Statement ← Statements / Immigration: Earned Settlement

Question

Asked by Ms Diane Abbott to the Home Department on 02 November 2026 — tabled under the Andy Burnham government

It is extraordinary that the Opposition see migration issues as some kind of political football. We are talking about people’s lives, and whatever idea one has about policy and programmes, I think people’s lives deserve more seriousness. It is right that care workers are exempted from the new arrangements for ILR, but for the rest of the workforce, the retrospective nature of those new arrangements still seems unfair. People can come in legally and work legally, and then have their residency rights turned upside down. How can that be fair? May I ask the Home Secretary whether she has read the 276-page “lessons learned review” on the Windrush scandal, published by the Home Office in 2018? If she had read it, she would realise that she is in danger of finding herself in the same position as Home Secretaries who were in office at the time of that scandal. I have heard Members of this House talk about people coming here just to claim welfare. I have heard Members of this House say that people are not making a contribution. I have heard Members of this House say that we have to look at the rights of British nationals as opposed to migrants, as if many British nationals were not themselves immigrants. My parents were immigrants. My mother was a nurse. She was one of that generation who came to this country to build the NHS after the war, and it remains the case that immigrants play a very important role in our NHS. I say to the Home Secretary, and I say to the House, that we should always remember the contribution that immigrants made and continue to make to our society.

Answer

Answered by Shabana Mahmood (Labour)

I agree with my right hon. Friend about the contribution made by immigrants. As she knows, and as I said in my statement, I too was a child of migrants, and that experience informs the way in which I think about policy and how to strike the right balance between all the different communities in our country, which is what I have sought to do. As for indefinite leave to remain and what she calls the “retrospective nature” of the changes, she will know that I do not agree with that characterisation. Any Government must be able to make changes in immigration rules to reflect things that are happening, to reflect abuses that we can see in the system, and must also be able to make additional changes based on assessment of numbers and costs. As I said in my statement, that has always been the case. These matters have been litigated before in our courts, and the courts have upheld the principle that the rules that apply to settlement applications are those that apply at the point of application and decision, not the point at which a person entered the country. That is an important principle that will be upheld, and is upheld by the changes that we are making. I have heard a number of people try to suggest that these settlement changes are akin to what we saw during the Windrush scandal. Again, respectfully, I disagree with my right hon. Friend on that. The issue relating to the people who were caught up in the Windrush scandal made it a scandal precisely because the country already had obligations to those people relating to their right to be in this country, and failed to honour the obligation that we already had. That is different from the position of workers arriving in this country on temporary work visas, and the rules that apply to them for settlement itself. The two are not the same. Let me, however, assure my right hon. Friend that I will always be mindful of the lessons that were revealed during the Windrush scandal, and I will make sure that those lessons are learnt.

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