Rochdale Grooming Gang: Offender Deportation

Katie Lam Excerpts

Monday 6th July 2026 Commons Chamber

[Katie Lam (Weald of Kent) (Con)]

(Urgent Question): To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if she will make a statement on whether the Government are planning to change the law to deport Rochdale grooming gang leader, Shabir Ahmed.

[The Minister for Border Security and Asylum (Alex Norris)]

I will start where any discussion of this nature must always start: with the victims. Over the years, they were subjected to unspeakable crimes, exploited and abused by vile predators and woefully let down by the agencies charged with protecting them. I know that the House will join me in saying that they are in our thoughts today and always.

The grooming gangs scandal was and will forever be one of the darkest moments in our nation’s history. I know that for those affected, it will have been unbelievably painful to learn that one of the perpetrators was due for release from prison. Having been convicted in 2012, Shabir Ahmed has served the custodial element of his sentence. He is on the sex offenders register for life, ordered to stay away from his victims, and banned from contacting any child or young person. As well as strict curfews and restriction zones on him, his every movement will be tracked, and he will be required to wear an electronic tag. Should he breach those conditions, he can be immediately returned to prison.

Shabir Ahmed held British citizenship at the time of these offences, and action was taken to deprive him of that right, reflecting the seriousness of his offences. Having arrived in the UK before 1971, he is exempt from deportation due to section 7 of the Immigration Act 1971, which preserved the rights of Commonwealth and Irish citizens who were already in the UK when the Act took effect on 1 January 1973. That is not a loophole; the provisions of section 7 were put in place to protect the existing rights of an identified cadre of Commonwealth citizens, most notably the Windrush generation. However, when a foreign national breaks the laws of this land, our first priority will always be to get them out of the UK.

Under this Government, removals of foreign national offenders are up 36%, with nearly 10,000 returned since we entered office. The fact that that has not so far been possible for an individual responsible for such heinous crimes as Shabir Ahmed’s is unacceptable. I can assure the House that we have not given up, and we will not. While the original intentions of the legislation in question mean that we ought to proceed with care, the nature of the offending in this case demands that we explore all options, and that is what we are doing. In the meantime, we will of course do everything in our power to keep the public safe.

[Katie Lam]

Shabir Ahmed has committed some of the most despicable crimes imaginable. As the ringleader of the Rochdale grooming gang, he was responsible for grooming, trafficking and raping children as young as 12 years old. He was jailed in 2012 for 30 counts of child rape. His victims were promised that when he got out of prison, he would be deported back to Pakistan. He has been released from prison, but now we are told that he will not be deported because of a provision in the 1971 Immigration Act. The idea that he might be allowed to stay in this country because of a clause in a decades-old law designed for a completely different time and context is not just absurd, but sickening. As recently as 2023, parole officers concluded that Ahmed posed a

“very high risk of serious harm”

to children. How can he possibly be allowed to walk the streets again?

When the law produces an outcome that is clearly so wrong, the law must be changed. The Government must now change this law to make sure that we can remove Ahmed. Conservative Members, including the Leader of the Opposition, have made it clear that, if the Home Secretary puts forward changes to the law that would allow us to deport Shabir Ahmed, we will support them. The shadow Home Secretary has already drafted an amendment that the Government could adopt. The argument for deporting Ahmed is clear, and the mechanism has already been created. All that remains in question is whether the Government have the will to act. If so, we will be happy to support them. If they do not, people across this country will rightly ask, as they are already asking, whether this is a Government that can really keep the British people safe.

[Alex Norris]

I am grateful for the hon. Lady’s question and subsequent follow-up. I share her anger, and I share her concern at the anger of the British people, who rightly expect that, when foreign offenders break our laws, they should be removed from our country. That is why we have made removals to the degree that we have. I will look closely, as we always do, at all amendments and new clauses to legislation put forward by the Opposition and by all hon. and right hon. colleagues, or at other ideas as they come forward. As I say, in this context I could not be clearer that all options are on the table at this stage.

I might gently say that there was a significant period of time between that conviction and the change of Government in which those changes were not brought forward, including by some individuals I expect to be co-signatories to the amendment. Nevertheless, we are where we are, and the spirit in which the hon. Lady offers support is welcome. The public will want to see Parliament come together to ensure that, in cases where people commit really serious crimes, we are able to remove them from the country.