Immigration: Earned Settlement

Debate between Kirsteen Sullivan and Shabana Mahmood

Monday 2nd November 2026 Commons Chamber

[Shabana Mahmood]

No, the position in relation to those who enter the country unlawfully is different, not least because those who are arriving on a boat are doing so from the north of France, which is a safe country underpinned by the European convention on human rights. It is right to treat those different cohorts differently because their method of entry into the country is different, and it is right that the Government are able to incentivise the behaviour we wish to see and disincentivise those who pay people smugglers and who risk their lives in the channel. I would have hoped that we could agree on that.

[Kirsteen Sullivan (Bathgate and Linlithgow) (Lab/Co-op)]

We continue to have acute workforce pressures in social care in Scotland, which often leaves people stranded in hospital when they are fit to go home. What conversations has the Home Secretary had with the Scottish Government about the need for robust workforce planning, which has been absent for so long, to ensure that existing skills gaps are not exacerbated by these changes?

[Shabana Mahmood]

My hon. Friend raises an important point. She will know that the Home Office is not responsible for workforce planning, but Ministers in the Department of Health and Social Care are working carefully on a workforce response, and I am sure that they are discussing these matters with their counterparts in the devolved Administrations.