Oral Answers to Questions

Perran Moon Excerpts

Monday 5th January 2026 Commons Chamber

[Tom Rutland (East Worthing and Shoreham) (Lab)]

6. What steps her Department is taking to introduce new safe and legal routes for migrants.

[Perran Moon (Camborne and Redruth) (Lab)]

12. What steps her Department is taking to introduce new safe and legal routes for migrants.

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

Alongside restoring order and control of our borders, we will open new safe and legal routes for refugees and displaced people who are fleeing danger. We are currently developing routes for refugee students and workers alongside a community sponsorship route. A cap will be set each year in Parliament, and further details on the design of these routes will be set out in due course.

[Shabana Mahmood]

The first point to acknowledge is that this country will always offer sanctuary to those fleeing danger, but the public rightly expect a system that is fair and that restores control. That is why we are reducing the incentives that draw people here illegally, making it easier to remove those who have no right to be here and toughening controls at our borders, alongside developing safe and legal routes, which will provide the proper option for those fleeing danger to seek sanctuary in our country.

[Perran Moon]

Meur ras, ha blethen noweth da—happy new year, Mr Speaker—and may I take this moment to thank the Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham North and Kimberley (Alex Norris), for, in his previous role, getting the Cornish language through part III status from that excellent organisation, the Council of Europe?

Before Christmas, I met care workers from my Camborne, Redruth and Hayle constituency who came to the UK through legal routes. They shared with me their anxieties about the changes to immigration policies affecting the care sector and other key worker sectors. Specifically for migrants who are already part-way through the five-year leave to remain qualification process, working and paying their taxes in the UK now, can the Secretary of State confirm when the new fast-track leave to remain process will be established following the end of the 12 February consultation?

[Shabana Mahmood]

Safe and legal routes relate to those who we would accept as refugees before they enter this country, in order to drive down the number of people who seek to enter the country illegally. My hon. Friend refers to routes for people who come to this country to work. It is right that we acknowledge, as we have done in our planned reforms to settlement, that settlement in this country is a privilege that has to be earned, not a right. It is perfectly proper for this country to be able to set the rules for how settlement is earned. Previous considerations about how many people might arrive through particular routes in order to work have shown that more people have arrived than anticipated, and therefore it is right that we change our approach; the discussion about care workers is particularly pertinent to that point. We are consulting on how those changes are delivered—as he rightly points out, that consultation ends on 12 February—and we will then set out our proposals for delivering our reforms.