Asylum Policy

Debate between Shabana Mahmood and Lincoln Jopp

Monday 17th November 2025 Commons Chamber

[Shabana Mahmood]

I thank my hon. Friend for her question. Countries across Europe are tightening up their rules, and it is important that we do not become or remain an outlier. In fact, it is a regular complaint of many of our counterparts in Europe that at least 30% of those who travel across Europe are seeking ultimately to come to the United Kingdom. It is something that has come up in all the conversations I have had with multiple counterparts across Europe, and it is one of the reasons why we have to ensure that we have a system that works and that we get our own house in order.

[Lincoln Jopp (Spelthorne) (Con)]

A constituent wrote to me asking whether I could get a wriggle on with his EU settlement scheme application. We checked with the Home Office and it turned out that he was subject to a live deportation order. It was issued in 2017, and we did deport him. Somehow he got back into the country and made his application. I said to the Home Secretary’s predecessor that if she was prepared to, with a stroke of her pen, re-enact that deportation order, then I was prepared to drive him to the airport myself. Now that we have a Home Secretary who is going to get a grip of this situation, I offer the same thing again.

[Shabana Mahmood]

I look forward to welcoming the hon. Member’s application to join immigration enforcement. If he wants to write to me about that specific example, I will look into it. I know that the systems at the Home Office need a lot of tightening. It is work that my predecessor started when she brought a new permanent secretary into the Department to make the necessary changes, and it is work I will continue.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Shabana Mahmood and Lincoln Jopp

Monday 15th September 2025 Commons Chamber

[Shabana Mahmood]

The Government’s policy position is to ensure that the policing resource that we have focuses on neighbourhood policing, because we know that visible neighbourhood policing increases the confidence that communities have in going about their business and helps us to take back our town centres from those who indulge in low-level criminality—which is not low level, because it harms people and their confidence in their own communities. That is why we make no secret and are not ashamed of our neighbourhood policing guarantee.

[Lincoln Jopp (Spelthorne) (Con)]

Very simple question: why are police numbers coming down under a Labour Government?

[Shabana Mahmood]

This Government are focusing on delivering neighbourhood policing. We are going to have 3,000 neighbourhood police officers by April 2026, with 13,000—as we committed in our manifesto—by the end of the Parliament.