In a Today programme interview broadcast this morning at 8.10am, Shabana Mahmood, the home secretary, ended by saying this about her plans to tighten the rules that determine when foreign workers and their dependants can get settlement. As a result of these changes, roughly half a million people who were going to settle at five years are not now going to settle. So on any measure, these are still very significant changes.
She is right, as Libby Brooks explains in her First Edition briefing on the story this morning. But that does not mean it has not been awkward for Mahmood, who recorded the Today interview, and other interviews, last night. Although her plans amount to a very significant tightening of the indefinite leave to remain (ILR) rules, they are notably less strict than the version she announced last November, which is why they are reasonably being described as a U-turn.
In her interviews she had to make two significant concessions. Mahmood appeared to accept that her U-turn could cost billions. She insisted that, compared with doing nothing, her plans will lead to significant savings.
But she would not dispute claims that the savings would have been far higher if she had stuck to the 2025 plans. When the BBC’s Iain Watson put it to her that the concessions would in effect cost about £7.5bn, Mahmood just said an impact assessment would be published in due course. Mahmood refused to deny that she was in effect ordered to change her plans by Andy Burnham.
I will post more from these interviews soon. Mahmood was also quite interesting on freedom of movement, an issue which has been yanked into the headlines again by an interview that Burnham gave to ITV for a documentary being broadcast tonight. Burnham said: I have not proposed freedom of movement coming back.
I do believe that we should have an honest discussion with people about how immigration has changed since the Brexit vote because the shorter-term migration of people coming from Europe and then going back has been replaced with long-term settlement in bigger numbers, and that was the Boriswave … I think public opinion has changed nationally. But I want to be really clear on this issue. I will not run ahead of public opinion.
Extract — continue reading at the source.
