Baroness Scotland Has No Defence Unless She “Checked and Copied”

Baroness Scotland was appointed by Gordon Brown to be government’s chief legal adviser. Prior to becoming Attorney General she worked as a minister in the Home Office, cracking down on illegal migrants and imposing tougher penalties on business and individuals who employ them was passed.

The Daily Mail has Baroness Scotland bang-to-rights, yet she says she did not knowingly employ the Tongan illegal immigrant, Loloahi Tapui, and her spokesman says the Attorney General “saw documents which led her to believe that Ms Tapui was entitled to work in this country” when she hired her. There is only one statutory defence against conviction for employing an illegal worker under section 8 of the Asylum and Immigration Act 1996 – the act specifies that you get this defence only by checking and copying certain original documents belonging to your employee.

The Home Office guidance on this is clear – you will only be able to establish the defence by checking and copying specified documents, including the passport and “any page containing UK Government endorsements indicating that the holder has an entitlement to be in the UK and is entitled to undertake the work in question.”

So all the Attorney General has to do to clear her name is show us the copy of the page and she is in the clear. If she has not got that copy, she has broken the law she is supposed to uphold. Clear and simple.