Prime Minister David Cameron will propose new laws to control immigration in a speech Thursday, including giving police the power to seize wages earned by illegal immigrants.
In his first speech on the issue since winning this month’s General Election with a surprise majority, Cameron said his centre-right Conservative government would include a new immigration bill in next Wednesday’s Queen’s Speech, when the Queen will read out the new government’s legislative programme at the ceremonial state opening of parliament.
“The truth is it has been too easy to work illegally and employ illegal workers here,” Cameron will say, according to extracts of his speech released in advance by his Downing Street office.
“So we’ll take a radical step — we’ll make illegal working a criminal offence in its own right.”
That would mean that wages paid to people in Britain illegally could be seized by police as “proceeds of crime”, closing a legal loophole, and that businesses will be informed when their workers’ visas expire.
Cameron’s new package of measures on immigration also includes making all banks check their accounts against databases of people in the country illegally and satellite tracking tags for foreign criminals awaiting deportation.
