Illegal immigrant caught working in the House of Commons

Home Secretary Jacqui Smith was embroiled in a fresh cover-up row over illegal immigrants last night after a Brazilian cleaner used a fake pass to breach House of Commons security.

Elaine Chaves Aparecida, 31, had wide-ranging access to the Houses of Parliament for nearly two months before being caught last week.

Miss Smith was informed of the breach on January 31, but the Home Office did not reveal the incident until contacted by a newspaper on Saturday.

In a fresh development last night, it emerged that the firm which employed her is at the centre of a security probe over more South American nationals on its books working illegally.

An annex to a leaked document shows that immigration officials have had five intelligence reports since 2006 over alleged employees of Emprise Services.

The highly-embarrassing lapse in security was revealed in a confidential memo to Home Office minister Liam Byrne, leaked to the Sunday Telegraph.

The document advises ministers to keep quiet about the incident unless asked by the media "given recent coverage of security guards employed illegally at Government offices".

Further documents revealed last night showed that the Home Secretary was copied in on the memo.

Miss Smith was forced to admit in December that more than 11,000 illegal workers may have been cleared to get jobs as security guards.

But the Home Secretary discovered the lapse in August - prompting accusations of a cover-up.

The blunders emerged only after officials realised the Security Industry Authority (SIA) had not been checking whether applicants were entitled to work in Britain.

Last month it was revealed that at least 4,000 had still not been banned from taking sensitive security jobs - nearly 10 months after the scandal first came to light.

In December a member of security staff at the Home Office itself was arrested after being exposed as an illegal immigrant.

Aparecida, who disappeared in 2004, had used someone else's identity pass to breach supposedly tight security.

The memo, marked "restricted", was sent on the day of the arrest, January 31, by Border and Immigration Agency (BIA) regional director Tony Smith to Mr Byrne and BIA chief Lin Homer.

It said post-arrest checks found that Aparecida was known to the authorities, having fled officials at Heathrow airport in December 2004 before they could bar her entry to the UK.

Despite that, she had "started work at the Houses of Parliament on 3 December 2007 as an employee of Emprise Services", it said.

The official admitted that at the time of writing, he did not have details of the pass or who it belonged to "but enquiries are ongoing".

A new pass system has been introduced to Parliament this year which requires a pin code to be entered in order to gain entry.

Under the heading "handling/level of controversy" the memo gives guidance which is bound to spark claims of an attempted cover-up of the major security breach.

"High. We will take a reactive approach to media given recent coverage of security guards employed illegally at Government offices".

Shadow immigration minister Damian Green said: "Of all the Home Office disasters this has the biggest security implications.

"The Home Secretary has a number of questions to answer. When were the House of Commons authorities informed? When was the PM informed?

"Most of all when was she planning to tell the rest of us about this catastrophic failure of security?

"Home Office ministers still haven't learnt that covering up these successive scandals only makes it worse in the long run."

Aparecida is believed to have been returned to Brazil voluntarily last week after being held in detention for several days.

Jonathan Lindley, the Home Office strategic director for enforcement, said employers had a responsibility to check the legal status of workers they employed.

A Border and Immigration Agency spokesman said security at Parliament was a matter for the House authorities, but added that the case was "further proof" of the need for compulsory ID cards for foreign nationals.