Minister to meet food delivery firms over reports of illegal workers

The government will meet food delivery companies for talks next week after reports that some asylum seekers are working illegally as couriers within hours of arriving in the UK. The Sun newspaper reportedthat Channel migrants were able to rent out other people's Deliveroo and Just Eat delivery accounts via social media groups. Asylum seekersare not allowed to workfor the first 12 months of being in the UK, or until their asylum application is approved. A Downing Street spokesman said it was "right that spotlight is being shone on this racket" and the government will not stand for it. Food delivery apps Deliveroo, Just Eat and Uber Eats said they have strict rules and checks to ensure they only use riders who have the right to work in the UK. According to the Sun's investigation, migrants staying in government asylum hotels around the UK have been earning up to £1,000 a week on the apps. The paper said it found dozens of online forums where legal riders were sub-letting their Deliveroo and Just Eat accounts for as little as £40 a week. Following the Sun's story, Conservative shadow home secretary Chris Philp said he had visited an asylum hotel in London and seen "clear evidence of illegal working" on the apps. "Labour claim to be cracking down on illegal working, yet this is happening from the very hotels Yvette Cooper's Home Office is running, and which she is funding with our money," he wrote on X. The government said Border Security Minister Dame Angela Eagle will meet the companies next week. "It undermines honest businesses and undercuts local wages, and the British public rightly won't stand for it, and neither will this government," said the Downing Street statement. In response to the reports about illegal working, Just Eat said they are "continuously strengthening our approach to ensure anyone who delivers through Just Eat's platform has the right to work in the UK". "Last year, Just Eat introduced a new mechanism requiring couriers to inform us that they are using substitutes and for these substitutes to complete right-to-work checks." They said they have brought in enhanced verification with a facial recognition test. A Deliveroo spokesman said it had "zero tolerance for any misuse of our platform and we will offboard any accounts which fail to meet their legal obligations when working with us". "We have a dedicated team in place who ensure Deliveroo does not work with riders who don't have the right to work in the UK. "We take our responsibility extremely seriously and are consistently strengthening our controls against misuse of our platform, with further measures in development." All riders, including substitutes, must complete right-to-work checks and there is daily identity verification and new checks on new devices, they said. And Uber said all couriers who use the Uber Eats app "must undergo checks to ensure they have a legal right to work in the UK". "Working with the Home Office and the rest of industry, Uber Eats has launched new detection tools to crack down on anyone attempting to work illegally on our platform. As a result, we are removing fraudulent accounts and we are constantly reviewing and improving our processes." Elsewhere, the UK's independent inspector of borders and immigration said he believed the government's target of ending the use of asylum hotels before the next election was unachievable. David Bolt's comments followChancellor Rachel Reeves's announcement in the June spending reviewthat the Labour government was committed to ending the use of hotels to house asylum seekers by 2029. Mr Bolt told a House of Lords committee: "I don't think it will be achieved, frankly." He said that as the government seeks to cut the asylum backlog, a "significant increase" in refusals has resulted in more appeals being launched over the last year. Coupled with the lack of available of housing stock, Mr Bolt said, hitting that target would be "really, really challenging". In response, No 10 said the comments "underlined why the government's mission to deliver 1.5 million new homes is so important". They said there are 210 asylum hotels in operation, compared to 400 under the last government, and that ministers are "determined to make sure that we end the use of hotels by the end of the parliament". Mr Bolt also said he advised the government that tackling the illegal channel crossings by going after the people behind the smuggling trade was not the right approach to tackling problem. The chance to act, he said, would have been in 2018, when numbers were lower and were "obviously going to get significantly worse". He said more could be done to tackle illegal migration operations by focusing on what attracts migrants to come to the UK, including by cracking down on illegal working.