Police Reform White Paper

Debate between Meg Hillier and Shabana Mahmood

Monday 26th January 2026 Commons Chamber

[Shabana Mahmood]

Dear me! I will take no lectures on policing from the Conservatives. They had 14 years in government and delivered no meaningful change beyond decimating neighbourhood policing, introducing the failed experiment of police and crime commissioners, and sweeping away meaningful targets to hold our police forces to account.

The shadow Home Secretary complains about non-crime hate incidents. Pray tell, who was in government when they were brought in? He talks about the powers of the Home Secretary. Which Government got rid of them? It was the Conservatives—and not once in all their time in opposition since the general election have they had the gumption to apologise from the Dispatch Box for their appalling track record on policing. Conservative policies saw police numbers slashed by 20,000. They very hastily tried to reverse that measure by bringing back another 20,000 officers, but they did so in a distorted way that meant that 12,000 of those warranted police officers were doing desk jobs. I ask him to read the detail of the White Paper and reconsider whether he wants to stand against everything in it. He cannot possibly believe it a good idea for warranted police officers to do desk jobs; he cannot possibly think it fine for 250 of those officers to be in human resources and 200 in admin support. I cannot believe that even he, with all his lack of attention to detail, thinks that that is a good idea.

I urge the shadow Home Secretary and his Back Benchers to reconsider whether they will stand against the policies unveiled in the White Paper. I urge him to look again carefully at regional police forces. He will have looked at the White Paper, so he knows full well that the regional forces will have local police areas that can concentrate on policing local communities right down to the neighbourhood level. The only reason I am bringing in this new model of policing is to protect neighbourhood policing, which was decimated on the Conservative party’s watch. If he wants to stand against local police areas focused on local communities, and against regional forces dedicated to specialist investigation to ensure that rape and murder cases benefit from exactly the same high standards of service across the country, more fool him. Those measures will result in a better policing model for everyone across our country.

The shadow Home Secretary raises the example of the Met. One thing that Louise Casey found in her 2023 report was that the Met’s national responsibility for counter-terrorism policing—it does counter-terror for everyone across the UK—distracts from its policing of London. These reforms will mean that counter-terror policing, and all other national policing requirements, will sit with the National Police Service, so that the Met and every other force in the country can focus on policing their local areas. I cannot believe that he wants to stand against reforms that deliver better local policing, but that appears to be where the Conservatives are at.

[Dame Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)]

I welcome the announcement by the Home Secretary. In London, we have long known that neighbourhood policing is vital. Only yesterday I was in Dalston, where there has been a lot of antisocial behaviour, and people have noticed the extra police on the streets. There has, though, been an issue of abstraction in London, where officers often have to backfill blue light officers or police national demonstrations. How will the Home Secretary plan this process to ensure that that does not happen, and that those teams are dedicated to neighbourhoods?

[Shabana Mahmood]

My hon. Friend is right to say that too many of our police forces are distracted from being able to police their local communities because they are dealing with national level issues, including national issues relating to public order. All those functions will ultimately sit within the new National Police Service, but in the interim I will appoint a special command to deal with public order policing in particular, to ensure consistency of approach across the country.

Migration: Settlement Pathway

Debate between Meg Hillier and Shabana Mahmood

Thursday 20th November 2025 Commons Chamber

[Shabana Mahmood]

I am pleased to see that the Leader of the Opposition let the shadow Home Secretary have a go today. He seems overly concerned about my personal future, but he should worry about his own and that of his party. One good way to secure the future of the Conservative party would perhaps be to start with an open and honest acknowledgement of their track record in government and, dare I say it, perhaps even an apology for messing up the system so badly in the first place. Given their track record, they barely have the right to ask questions, let alone propose solutions. It is my view that, as with settlement, people have to earn the right to offer solutions. One way of earning that right would be to apologise for what the Tories did.

The shadow Home Secretary asked a specific question about when the changes will come into effect. The 12-week consultation will end in the middle of February, and we anticipate making changes and to begin the phase-out once the changes are adopted from April 2026. As he knows, the immigration rules usually change twice a year every year, and that is when we will begin making some of those changes. Some could require technical fixes and solutions that may take a little longer, but the intention is to start from April next year.

The shadow Home Secretary made a point about the qualifying threshold being around £12,000. He will know that we have used the national insurance contributions threshold specifically because it is one of the quickest ways to establish whether somebody is in work. It is designed to give an indication of the period spent in work. He will also know that there are different income thresholds for the different routes by which people can come into the country, and those are not being changed.

The shadow Home Secretary made a valid point about ensuring that the new system does not have any loopholes. I will be alive to that. As we discussed at length in the House on Monday, there is a relationship between some types of visa overstaying and coming straight into the asylum system as well. I am alive to those risks, and we will do everything we can to shut that down. In the end, this will be a whole package of reforms to clamp down on abuse and retain public confidence in running a migration system overall and in the asylum system in particular.

What can I say about a cap? The cap has had a long life in the Conservative party, and I gently suggest that they never managed it in 14 years in power. I do not think we will be pursuing that failure now.

[Dame Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)]

I applaud my right hon. Friend on many points, not least for debunking the idea that a cap will solve anything or is even achievable. There is a lot of detail in this statement, but one issue is that people going through the system have to apply repeatedly to extend their discretionary leave to remain until they reach settlement status. That is costly for them, cumbersome for the Home Office and does nothing to help them integrate or work in the community. I have had the opportunity to meet a junior Minister on this issue, but can the Home Secretary give any assurance to the House that the Home Office is looking at it? We should ensure that those who are welcome here have a less burdensome system to go through. That will hopefully save money and enable the Home Office to focus on more urgent issues.