Shadow Home Secretary Chris Philp has accused the Government of running "centres for illegal working" after discovering evidence of asylum seekers working as food delivery couriers at a taxpayer-funded hotel in central London.Speaking to GB News, Philp said he found "a compound full of bikes with Deliveroo, Just Eat, and Uber Eats bags" during his visit last Friday, which he documented on social media.The Shadow Home Secretary said: "The Home Secretary is effectively running these hotels, spending billions of pounds a year of taxpayer money to accommodate 32,000 illegal immigrants in hotels, and another 60,000 in private flats."That’s costing about £4 billion a year. She’s running centres for illegal working. That’s got to be shut down immediately."READ THE FULL STORY HERE
00:00Secretary Chris Philp who's been very vocal about this. Chris Philp, morning to you. When I read this on the front page of The Sun yesterday, I thought, yeah, I've thought about, I thought this is probably going on for years because when they often clatter into me on their delivery bikes on the street and I remonstrate with them, they can't speak a word of English.
00:17Yeah, well, look, I'm really concerned about this and that's why last Friday I decided to pay a visit to one of these asylum hotels myself. I'd been tipped off. There was one of these hotels in central London that was being used as a base for these illegal immigrants to run delivery bikes and so on.
00:36Of course, the people in these asylum hotels have almost entirely crossed the channel by small boats, so they are illegal immigrants and under the law, they are not allowed to work for the first year at all and after the first year only in certain specified professions, which does not include riding a delivery bike.
00:55What I found when I got to this hotel was a compound. You may have seen the footage. I put it on Twitter, on my Twitter account. I found a compound full of bikes with Deliveroo, Just Eat and Uber Eat bags on the back.
01:08I then spoke to some of the people living in the hotel and it turned out they had indeed come to the UK by small boat, illegal immigrants. They were from Yemen and they were from Iran.
01:18I then spoke to a shopkeeper just over the road who said he had seen them coming and going the whole time with these Deliveroo, Uber Eats and Just Eat bikes.
01:29So it's very clear that massive illegal working is going on. And I think it's happening not just at that hotel, but at probably dozens of other hotels around the country.
01:40Sorry, just trying to interrupt you, but people will be going, how are they able to do it?
01:44On a practical level, they presumably have bank accounts into which their wages are being paid. How is it working?
01:54So as far as I'm doing some more investigation into this, but as far as I can tell, what happens is somebody who does have the right to work here signs up to the Deliveroo service as a bike rider.
02:06And then they rent out their login details to an illegal immigrant. It's either that or Deliveroo, Just Eat and Uber Eats don't actually, they claim they do checks.
02:16That's what they say when you ask them. But maybe in practice, they're not doing those checks.
02:20So clearly those companies, when they say, oh, it's all very strict, that is basically a lie. That is complete nonsense.
02:26It's not working in practice. They should be doing things like facial recognition checks using a mobile phone.
02:30You know, just like any of us, when we're unlocking, unlocking our iPhone or whatever, you have a mobile facial recognition check.
02:36They could do that quite easily. They're obviously not checking the paperwork properly.
02:40So these companies need to actually start policing this properly.
02:43But it seems to me their business model may well rely on using illegal immigrants.
02:48And they've got to stop doing that. But the Home Office are also at fault because Yvette Cooper, the Home Secretary, is running this hotel.
02:54She is spending billions of pounds a year of our money accommodating currently 32,000 illegal immigrants in those hotels and another 60,000 in apartments around the country, costing something like four billion pounds a year of our money.
03:08And she is running a massive centre for illegal working. The Home Secretary is running one herself.
03:15So she needs to get that shut down straight away.
03:16I hear about you on the headset. No, no. Hang on. Hang on. Hang on. Hang on. Hang on. Let me make one more point.
03:23I want to make you this point to you. Why are you not taking this up with Deliveroo? Why are Deliveroo not in the dock?
03:28Because they're breaking the law. Yeah. Well, what are you going to do about that?
03:33Yesterday, I wrote to the Home Secretary saying, shut this down. I've written to the three chief executives of Deliveroo, Just Eat and Uber Eats.
03:41asking what's going on.
03:43I've asked the Home Office to take...
03:44I've asked the Home Secretary to get immigration enforcement
03:47to take action against those three companies.
03:50They should be fined.
03:51They should have massive fines levied against them
03:54for what they're doing.
03:55They don't care.
03:56They don't care.
03:56They're based in Silicon Valley.
03:57This is the problem.
03:58If you're waving through all the massive technocratic
04:00trans-international companies,
04:02this is what you're going to be dealing with.
04:04Labour's Dame Angela Regal has said this, Chris Philp.
04:06Just six weeks ago, you voted against the new legislation
04:09that will make it illegal for delivery companies
04:12and other businesses in the gig economy
04:13to hire people with no right to work in this country.
04:16So what would you say to that?
04:18It's your fault.
04:18You're blocking Labour doing anything about it.
04:21Well, I mean, that's obviously nonsense.
04:24First of all, Labour could shut the illegal working down
04:26straight away.
04:27They're running the hotel.
04:28When I went round there, the security guard
04:30was more interested in kicking me out
04:32because I was filming than he was about shutting down
04:35the Uber Eats bikes that were being run
04:37and delivery bikes.
04:38So they could just, they could shut it down straight away.
04:40They're running the hotel.
04:40On the point about the bill,
04:42that bill that went through Parliament,
04:43we did vote against it because it contained
04:45a whole load of very bad things.
04:48For example, it repealed the Illegal Immigration Act,
04:51which we passed in government,
04:52which stops illegal immigrants from getting citizenship.
04:55It also repealed the Safety of Rwanda Act,
04:58which would allow the government to basically immediately
05:01deport all illegal immigrants upon arrival
05:04back to Rwanda and their bill repealed that.
05:08So that's why we voted against it
05:09because it did those very, very bad things.
05:11If they took those bad things out of the bill,
05:14yeah, of course we'd support the stuff on illegal working.
05:16Of course we'd support that.
05:17But the bill did a lot of other things
05:19that were very, very bad.
05:20And that's why we voted against it.
05:21Chris, we've seen you and Robert Jenrick
05:24getting out there with your cameras,
05:26shining a light on crime and corruption in this country.
05:29Why were you not doing this when you were in government?
05:34Well, look, I mean, when I was a police minister,
05:37I delivered record ever police numbers.
05:40We started pushing the arrest rate up.
05:42We clamped out.
05:43We did all kinds of things in government.
05:44I got more people arrested.
05:45I think 40,000 more people got arrested
05:47during my last year as police minister
05:49compared to previously.
05:51But look, I mean, the last government did do a lot.
05:54They got the small boat numbers down by 30% last year.
05:57And now they're exploding under Labour
05:59because Labour have lost control of the borders.
06:03We got the Rwanda scheme
06:04where every illegal immigrant
06:05would have been immediately deported.
06:07That was ready to go.
06:08We had to pass a law to override the Human Rights Act
06:11and override Strasbourg.
06:13We finally got that done.
06:15The first plane was ready to go just after the election
06:17on the 24th of July.
06:19But Starmer cancelled it before it took off.
06:21And what has happened?
06:22There's been a surge in illegal immigration since then.
06:25And this year so far, 2025, has been the worst in history.
06:29And we've got plans to, you know,
06:31we've put plans to votes in Parliament
06:32to restore the Rwanda deterrent,
06:35remove all illegal immigrants,
06:36remove all foreign criminals,
06:38have a binding annual cap on inward migration.
