Immigration Reforms

Debate between Pete Wishart and Apsana Begum

Tuesday 17th March 2026 Westminster Hall

[Pete Wishart (Perth and Kinross-shire) (SNP)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered immigration reforms.

It is a pleasure to serve under you in the Chair, Mr Stringer. What an extraordinary few weeks we have had in the area of home affairs and immigration. It has been quite breathtaking. It is difficult to grasp the scale and ferocity of the Home Secretary’s assault on immigrants, refugees and asylum seekers in the past few weeks. It is simply astonishing that in a few short weeks she has turned nearly all our assumptions about refugee status and asylum totally on their head. She has embarked on one of the biggest set of reforms on asylum and immigration that we have witnessed in the past few years, and all without one Government-sponsored debate on the Floor of the House and without one single vote for Members.

We had barely caught our breath from the outrageous changes to indefinite leave to remain and its associated earned settlement restrictions when there was an almost daily blitz of further cruel and restrictive measures. In case the House has forgotten, I will refresh Members on what has been announced, because it is totally extraordinary. First, at the beginning of March the Home Secretary arbitrarily announced that refugee status was to be completely redefined, from something that had always been akin to a permanent status to something that would be temporary. It was to be reduced from five years to 30 months, with the proviso that people may be returned to their countries of origin if the Home Secretary, exclusively and on her own, deemed those countries to be safe.

Let us think about what that will do to people and families. It will lock people into years of insecurity, denying them the opportunity to rebuild shattered lives. It will prolong uncertainty for refugee families, making it almost impossible to make decisions about education for children and for these poor souls to find positive employment. What employer is going to spend money hiring, training and investing in people if there is a chance they will be booted out of the country within the next two and a half years?

[Apsana Begum (Poplar and Limehouse) (Lab)]

I congratulate the hon. Member on securing this important debate. Is he concerned, like me, about what the reforms will mean for the survivors of abuse who have fled persecution abroad? Does he agree that perpetrators already weaponise immigration status against their victims, and that removing refugee protection will lead only to survivors having even less access to support and being too scared of deportation to leave?

[Pete Wishart]

The hon. Lady is spot on, and entirely right to raise those issues. The changes will effectively retraumatise so many asylum seekers and refugees who have already experienced of all sorts of abusive arrangements. I am glad the Minister is here to listen to the hon. Lady’s remarks.

Only a couple of days after the announcement on refugee status, the Home Secretary announced what she called an “emergency brake” on visa applications from nationals from Afghanistan, Cameroon, Myanmar and Sudan. Those are some of the most dangerous countries in the world, where conflict, oppression and human rights abuses are an everyday feature and continue to drive people from their homes. The Home Secretary says she wants to expand safe and legal routes, but at one stroke she took away meaningful safe and legal routes from some of the most dangerous countries in the world.

Not content with that, the Home Secretary then went on to announce a pilot scheme offering financial inducements for failed asylum seekers to return to their country of origin. It was a voluntary scheme, but only in the context of, “If you refuse that inducement, you may be forcibly removed.” The proposal is chillingly reminiscent of what we are seeing in the United States, where Trump’s paramilitary Immigration and Customs Enforcement force is forcibly evicting people who are on the wrong side of the refugee and asylum system there.

The Home Secretary actually said—I could not believe it when I heard it—that she is currently consulting on how removals can be carried out “humanely and effectively”, particularly where children are involved. Let us pause and think for a minute about the forcible removal of families in the United Kingdom where children might be involved.

Even after that—this was in only one week—it went on. Next, the Home Secretary announced changes to the law that will mean it is no longer a legal duty to provide financial support to asylum seekers. Payments will stop for anyone working illegally, anyone convicted of a crime or anyone with independent financial means. I am sure people listen to that and think, “That sounds fair enough and pretty reasonable. If people are in any of those categories, it’s quite right that they shouldn’t receive Government support.”

But that is only until we consider what is required for an asylum seeker to work in the United Kingdom. They can work only with the permission of the Home Office, and securing that permission is a complex, byzantine, bureaucratic task that some people in the asylum community say is barely possible. The only thing that will be achieved is more people being put into destitution. If we look at the Trussell Trust or any of the food banks, we see that the number of asylum seekers who are now seeking assistance and help is going through the roof—and it will only go further.