Migration: Settlement Pathway

Seamus Logan Excerpts

Thursday 20th November 2025 Commons Chamber

[Shabana Mahmood]

We will always have specific obligations on not returning anybody who has arrived in this country seeking asylum or who has been granted refugee status. We would not return those individuals to danger. We will abide by our international obligations, as I hope I made clear in the statement on Monday. However, our ability to have new rules that look more carefully and more regularly at whether a country is safe for citizens to be returned is important. It is a shift in the way we do things, but we will never return people to face danger. I would be happy to look at some of the examples my hon. Friend has raised today in more detail with him.

[Seamus Logan (Aberdeenshire North and Moray East) (SNP)]

First, I apologise to the Home Secretary for missing part of her statement, but I have read it. Will she confirm whether any assessment has been carried out on the economic impact on Scotland of extending the ILR wait time to 10 years and beyond? If not, why not? Whatever the needs of Wales and Northern Ireland, Scotland’s economic and workforce needs once again appear to have been ignored. Does the Home Secretary understand that such a blanket policy risks exacerbating skills shortages, threatening vital sectors and making it harder for communities to thrive? Incredibly, for a so-called Labour Government, this lurch to the right now appears to favour the wealthy over the less wealthy.

[Shabana Mahmood]

Really, Madam Deputy Speaker! The hon. Gentleman will know that immigration is a reserved matter. That will not change. The thing that is holding back the labour market in Scotland is skills and education policy, which is devolved. It is on the SNP to sort that out.