Indefinite Leave to Remain

Toby Perkins Excerpts

Monday 8th September 2025 Westminster Hall

[Ben Goldsborough]

I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention, which shows not only that he has probably seen my speech and knows what is coming next, but that it is a uniform measure that has been raised by those who have spoken to me, as the Member introducing the debate, and by those who have reached out to their MPs.

[Mr Toby Perkins (Chesterfield) (Lab)]

I am really pleased with the way my hon. Friend is presenting the debate. Many of us agree with what he says about how the immigration debate is being utilised and weaponised, but also believe that the level of legal migration is too high and support the Government in getting a grip on it. We want to ensure that those who come here are delivering, but we also recognise that some people who are already delivering will be affected and that they need to be properly considered.

[Ben Goldsborough]

My hon. Friend makes an extremely good point. As I said at the start, migration managed well benefits us all. That is what I understand the Government are trying to achieve, and that is one thing that we need to support.

The prospect of applying changes retrospectively has caused huge anxiety. For people who have uprooted their family, made financial sacrifices and planned their future on the basis of clear rules, it feels—as one person put it to me—like

“running a marathon and halfway through realising the rules have changed”.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Toby Perkins (Chesterfield) (Lab)]

It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Pritchard. I start by thanking my hon. Friend the Member for South Norfolk (Ben Goldsborough) for opening this important debate. As we know, over 100,000 people signed each of these petitions, including a number from my constituency of Chesterfield. I will also take this opportunity to welcome the Minister to his new post and wish him well.

Members have expressed strongly in this debate the sentiment that many migrants have made a huge contribution in our constituencies and the country. I think there is nothing inconsistent in saying that, on the one hand, we absolutely recognise that contribution but, on the other, we recognise the Government’s desire to reduce net migration and that the number of people coming into our country is unsustainable. We can absolutely recognise the huge contribution that migrants make without in any way undermining the positive steps the Government are trying to take to get the system under control.

I agree entirely that Britain is a country that keeps its word, and we should continue to keep our word to the Hongkongers who have come here. I echo the comment that many others have made that it will be a huge propaganda victory for the Chinese Government if they are able to say that we are undermining that commitment. I also support what has been said about those who have already started down a path. We should not be changing the rules that we have made for those people.

It is important to recognise that many people now have real uncertainty. We are in a competitive environment for many of these skilled migrants. There are many other countries that would like to attract them, and if we start pushing them away and making them believe that their commitment to this country will not be honoured, we risk losing people who are crucial to our public services and economy. We should consider that very seriously indeed.

My constituent Erinda came to see me. Her family are from Albania and have been in the UK for several years. She came here on the skilled worker visa, and her husband and son were brought here as dependants. They have made their life here; they have joined the local church and have made a huge contribution to the local community. There is real concern among her church community that they now might not have the stability that they believed they should. We should offer that certainty to people who have come here on the five-year route.

I echo the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Poole (Neil Duncan-Jordan) about the danger of exploitation of some people on the skilled visa route. I have seen appalling situations, including people working in the care industry who are being forced into doing, in effect, 70 or 75-hour shifts over the course of a week, and being told, “If you’re not willing to do it, we’ll scrap the basis on which you’ve come here and you’ll lose your right to be in the UK.” We need to make sure that those people, who are making an important contribution, are properly protected.

I support what the Government are doing in trying to tighten up our immigration rules, but I also hope that at the end of the consultation they will support what the people who signed the petitions have asked for.

--- Later in debate ---

[Katie Lam]

Our suggested reforms do not apply to Hong Kong BNO visa holders. That is a specific route set up for extraordinary purposes. We believe it should be viewed and treated differently.

Implementing our policies in full would save the British taxpayer hundreds of billions of pounds. It would relieve pressure on our already stretched public services and lay the foundations for an immigration system that genuinely works in the national interest. More than that, it would give effect to the democratic wishes of the British people by reversing a costly disaster that nobody voted for and that most people now acknowledge was a catastrophic mistake. I urge the Government in the strongest possible terms to commit to implement the changes that we have repeatedly proposed, including by applying any changes to ILR to those who are already here.

A five-year visa does not confer a right to apply to settle here indefinitely. Those who come here must make a genuine and sustained contribution to our country, and unfortunately most of those who have come on the skilled worker route in recent years are unlikely to do so. If, as the Prime Minister says, our “open borders experiment” has been a mistake, why should British taxpayers be saddled with the cost of that mistake for the rest of their lives?

Finally, although I do not agree with the argument made by the petition on skilled worker visas, I believe that that process should be subject to an open and frank public debate.

[Mr Perkins]

Will the hon. Member give way?

[Katie Lam]

I am closing; I apologise.

Will the Minister confirm that applying any changed rules to those already here will be within the scope of the Government’s planned consultation on ILR? Will he commit to ensuring that that consultation is open to responses from members of the public?

--- Later in debate ---

[The Minister of State, Home Department (Alex Norris)]

It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Mr Pritchard. I express my sincere gratitude for all the kind words from colleagues on this, my first day in the Home Office. What a welcoming party they have proffered me. I greatly enjoyed it.

I also express my gratitude to my hon. Friend the Member for South Norfolk (Ben Goldsborough). Being on the Petitions Committee in this place is a very special and difficult role because, of course, he started the debate not only in the spirit of things that he knows and feels, but by giving voice to the many hundreds of thousands of people who signed that petition and earned the right to have their issue debated in Parliament by their representatives. To the British public, that is very profound connection. He made an effort not just in preparing his speech—the words on the piece of paper—but in engaging with people to ensure that they can hear their voice in this debate. They very much will have, so I commend him for the spirit in which he did that.

Both petitions relate to the earned settlement proposals set out in the immigration White Paper, which the previous Home Secretary, my right hon. Friend the Member for Pontefract, Castleford and Knottingley (Yvette Cooper), introduced in Parliament on 12 May, so I will keep my remarks within the spirit of those two petitions. The proposals in the White Paper more generally are important changes, and we have seen, from the strength of feeling from colleagues in Westminster Hall today, just how important they are to them and their constituents.

That is why we are taking the approach we are taking. We want to listen to what people are telling us about this issue. That is why we have committed to a consultation. I can say to colleagues that the consultation is coming later this year, and that we will make the final decisions and provide details of how the scheme will work after that consultation. I apologise in advance that, for many of the issues that have been raised, I have to say that they will be subject to consultation, but that is the right way to ensure that we get to the right position.

[Mr Perkins]

The Minister is absolutely right that we are all here to respond to petitions that hundreds of thousands of people have signed. Does he think, as I do, that given the huge public interest in this matter, it is absolutely extraordinary that one person has turned up to speak from the main Opposition party, and that that person, the shadow Minister—the hon. Member for Weald of Kent (Katie Lam)—barely talked about the items raised by the petitioners? Does it not say absolutely everything about the modern Conservative party that they do not think today’s debate is even worth turning up for?