Migration: Settlement Pathway

Debate between Shabana Mahmood and Barry Gardiner

Thursday 20th November 2025 Commons Chamber

[Shabana Mahmood]

I have acknowledged that the way the system is working—or, more appropriately, not working—is causing deep unease across the country, including in my constituency and among people who are of immigrant backgrounds themselves, because of a sense of unfairness. A lot of people in my constituency regularly report overstaying to me, which they see as an abuse of visas and as a particular problem, while others are more concerned about the small boats. I acknowledge that those concerns are legitimate, real and felt deeply across the country. That is why I think it is so important that we rebuild public trust in the overall system by dealing with both illegal migration and legal migration, based on the principles of fairness and contribution, and give the public confidence that the rules we have can be maintained, enforced and followed properly.

The right hon. Gentleman is right that the destruction of documents and the other ways in which people seek to frustrate our ability to remove them from this country is driving some of the discontent. That is why the reforms I set out in the asylum policy statement are designed to say to those making the calculation in the north of France, “Don’t get on a boat. It’s not worth it. That is not the way to come to this country.” As we build safe and legal routes to this country—which will clearly be a much more privileged way of entering, with a faster path to settlement at 10 years, as I have said—the reforms will show very clearly to people making that calculation which path is worth it and which one is not.

[Barry Gardiner (Brent West) (Lab)]

I welcome the assurance the Home Secretary has given to those who have achieved indefinite leave to remain and have settled status in this country. That certainty is really important. She will know that in my constituency I have many families from Syria and Afghanistan, who came under the Syrian programme and Operation Pitting. They have limited leave to remain and are deeply worried, from what the Home Secretary has said, as to whether they will ultimately be deported from this country. Can she give an assurance to those who are currently seeking ILR and who came on those programmes that they will be able to follow the path that was set out for them when they arrived? Will she give that assurance and ensure that this country will never do a deal with the Taliban to deport women and children from this country?

[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.

Manchester Terrorism Attack

Debate between Shabana Mahmood and Barry Gardiner

Monday 13th October 2025 Commons Chamber

[Shabana Mahmood]

The right hon. Gentleman is right that this country has had to learn painful lessons on sectarianism in the past, and it seems we have to learn them again in a slightly different context today. That cannot be our reality in the future, and I hope that all of us across this House can unite around that work. Let me also be clear for anybody celebrating and supporting Hamas that it is a proscribed terror organisation in this country. To support that organisation is to break the law of our land, and whenever anybody does so, they should face the full force of the law.

[Barry Gardiner (Brent West) (Lab)]

After the vile attack in Manchester, many of us in this House will have spent time with Jewish friends last week celebrating the festival of Sukkot. It was particularly emotional for me to do that with friends and to realise that for the sukkah—that temporary shelter where we eat that meal—you have to have sight of the sky, because the Jewish community needs to be ready always to leave. That sense of insecurity is pervading the Jewish community now, and the Home Secretary must most importantly address that. Jews’ Free School in my constituency, the largest Jewish school in Europe, had a huge police presence outside it in the Friday afternoon after that attack, but as many have said, that reassurance should not be necessary. We have to address the fundamental insecurity that the community is facing.