Asylum Policy

Debate between Rebecca Long Bailey and Shabana Mahmood

Monday 17th November 2025 Commons Chamber

[Rebecca Long Bailey (Salford) (Lab)]

The Home Secretary is aware that, in the absence of safe and legal routes, the law forces a refugee to set foot on UK soil to seek asylum, which has led to dangerous journeys and no checks or vetting taking place. She has referenced sponsorship as the primary safe route. Could she clarify whether this can be applied for from outside the UK, and what consideration has she made of recommendations by Safe Passage to implement a visa refugee scheme, so that applications can be done from outside the UK, with cases assessed, vetted and decided before a refugee embarks on a dangerous journey here?

[Shabana Mahmood]

I thank my hon. Friend for her question. The whole purpose of the new safe and legal routes is that those individuals are accepted as refugees before they enter the United Kingdom. The point is that they never pay thousands of pounds to illegal smugglers along any sort of route on which they may travel. In fact, exactly as she says, we want to accept people as refugees before they set foot on UK soil, and once they are here on a safe and legal route, they will access permanent settlement more quickly than on any other route in this country. It is good that the Government are seeking to incentivise people to come through safe and legal routes, not pay thousands and thousands of pounds to criminals along the way.

Sentencing Review and Prison Capacity

Debate between Rebecca Long Bailey and Shabana Mahmood

Tuesday 22nd October 2024 Commons Chamber

[Shabana Mahmood]

I can confirm that all sex offences of all types are excluded from the SDS40 measures.

[Rebecca Long Bailey (Salford) (Ind)]

I very much welcome the Lord Chancellor’s sentencing review, but on immediate systemic issues, privately run Forest Bank prison in Salford is at 138% capacity, with continued reports over the years of high levels of violence and insufficient rehabilitative training for prisoners. The contract runs out in January. Can the Secretary of State confirm who will be running the prison after that date? Will she be bringing it back under state control? What measures is she taking to urgently ensure safety in the prison and adequate rehabilitative training?

[Shabana Mahmood]

I will not pre-empt any future decisions on any particular prison, but I am not ideological about whether a prison is run by the state or privately. There are good prisons of both types in the sector. There are some failing state-run prisons and some failing privately run prisons. The most important thing is that we get on top of the capacity crisis across the whole prison estate. We have to reduce overcrowding so that we can focus on the good-quality rehabilitation activity that I know governors in every type of prison want to ensure, so that prisoners can be helped to turn their life around.