Immigration minister Mark Harper quits over cleaner's visa

[AtW]

"Mr Harper notified Prime Minister David Cameron, who accepted his resignation "with regret", Number 10 said.

It added there was "no suggestion" the Conservative MP for the Forest of Dean had "knowingly employed an illegal immigrant".

Fellow Tory James Brokenshire has been appointed the new immigration minister.

In his letter to the PM, Mr Harper said he would continue in his role as MP.

He also explained in the letter that he had first made checks on his cleaner in 2007 and again in 2012.

A year later, he said, he talked a lot about employers and landlords carrying out "reasonable checks" on workers.

Given this focus, he said, he thought it "prudent to check that all my documents were in order for my cleaner".

"I undertook an extensive search to locate the copies of documents I had taken but unfortunately I was unable to locate them," he wrote."

BBC News - Immigration minister Mark Harper quits over cleaner's visa

WTF is going on in this country??

[xoggoth]

Quite. Maybe not what you mean but how the hell do cleaners raise the GDP per capita of the British population?

[AtW]

Quite. Maybe not what you mean but how the hell do cleaners raise the GDP per capita of the British population?

They are the only thing that keeps dirty Tories clean.

HTH

P.S. That particular cleaner should be given citizenship on the basis of extraordinary achievement - making Her Majesty's Minister resign ...

[xoggoth]

Fair point. Violent serial killers would be an asset if they killed certain politicians.

[VectraMan]

So she wasn't an illegal immigrant? He'd lost the pieces of paper that proved it?

[northernladuk]

So she wasn't an illegal immigrant? He'd lost the pieces of paper that proved it?

It says

it was found she did not have indefinite leave to stay in the UK.

Does that mean he shouldn't have employed her or that she has overstayed her visa and is now in the country illegally?

Would like to know more about what happened to her.

[AtW]

Does that mean he shouldn't have employed her or that she has overstayed her visa and is now in the country illegally?

As employer he had to do the checks and now should get fined pretty heavily - the lady without visa should also have problems, don't understand wtf would she work for an immigration minister (!) who asked for paperwork and could easily check it proper.

And why didn't he hire somebody through agency in which case responsibility for checking paperwork would be with the 3rd party who hired her?

[doodab]

At least he's had the good grace to resign his position unprompted rather than waiting for a monster hoo haa and trying to justify himself.

[hyperD]

The only "profession" where self-serving mendacious retards fail spectacularly and yet still be allowed - by you - to still snuffle at the trough with a receipt of a thin veneer of a whingy whiney memorandum of mea culpa.

Scum. All of them.

And we are to blame.