Immigration: Earned Settlement

Connor Naismith Excerpts

Monday 2nd November 2026 Commons Chamber

[Shabana Mahmood]

As I have said, the Government will assist people who have been with a rogue employer in the care sector to get legitimate work in that sector for the renewal of their five-year care visa. The Home Office will, of course, amend sponsorship regimes, following changes made by the Health Secretary and her team. They are looking carefully at what the minimum conditions and standards in this sector should be, and I have already undertaken that we will follow those changes, once they are made.

[Connor Naismith (Crewe and Nantwich) (Lab)]

Framing today’s statement is the fact that under this Labour Government and this Home Secretary, net migration is down 82% from its peak under the previous Conservative Government. However, can she confirm that alongside the changes that she is making to legal migration, there will be serious consequences for settlement for those entering our country by dangerous and illegal means?

[Shabana Mahmood]

My hon. Friend is right that migration is down under this Government, and we are taking steps to make sure that we bring coherence and rationality to the migration system and fix the mess left behind by the previous Government. On his point about illegal migration, that is why there is an additional waiting period of 10 years for those who enter illegally; we consulted on this matter, and there was a plurality of support for that measure. It reflects the fact that in the end, the Government and their people have to be in control of our migration system, not people-smuggling gangs.

Bill Presented

Animal Shelters (Licensing) Bill

Presentation and First Reading (Standing Order No. 57)

Mr Richard Holden, supported by Rebecca Harris, Mr Mark Francois, John Lamont, Dan Carden, Dame Caroline Dinenage, Simon Hoare, Dr Peter Prinsley, John Glen, Mims Davies, Greg Smith and Dr Neil Hudson, presented a Bill to make provision for the licensing of animal shelters; and for connected purposes.

Bill read the First time; to be read a Second time on Friday 15 January 2027, and to be printed (Bill 168).

Community Policing: Government Support

Connor Naismith Excerpts

Wednesday 21st October 2026 Westminster Hall

[Connor Naismith (Crewe and Nantwich) (Lab)]

Community policing is fundamental to public confidence in our police service. When people know their local officers and PCSOs, see them on their streets and can raise concerns directly with them, communities feel safer and more confident that crime and antisocial behaviour will be tackled.

First, I thank the officers—and, importantly, the staff, who do not often enough get the recognition they deserve—in the Crewe local policing unit. I thank all the warranted officers, PCSOs and staff in the LPU for the work they do to keep our communities safe.

We have seen a welcome increase of four additional neighbourhood officers in the Crewe LPU, working across my constituency, which will go a long way to tackling some of the problems that we have. However, significant challenges remain; many of them have already been covered in this debate, including endemic antisocial behaviour, which too often is treated as low-level offending, but needs to be taken on and taken out at the roots.

In the brief time that I have left to speak, I also acknowledge the important work being undertaken by Cheshire police in relation to the investigation concerning allegations against members of the Ahmadi Religion of Peace and Light, and I just ask that consideration be given to urgent, unexpected and complex investigations that police sometimes have to respond to, and to the extra burden that those place on police forces. I welcome the fact that I have a meeting with the Minister next week to discuss that issue, but, if she could say something about it when she responds to the debate, that would also be really welcome.

--- Later in debate ---

[Matt Vickers (Stockton West) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Lewell. I congratulate the hon. Member for Chichester (Jess Brown-Fuller) on securing this important debate, and I thank all Members who have contributed. I pay tribute to the officers, PCSOs, special constables and police staff who serve our communities, including the teams at Cleveland police and Durham constabulary who serve the people of Stockton West.

Cleveland has the highest crime rate of any police force area in England and Wales and the highest homicide rate in the country, yet in the year to March, Cleveland police lost 17 officers. Our police and crime commissioner called out a £2.4 million shortfall and rightly pointed out that funding is based on population, not crime. If the Government’s commitment to community policing is to mean anything, it must mean having more officers, not fewer, in areas where crime is highest. The Minister will point to the neighbourhood policing guarantee, but moving police officers between roles is not the same as having more of them.

In March 2024, the previous Conservative Government left police numbers at the highest level on record.

[Connor Naismith]

I anticipated that the shadow Minister might want to have a knockabout on numbers. Does he not acknowledge that the previous Conservative Government were replacing the 20,000 police officers that they had cut, and that the police uplift programme created perverse incentives that meant that many of those replacement officers ended up behind desks? That is not where we want them to be, is it?

[Matt Vickers]

We could have a very long debate on that: we could talk about the economic damage done by and the public finance carnage under the previous Labour Government; we could talk about the tough choices that had to be made in 2010; and eventually, we would arrive at 2024, when there were 147,746 full-time equivalent police officers on the streets. His constituents and mine would have liked to see that number continue to go upwards, but it did not, did it? Today, there are nearly 1,900 fewer officers.

This year, the Government scrapped overall headcount targets, making funding conditional on neighbourhood numbers alone. If neighbourhood teams grow while the workforce shrinks, those officers have to come from somewhere, and too often, that is from response teams. Those are the officers who come when a resident—the woman whose ex-partner is hammering on the door or the family woken by someone breaking in—rings 999. Neighbourhood policing matters, but it cannot come at the expense of the officers who turn up in someone’s hour of need. That is why the Conservative party would recruit 10,000 extra officers, deploy hotspot patrolling in the 2,000 highest-crime neighbourhoods and roll out immediate justice, so that those who wreck a public space are seen to put it right.

The problem is getting worse. The crime survey for England and Wales shows that last year, 40.9% of people experienced or witnessed antisocial behaviour, which represents a statistically significant increase. Tackling antisocial behaviour is a pillar of the Government’s guarantee, but, by their own measure, things are moving in the wrong direction. I have three questions for the Minister. First, will the Government publish force-by-force figures for how many new neighbourhood police officers were moved from response roles? Secondly, will the changes mean that residents will wait longer for help when they ring 999?

Thirdly, on Cleveland, I welcome the Minister’s engagement with the leadership of our force, but warm words in meetings will not reassure my constituents, so will she explain why the force tackling the highest crime rate in the country has 17 fewer officers than it did a year ago? Will she commit to ensuring that by the end of this Parliament, Cleveland police will have more police officers than it does today? My constituents are not asking about 2024 or 2010. They are asking about the year ahead, and they deserve a straight answer. Our constituents judge policing by whether they see an officer on their street, whether their call is answered and whether the person who wrecked their neighbourhood faces consequences. By that test, there is much more to do. I look forward to hearing the Minister’s response.

MOD Bicester and Illegal Migrants

Connor Naismith Excerpts

Wednesday 14th October 2026 Commons Chamber

[Connor Naismith (Crewe and Nantwich) (Lab)]

I will begin by saying that I respect the right of hon. Members across the House to come here and give voice to their constituents. I respect the voices of the women of Piddington who are in the Gallery today, making their presence known to Government. That is their democratic right, and I respect that.

In office, the Conservatives designed an asylum accommodation programme that took over much-loved hotels in some of the most deprived parts of our country, including the Crewe Arms Hotel and the Royal Hotel in the centre of Crewe. Local services and community cohesion were put under severe strain, and people were forced to cancel weddings and other events of sentimental value in their lives.

Of course, it is not only the Tories who are up to their necks in that policy, because who designed it? Who championed it on the airwaves, boasting that more and more hotels were being brought on stream in deprived towns like mine? It was, of course, the right hon. Member for Newark (Robert Jenrick), now Reform’s Treasury spokesperson, aided and abetted by former Tory Ministers who “betrayed our country”—not my words, Madam Deputy Speaker, but the words of Zia Yusuf.

In opening this debate, the hon. Member for Beaconsfield (Joy Morrissey) said that this should not be about class, and I think she is right. But why were places like Crewe chosen by the Conservatives when they were in government? It is precisely because such places were deprived and because land values were lower in those places.

[David Simmonds (Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner) (Con)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Connor Naismith]

I will not give way, because I do not want to take time away from other people.

I do not think that approach is fair. I was delighted when I was informed that, after much campaigning, the Crewe Arms Hotel would be closing as an asylum hotel. I hope to see the Royal Hotel also closed for such purposes in the coming months, and I urge the Minister to say more, if she can, about when we might see progress in that regard.

It is important to say that such outcomes are possible only if the Government continue to make progress with small boat crossings coming down, which they are, and the processing of claims going up—in stark contrast to the previous Government, under whom numbers collapsed—as well as deporting people who have no right to be here. But crucially, with regard to this debate, we will also see those outcomes only if accommodation for asylum seekers is spread more fairly across our country, using appropriate disused military sites.

The proposition that the Tories have put in front of us today seems to be that my constituents have to accept more of the burden of asylum accommodation while other parts of our country do not, and that is simply not fair. I know where my constituents will stand on that question, and I am with them, not with the Opposition.

As for the European convention on human rights, it blocks just 3% of total removals from this country, and underpins relationships—including the Good Friday agreement—with other countries around the world. Even the Tories’ much-loved Rwanda deal was contingent on compliance with international agreements on human rights and refugee law—not because a UK or European court said so but because the Rwandan Government insisted, as any third country that we might want to work with would.

By seeking to tell my constituents that they should continue to do more than their fair share in response to the phenomenon of small boat crossings, the motion signifies the official Opposition’s retreat from being a serious national party of government. I will not be supporting it.

Oral Answers to Questions

Connor Naismith Excerpts

Monday 13th July 2026 Commons Chamber

[Shabana Mahmood]

It has been settled Government policy—since last summer, in fact—that the qualifying period will rise from five years to 10 years. The Government are consulting on what transitional arrangements may be needed, and we will come forward with settled policy later this year.

[Connor Naismith (Crewe and Nantwich) (Lab)]

T2. During a coffee morning on the Sherborne estate in Crewe, I spoke with several residents who described persistent and distressing levels of antisocial behaviour in our community, including having eggs thrown at their properties. Can the Minister set out what steps are being taken to ensure that antisocial behaviour is dealt with robustly in places like the Sherborne estate?

Rochdale Grooming Gang: Offender Deportation

Connor Naismith Excerpts

Monday 6th July 2026 Commons Chamber

[Alex Norris]

It is important to say that in this case, the barrier to removal—the initial and currently unmoved barrier to removal—is section 7 of the 1971 Act. That has to be resolved, so I would not run to the second part of that question. Our returns agreement with Pakistan last year returned 1,300 people who had no right to be here, including sex offenders. We want to work closely with the Government of Pakistan to remove people with no right to be here, and that is what we are doing.

[Connor Naismith (Crewe and Nantwich) (Lab)]

Shabir Ahmed is a vile criminal, and the British public rightly want to see him deported. Does the Minister agree that where the law does not allow us to do so, we should change it, and that we should redouble efforts to secure returns agreements with countries like Pakistan?

[Alex Norris]

On the second part, I absolutely agree. I want returns agreements with everybody and, critically, I want them to be functioning. Where they are not, we should have conversations with those countries to ensure that they do function and that they follow up on the things they said they would do.

On the first part, I share the spirit of my hon. Friend’s question. It is important that people understand that there are legal hurdles in many cases in all walks of life, and legal protections are important, but it should be understood that Parliament is sovereign and that when we think that things are wrong, we can make changes—sometimes, very healthily in a democracy, on points of significant disagreement and division, or often in cases where we agree too. We have the ability to do that, and that is one of the options on the table.

Oral Answers to Questions

Connor Naismith Excerpts

Monday 23rd March 2026 Commons Chamber

[Alex Norris]

The hon. Lady will know that the statement on asylum policy set out the most significant reforms to the asylum system, certainly in my lifetime. We have already introduced the reduced protection period, we are making quicker and better decisions that ever before, and removals have increased by 30% on our predecessors. Together, such measures are decreasing those numbers—that is from September to September—with perhaps future good news to come.

[Connor Naismith (Crewe and Nantwich) (Lab)]

May I thank the Minister for the work he is doing to close asylum hotels, including the Crewe Arms hotel, and encourage him to go further still and close the Royal hotel in my constituency? Will he join me in reminding Conservative Members that it was under the Tory Government—prominent members of which now sit on the Benches with the turquoise Tories—that the concept of asylum hotels was invented? Indeed, they presided over the opening up of the business model for small boat crossings in the first place.

[Alex Norris]

My hon. Friend is right. Reform Members say they are a new voice in politics, but they look very similar to the old voice if you ask me. The important thing, which his constituents will know, is that the Tories opened those hotels when in government, and it will be Labour that closes them.

Police Reform White Paper

Connor Naismith Excerpts

Monday 26th January 2026 Commons Chamber

[Shabana Mahmood]

As a Birmingham MP, I can very much relate to the hon. Member’s concerns about waste, fly-tipping and the possible involvement of organised crime. To the extent that it involves serious and organised crime, some of that will of course fall within the remit of the National Police Service going forward. These are important issues, and I would be happy to arrange for either myself or the Policing Minister to meet the hon. Gentleman.

[Connor Naismith (Crewe and Nantwich) (Lab)]

I particularly welcome the measures to ensure that warranted police officers go where we need them: on to our streets and into our communities. Can I draw particular attention to the intention to scrap the failed police uplift model—a policy that is about as Boris Johnson as it gets? Although it did recruit officers, they often ended up sat behind desks performing roles more suited to experienced police staff. Does the Home Secretary agree that scrapping police uplift will ensure that officers are more likely to be out fighting crime than sat behind desks?

[Shabana Mahmood]

Numbers matter, of course, but what matters more is what those officers are doing, and that is exactly what these reforms are about.

Asylum Policy

Connor Naismith Excerpts

Monday 17th November 2025 Commons Chamber

[Shabana Mahmood]

I thank my hon. Friend for his two questions. Let me assure him that we already run a dispersal model that is designed to ensure that the burden is spread out across the country, and we will carry on doing so. We have already consulted on modern slavery legislation, and that consultation has closed. I will look carefully at the responses. It is well-intentioned and much-needed legislation, and it is important that we crack down on modern slavery in our country, but it is being used to frustrate the legitimate removal of people from this country. I saw that within my first few days as Home Secretary; I had to change policy very quickly to prevent people from thwarting their removal to France under the “one in, one out” deal. That is what I have in mind, and those are the changes that we will make.

[Connor Naismith (Crewe and Nantwich) (Lab)]

I thank the Home Secretary for her statement, and for taking the bold action necessary to tackle the chaos and lack of control that we inherited in our asylum system. Does she agree that these changes are as much about incentivising the right behaviour by creating capped legal routes to asylum as they are about taking tough action to break the status quo, which sees thousands of people crossing the channel in a dangerous, uncontrolled and unfair way?

[Shabana Mahmood]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right, and I endorse every word that he said.

UK-France Migration: Co-operation

Connor Naismith Excerpts

Monday 14th July 2025 Commons Chamber

[Yvette Cooper]

The agreement that we have reached is a fundamentally different approach; it is groundbreaking. It is something that I have discussed with the Interior Minister in France for many months. It is also something that UK Governments have been working to try to do for around five years but without achieving it. This is a first step, but it is an important one in terms of establishing the principles around returns and around stronger law enforcement co-operation. We have also said that we will work with other European countries on looking at different approaches, including returns hubs and other innovative and novel approaches. There are other European countries who are interested in working with us on similar and different kinds of approaches, and we will continue to do that.

[Connor Naismith (Crewe and Nantwich) (Lab)]

In her earlier remarks, the Home Secretary referenced the memo that the shadow Justice Secretary wrote in March 2023, proposing exactly the kind of one in, one out deal that this Government have now secured. I was struck by the assertion in that memo that that kind of scheme would

“quickly break the business model of the smugglers”.

Does the Home Secretary agree that the Conservatives look utterly partisan, petty and two-faced as they now decide to oppose in public exactly the kind of deal that they were arguing for in private when in government?

[Yvette Cooper]

My hon. Friend is exactly right. There are things that the Conservatives tried and failed to deliver when they were in government that they now suddenly want to oppose. In the end, that is the hole they have got themselves into. Instead of wanting to be practical and serious about measures that can make a difference, taken step by step, they just want to oppose everything. They fail to solve the problem, and just moan about it instead.

Oral Answers to Questions

Connor Naismith Excerpts

Monday 7th July 2025 Commons Chamber

[Dame Angela Eagle]

I can assure my hon. Friend that we keep all these issues under close monitoring, and we are doing our best to ensure that individual areas take their fair share of the burden when it comes to looking after people in our asylum system. Just to reassure her, we have sped up asylum decision making. The system that we inherited was paralysed, and we are getting it going again so that we can deal with this issue as quickly as possible.

[Connor Naismith (Crewe and Nantwich) (Lab)]

This Labour Government inherited a situation from the Conservatives where we were spending almost £9 million every single day on asylum hotels, including the Crewe Arms hotel in my constituency. Will the Minister set out what steps she is taking to bring down those costs, as well as speeding up decision making, so that we can reopen the Crewe Arms as a hotel?