ILLEGAL WORKER FINES OF £3M AT HAND CAR WASHES (HCW)

Brian Madderson, Chair of the Car Wash Association (CWA), was shocked but not surprised by the latest figures from the Illegal Immigration Unit at the Home Office, he said

“Every major report over the last 10 years has highlighted the serious labour abuse at non-compliant HCW and yet so little has been done by our enforcement agencies to eradicate their illegal practices. Despite the Home Secretary’s pledge to tackle illegal working and the increased investigations resulting in £2.9M fines for just the 3^rd quarter of 2024, the reality is that this sector is being allowed to continue working. With our FOI request last December showing that only 5% of the money is being quickly collected, these huge fines are not an effective deterrent”

The CWA was invited to a meeting with the Eddy Montgomery - Director of Enforcement, Crime and Compliance – and his team at the Home Office last month which helped to provide some understanding of their activities but did little to dispel the belief that these fines were completely ineffective.

Mr Madderson concluded “We estimate that non-compliant HCW are losing the Treasury up to £500K every year in tax from non-payment of VAT and NI which surely could pay for more resources to be available for proper enforcement.”