Examination of Witnesses (Questions 580
- 599)
TUESDAY 28 MARCH 2006
MS CHRISTINE
LEE, MR
ROBERT LEE
AND MS
XIAO HONG
Q580 Mr Winnick: No, I am not suggesting
anything other than a lot of people—we have just heard evidence—employed
are here illegally.
Mr Lee: I think that in this country,
not just Chinese restaurants or takeaways or catering—in
general, a lot of sectors are employing illegal staff. If I can
quote from my personal experience, during my university days when
I worked part-time as a caterer, when I worked part-time in one
of the posh areas in London—they were selling turkeys to
the Queen—I had loads of illegal colleagues with me, working
there.
Mr Winnick: That is not in dispute, Mr
Lee. More people are likely to have a Chinese takeaway—
Chairman: I am sorry, we are going to
have to make some progress. We have another group of witnesses.
Q581 Chairman: Ms Lee, you have an
office. Is it one office in China?
Ms Lee: Yes, we have one office
in China, our headquarters in Birmingham, and we have a branch
in London as well.
Q582 Mr Winnick: How long have you
had an office in China?
Ms Lee: May 2004.
Q583 Mr Winnick: That would have
been unthinkable, would it not, say 30 years ago?
Ms Lee: Yes, it would be. It took
us a lot of time to set it up anyway.
Q584 Mr Winnick: How many people
do you employ in your office in China?
Ms Lee: Five.
Q585 Mr Winnick: Their responsibility
is obviously to give as much advice as possible about the legal
way of coming to the United Kingdom.
Ms Lee: Yes, entry clearance.
We work very closely with the British Embassy. We are in the British
Embassy building. They are on the second floor; we are on the
seventeenth floor. So every time the British Embassy has a problem,
they send the people up to us and we can explain to them in Chinese
what is going on there.
Q586 Mr Winnick: What do you see
as the main administrative or legal problems in China for those
people who want to come to the United Kingdom legally?
Ms Lee: First of all, we deal
with the business immigration. We do a lot of business investors.
We do a lot of £1 million investors, and we do a lot of work
permits; but anything else—we just concentrate on business
immigration, more than the ones that you are talking about. People
know that to come over here they have to have money or skill.
Therefore, a lot of people only come to our China office if they
have the money or they have the skill. Anybody else, we will not
be able to help as far as the Chinese—
Q587 Mr Winnick: And your colleagues
in China make that perfectly clear, do they?
Ms Lee: Yes, everybody knows.
Q588 Mr Winnick: That, without money
or skills, it is pointless trying to come?
Ms Lee: Yes. It is not what we
wanted to do but that is how entry clearance officers see it.
If you are unemployed or if you have low skill or if you have
no money, and you have absolutely nothing, then they will not
entertain you anyway. Therefore, we are very particular that the
person who is actually coming here is either skilful or they have
money. Therefore, we concentrate on business investors, as well
as entry clearance and work permit purposes. Obviously, business
visitors come over as well and we help them also—as far
as family, independents—but we do not deal with any asylum
seekers whatsoever. In my 17 years as an immigration lawyer, I
have never touched that side of it.
Q589 Mr Winnick: As far as money
is concerned, in English terms how much would be the minimum which
one would expect the British immigration authorities to expect
a person to have?
Ms Lee: Do you mean a chef?
Q590 Mr Winnick: No, you said skills
or money. In British currency, how much would be the sort of sum
we are talking about?
Ms Lee: Are you talking about
the tier system? Each category is very different.
Q591 Chairman: For business is a
minimum of £200,000, is it not?
Ms Lee: That is right. The business
investment is £200,000. They have to employ two people in
the UK. A £1 million investor has to have £750,000 in
this country and with £250,000 they have to buy a property
in this country. The £750,000 has to be in UK bonds and UK
trusts. We are sending these people over at the moment. We are
working with the Trade Department of the British Embassy on the
second and fifth floors.
Q592 Mr Winnick: Your client on your
left is here on what basis?
Ms Lee: She is an employee. The
employer is at the back, and she came over as a manager—as
a Chinese manager working in the Chinese restaurant. Because,
in the Chinese environment, she needs to know the Chinese food
and be able to communicate with the Chinese chefs as well as the
restaurant floor. She came over on the . . . Do you want to ask
her?
Q593 Mr Winnick: I was going to ask,
how long has she been in Britain?
Ms Lee: (Interpreting) 13 October
2004.
Q594 Mr Winnick: Could you ask her,
because you are doing the interpreting, what difficulties if any
she had in coming to Britain legally? How did she apply, and the
rest of it?
Ms Lee: First of all, we applied
for the work permit for her. As soon as we got the work permit,
the employer gave her the work permit and asked her to apply for
the entry clearance in her region. She put in the entry clearance
in her region and she got refused, because the ECO—entry
clearance officer—phoned the hotel that she worked in. They
said that they did not know this person, and that is because it
was new management. She left the place. That is why she can take
up the job in the UK, but the ECO did not want to know that. As
soon as they found out that she was not working there, or nobody
knew her—the reception who was answering the phone did not
know her—that is it. As far as they are concerned, she was
not genuine. We had to go to court, and the court determination
was that she was a genuine restaurant manager. So she was able
to come back here.
Q595 Mr Winnick: Obviously the Immigration
Court in the United Kingdom?
Ms Lee: Yes.
Q596 Mr Winnick: You represented
Ms Hong—
Ms Lee: Yes, we represented the
employer.
Q597 Mr Winnick: —at the appeal
hearing, and the Home Office lost the case?
Ms Lee: The Home Office lose 90%
of their cases, as far as we are concerned, on the entry clearance
front.
Q598 Mr Winnick: The cases that you
represent from China—90% are won by you?
Ms Lee: Yes. Only our office;
I cannot say about anybody else. It is 90% are won by us, yes.
Q599 Mr Winnick: You must be quite
a nightmare for the immigration authorities!
Ms Lee: You would be surprised.
If you talk to a lot of other lawyers, they will tell you exactly
the same.
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