UK to deport 60 delivery riders after illegal work crackdown

The government says it is to deport 60 takeaway-delivery riders found to be working illegally in the UK.

The Home Office says the group are among 171 riders arrested over seven days in November in a national "enforcement blitz" in villages, towns and cities across the country.

It comes as Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood has been targeting people working unlawfully in the "gig economy".

Border Security Minister Alex Norris has also met representatives from food-delivery firms to encourage them to do more to tackle the issue - such as using facial recognition checks to prevent riders sharing their identities with people who do not have permission to take up work in the UK.

Norris said November's action ought to "send a clear message: if you are working illegally in this country, you will be arrested and removed".

He added: "We are tightening the law to clamp down on illegal working in the delivery sector to root out this criminality from our communities."

The Home Office highlighted the cases of two Chinese nationals arrested at a restaurant in Solihull, four riders of Bangladeshi and Indian nationality in Newham, east London, and three riders of Indian nationality in Norwich. Seven of them were "detained for removal", it said.

Asylum seekers are generally not allowed to undertake paid work during their first 12 months in the UK, or until their asylum application is approved.

But earlier this year the Sun newspaper reported that Channel migrants were able to rent accounts from legitimate delivery firm workers via social media groups.

The government said at the time that "illicit account sharing" had been facilitating illegal work.

The Home Office says it has recently been sharing the locations of asylum hotels with food delivery companies so they can "monitor hotspots for illegal working".

Deliveroo, Just Eat and Uber Eats say they have increased randomised facial checks to ensure riders match their account names.

The Home Office added in a statement that it had made 8,000 arrests last year for illegal working - a 63% rise on the previous 12 months.

Though asylum seekers cannot work in the UK during their first 12 months in the country, they are allowed to volunteer.

In September, Mahmood proposed that volunteering would become compulsory for them to be granted permanent settlement status.

But more than 300 charities wrote an open letter to the Home Secretary last month saying they would not comply with these proposals, calling the move "exploitation".