EXCL Yvette Cooper to ramp up pressure on Home Office over ex-Carillion worker's fight to stay in Britain
3 min read
The chair of parliament's powerful Home Affairs Committee has vowed to directly question ministers about the plight of a former Carillion worker who now faces a battle with the Home Office to stay in the UK.
PoliticsHome revealed this week that 24-year-old Hamza Idris was kept on by new employers after the collapse of the outsourcing giant - only to be blocked from working just weeks later by the Home Office.
The Nigerian national - who has called the UK his home since 2011 when he came to study engineering - told this site that he had been forced to run down his savings and move out of London to make ends meet, despite his new employer wanting him to stay on.
He has been told to make plans to leave the UK by June 16 or reapply for a costly Tier 2 visa - a situation branded “Kafka-esque” by one MP.
PoliticsHome has now learned that Yvette Cooper - the former Labour minister who chairs the cross party group of MPs that scrutinises the Home Office - will directly pick up the ex-Carillion worker’s case. The highly-unusual move for a committee will ramp up the pressure on the department to provide answers.
In a letter to Mr Idris, the Home Affairs Committee chair said: “It is not usual practice for select committees to consider individual cases. However, I am particularly concerned by the set of circumstances in which your visa has been curtailed and I will be contacting the Immigration Minister Caroline Nokes to raise your case specifically.”
Mr Idris told PoliticsHome that the pledge by Ms Cooper was “a truly welcome surprise”.
He said: “I have waited for so long for some good news and I finally have some. Although things are far from over, my faith in the ability of politicians to fight for the defenceless has been revived.
"I hope and pray that now this issue is being taken up the Home Office will finally do the right thing. I have been fighting this situation alone for too long, and really hope for a resolution soon.
“I just miss my friends, my colleagues, and the work I do. I want this all to be over so I can get back to my job and carry on with my life."
The plight of the former Carillion staffer has already raised cross-party concern, with two members of the same Committee saying they will ask ministers how many more people could be affected.
Independent MP John Woodock, who also sits on the Committee, has said he fears “scores” more people could face similar Home Office restrictions.
Liberal Democrat Home Affairs spokesman Ed Davey has meanwhile told PoliticsHome that Mr Idris’s case is “indicative of the hostile environment that has been created by Theresa May’s Government”.
He added: “Mr Idris has been unable to work for the last two months and there are no guarantees he will be able to continue working and living in the UK.
“The decisions being taken by the Home Office lately don’t just lack sense, they lack humanity.”
Responding to questions about Mr Idris’s case the Home Office has previously said: "Where a person's sponsor has ceased trading it is necessary for them to make a fresh application for sponsorship through another employer.”
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