Attorney-General under investigation for hiring an illegal migrant

Baroness Scotland of Asthal, the Attorney-General, has been placed under investigation after she admitted that she had employed an illegal migrant. Britain’s most senior law officer sacked Loloahi Tapui after the 27-year-old Tongan was revealed by the Daily Mail to have overstayed her student visa.

Lady Scotland insists that she did not knowingly employ an illegal immigrant, but questions remain over what action she took to ensure that Ms Tapui was allowed to work in Britain. The Attorney-General failed to clarify yesterday what checks she had carried out on her former housekeeper.

A spokesman for the UK Border Agency said the agency “will conduct this investigation as they would any other investigation into allegations of illegal working.” Lady Scotland faces a civil penalty of up to £10,000 if found guilty. Gordon Brown said that the Attorney-General had apologised to him for what she claimed was an “inadvertent mistake”. “I think people will want to wait to see the results of the investigation . . . before they pass judgment,” he said.

Opposition leaders, however, tried to increase the pressure on Lady Scotland by demanding to know what documents she had seen and whether she had retained copies, as is required by law.

Chris Grayling, the Shadow Home Secretary, said: “This is a Government that says all small employers should be prosecuted if they do not know the immigration status of their employees and yet we have senior ministers who cannot be bothered to make the checks themselves. There is a real ‘one rule for them, one rule for us’ attitude.”

Lady Scotland’s office said that Ms Tapui had been dismissed after her immigration status became known. “Baroness Scotland has never knowingly employed an illegal immigrant,” it said. “She hired Ms Tapui in good faith and saw documents which led her to believe that Ms Tapui was entitled to work in this country.”

Ms Tapui had overstayed her student visa by three years and had been refused a renewal twice, it was reported last night. The Home Office also received two tip-offs that she was living in the UK illegally. She married Alexander Zivancevic, a solicitor, in a Church of England ceremony in London in May 2007, and went on to use her marriage certificate as proof that she was living and working in the UK legally.

(Published by Times Online - September 18, 2009)