Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Julie Minns and Shabana Mahmood

Monday 9th February 2026 Commons Chamber

[Ms Julie Minns (Carlisle) (Lab)]

8. What steps her Department is taking to reduce pull factors for migrants seeking to arrive in the UK illegally.

[The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Shabana Mahmood)]

With asylum claims falling in Europe and rising here, we must reduce the incentives that pull people here. The permanence of refugee status in this country is clearly a pull factor, and we are therefore making it temporary. The ability to melt into our illegal economy lures people here, so we have raised immigration raids to record levels. Effective removals send a clear message, and returns are now up by about a quarter under this Government.

[Ms Minns]

Illegal immigration, illegal working and illegal trading frequently go hand in hand, and all too often manifest themselves in the proliferation of dodgy shops on our high streets. While I welcome the shop raids in my constituency last summer, without action to tackle illegality at source the police and trading standards face a never-ending game of whack-a-mole. Can the Minister please assure my constituents that this Government will redouble their efforts to clamp down on both illegal immigration and illegal working?

[Shabana Mahmood]

I can give my hon. Friend that reassurance. Illegal working undermines honest employers, undercuts local wages and fuels organised immigration crime, and this Government will not stand for it. Since we came to power, enforcement action has increased nationwide, with an 83% rise in the number of illegal-working arrests, and we will be stepping up that action even further in the year ahead.

Police Reform White Paper

Debate between Julie Minns and Shabana Mahmood

Monday 26th January 2026 Commons Chamber

[Shabana Mahmood]

I can assure the hon. Gentleman that there will be local policing areas within the new regional forces, with neighbourhood policing as the absolute bedrock of those local policing areas. I would not be bringing forward these reforms if I was not absolutely certain that we are absolutely protecting local policing in the set-up of the new model for policing, so that every area gets the type of policing it needs and deserves.

[Ms Julie Minns (Carlisle) (Lab)]

Last Friday I held a community meeting with Cumbria’s police, fire and crime commissioner, David Allen. Since his election just 20 months ago, he has been focused on taking those officers who were forced into the back room under the last Government and putting them back on the frontline. Can the Home Secretary please reassure me, and our police, fire and crime commissioner, that the reforms she has outlined today will continue to strengthen frontline policing, particularly in rural areas such as Cumbria?

[Shabana Mahmood]

My hon. Friend makes an incredibly powerful point. I can provide her with that reassurance, and the Policing Minister spoke to her police, fire and crime commissioner today.