened or exploited by criminal employers.
• Publication of penalties, payments received and repeat offenders.

Hotels to Homes: Cheaper, but Not a Complete Solution

Closing expensive asylum hotels can reduce costs, but simply moving people into other accommodation does not solve delayed decisions, housing pressure or weak local planning.

At the end of March 2026, 20,885 supported asylum seekers were in hotels. A further 72,768 were in other accommodation, including initial, contingency and dispersal accommodation.

That does not mean 72,768 ordinary council houses have been allocated to asylum seekers. However, where government contractors lease homes from the private market, there can be an effect on local availability. Government should publish the scale of that effect instead of expecting communities to guess.

What I would lobby for

• End expensive hotel use as quickly as practical.
• Publish how many private homes are leased for asylum accommodation in each council area.
• Consult councils before large numbers of placements are made.
• Avoid concentrating accommodation in places already experiencing acute housing shortages and overstretched services.
• Provide councils with funding reflecting the genuine local cost.
• Speed up decisions so temporary accommodation does not become indefinite accommodation.
• Report hotel closures honestly, including where residents were transferred and what the replacement accommodation costs.

Work and Student Visa Abuse

Work visas should fill genuine skilled shortages. Student visas should be used for genuine study. Neither route should be treated as a product that can be sold through false jobs or sham courses.

Current government classifications say ordinary retail assistants and cooks are ineligible for the Skilled Worker route. Chefs are classified as medium skilled, while other exceptions depend on the detailed immigration rules and shortage lists.

The enforcement concern is therefore not simply that every shop or takeaway worker can obtain a work visa. It is that routine roles can be falsely described as management, ownership or skilled chef work, or that jobs can exist mainly on paper.

What I would lobby for

• Inspect new sponsor businesses before large numbers of certificates are issued.
• Require evidence of genuine trading, payroll, premises, turnover and a real vacancy.
• Check that the day-to-day work matches the occupation code used in the visa application.
• Prevent routine cook, counter, cleaning or retail work from being relabelled as a qualifying management or skilled role.
• Require employers using overseas recruitment to demonstrate plans for British apprenticeships, training and local recruitment.
• Permanently disqualify directors repeatedly involved in sponsorship fraud.
• Require education sponsors to demonstrate genuine attendance, academic progress and course delivery.
• Take firm action against agents who sell fraudulent jobs or misleading study packages.

Taxi and Delivery Platform Identity Checks

The person carrying a passenger or delivering an order should be the person whose identity, licence and right to work were checked.

Account sharing can allow an unverified person to work using somebody else’s account. It can also create safeguarding, insurance and employment-law risks.

What I would lobby for

• Live identity confirmation when a driver or rider begins a working session.
• Unpredictable identity rechecks while the account is active.
• Immediate verification where devices, locations, payment details or working patterns suggest possible account sharing.
• Verification before every job for accounts previously linked to sharing or identity abuse.
• Regular electronic right-to-work checks where a person’s permission is time limited.
• Financial penalties where platforms repeatedly ignore clear evidence of illegal account sharing.
• Secure alternatives for disabled people and others who cannot reliably use standard facial-recognition systems.
• Strict rules on biometric data retention, privacy and independent auditing.

Foreign National Offenders

Foreign nationals convicted of serious violent, sexual or organised criminal offences should be removed promptly where deportation is lawful and practical.

There were 5,858 foreign national offender returns in the year ending March 2026, the highest annual figure recorded since 2017.

What I would lobby for

• Begin deportation preparation at the start of the prison sentence, not shortly before release.
• Resolve identity, nationality and travel-document issues while the offender remains in custody.
• Prioritise violent, sexual, organised-crime and repeat offenders.
• Expand prisoner-transfer and returns agreements.
• Use immigration detention after sentence where it is lawful, necessary and removal is realistically imminent.
• Where continued detention is not lawful, use strict reporting, residence and electronic-monitoring conditions where justified.
• Publish the number of foreign offenders awaiting deportation and the reasons removal has not taken place.

Migration, Housing and Public Services

Large and rapid population changes have real consequences when housing, GP capacity, schools, transport and infrastructure do not expand at the same pace.

Immigration is not the sole cause of Britain’s housing and public service problems. Decades of insufficient housebuilding, weak workforce planning and poor infrastructure investment also matter. But it is dishonest to pretend that population growth creates no additional demand.

What I would lobby for

• Immigration forecasts linked directly to housing and infrastructure planning.
• Local-impact assessments before major asylum accommodation or resettlement programmes are expanded.
• Greater weight for genuine local connection within lawful council housing-allocation schemes.
• More social and affordable homes for established local residents.
• Funding for councils, healthcare and schools that reflects population change.
• Visa routes reviewed where employers rely on migration instead of improving training, pay, conditions or productivity.
• Clear national limits and workforce plans rather than migration numbers emerging accidentally from thousands of individual decisions.