Immigration: Earned Settlement

Debate between Shabana Mahmood and Mike Tapp

Monday 2nd November 2026 Commons Chamber

[Shabana Mahmood]

Let me say to one of my many predecessors as Home Secretary that the proposals I have announced today are far, far more robust than everything he and his Government left behind. It is their mess that this Government have been cleaning up. The right hon. Gentleman will know that both myself and my immediate predecessor as Home Secretary, my right hon. Friend the Member for Pontefract, Castleford and Knottingley (Yvette Cooper), are responsible for a number of changes, including: closing the care worker route to overseas workers; the requirement for sponsors to be Care Quality Commission rated; suspending family reunion for refugees while we settle family migration policy as we go into next year; and raising salary thresholds. This Government —both myself and my predecessor—have been taking the action that is needed and that is why net migration is down 82%.

[Mike Tapp (Dover and Deal) (Lab)]

Those who come to our country and genuinely work in our care sector, looking after our elderly and vulnerable, do our country a great service. However, some are unfortunately working in poor conditions. They are exploited and underpaid partly due to the current sponsorship system. Will the Home Secretary seriously consider looking at an umbrella sponsor system, working with the Department of Health and Social Care?

[Shabana Mahmood]

I have had discussions with the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care. She is also very clear that conditions for employers in the care sector must improve and that there should be minimum standards in future. She is undertaking that work, and it will be part of the wider reforms to the care sector that the Government are undertaking. What I have undertaken to ensure that the immigration system reflects any changes made to improve standards in the care sector and that we will follow those changes. It would be in appropriate for us, as an immigration Department, to change licensed routes ourselves without the wider work required, which the Health Secretary is undertaking, to improve the functioning of the care sector. Once that work is complete, I will make the relevant changes.

Independent Sentencing Review

Debate between Shabana Mahmood and Mike Tapp

Thursday 22nd May 2025 Commons Chamber

[Shabana Mahmood]

I have no truck with anyone else’s prejudices and they certainly do not decide what I do in office. I believe in prison. This Government are going to build more prison places, and we will fill them. I believe in prison for the reasons of punishment, primarily; I agree with the right hon. Gentleman on that. I will not let this country run out of prison places, because I know what will happen if we do. I am not willing to put anyone through the breakdown of law and order in our country—I am not willing to take that risk. It means that harder choices are in front of me and this House as we get ourselves out of this crisis, and I am making those choices today.

I will work at pace to bring forward legislation at the earliest opportunity, so that the House can consider the proposals in full. Those on extended determinate sentences —the most dangerous offenders, as judged by a judge in a court—will be excluded from these measures. For all other offenders, earlier release will have to be earned, and there will be intensive supervision afterwards. That is the earned progression model, and I am sure we will debate it at length in the weeks and months ahead.

[Mike Tapp (Dover and Deal) (Lab)]

There is no place in our country for foreign offenders who pose a serious risk to the public. This Government are already returning more foreign national offenders than the Conservatives did when they were in power. Does the Minister agree that the Tories are clearly all talk and no action?

[Shabana Mahmood]

My hon. Friend puts it very well, and he is absolutely right. We have made more progress on the deportation of foreign national offenders than the previous Government and we will go further. We accept the review’s recommendations on reducing the threshold for early removal from 50% to 30%. For offenders who get less than three years in prison, we will work with the Home Office on proposals to move to immediate deportation.