Migration: Settlement Pathway

Vikki Slade Excerpts

Thursday 20th November 2025 Commons Chamber

[Shabana Mahmood]

I hope my hon. Friend will reflect on how I opened my statement today and how I closed it. I see the benefits of migration. I would not be here if this country had not welcomed my parents. It is literally the story of my life and how I have managed to get from there to this Dispatch Box today, so I very much feel those benefits personally. I will always speak up for them—as I have done today, as I did on Monday and as I will always do—as I make the case out there in the country for the need for these reforms. I hope that he and others will always support me on that—I know they will. I have also made clear that we will always offer sanctuary. I want us to be a country that offers sanctuary to those who are in need. That is why it is so crucial that we get order and control back into our asylum system and open up new safe and legal routes. It is important that today I have confirmed that those safe and legal routes will have the earlier 10-year path to settlement. That is what will enable the integration we all want to see.

[Vikki Slade (Mid Dorset and North Poole) (LD)]

In the summer, I spent the morning with Anushka, a senior social care worker in Wimborne. She and her colleagues earn more than the earnings threshold and came here with their families on the understanding that they could make a new life here, contributing to society and paying their taxes. The recent hostile narrative is making her and others consider leaving for places such as New Zealand and Australia. Will the Home Secretary confirm whether Anushka and her colleagues, doing jobs that cannot be filled by British workers who will not do the work, will be considered public sector workers?

[Shabana Mahmood]

These will be matters for the consultation and I encourage the hon. Lady to engage with it. We have put in an element around public service, because we recognise the specific contributions made by those who fill the gaps in our labour market that we are not otherwise able to fill. On the general principle, I would say to her that settlement is not a right and that it is absolutely fair for a Government to say that it has to be earned. It is not unusual for countries to change their settlement requirements. That is quite normal. It happens all over the world, as British citizens who work abroad know all too well. The proposal to go from five years to 10 years will not change, but all the other measures I have set out today are subject to consultation. I encourage her to engage with that.