James Naish

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Sir Jeremy, and to speak as the Member of Parliament for Rushcliffe, which is proudly home to more than 2,000 Hongkongers who have arrived under the BNO visa scheme. That is what I would like to focus on today. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for South Norfolk (Ben Goldsborough) for opening the debate. I also welcome my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham North and Kimberley (Alex Norris) to his place as Minister of State at the Home Office, and thank him for joining us on his first working day in office. I am here this afternoon to make a simple, principled case. The five-year pathway to settlement for BNO Hongkongers must be retained. This is about trust as much as law—about keeping our promises and the faith of the people who place their future in our hands. The BNO visa route was created as a humanitarian lifeline in response to Beijing’s horrific national security law. The route is grounded in our legal, moral and historical responsibilities under the Sino-British joint declaration. It is not an economic channel, but a bespoke, safe and legal route for British nationals and their relatives fleeing repression in a former British territory where the rule of law and human rights have been ruthlessly eroded. That is why there has been rare, enduring cross-party support for the scheme since day one, and why any attempt to move the goalposts now would cut against the very reason the route exists. Hongkongers uprooted their families on the explicit promise of a five-year pathway to indefinite leave to remain, plus one year to citizenship. To lengthen the timeline mid-journey would be seen as a breach of trust and would shake confidence in the UK’s credibility far beyond the BNO community. The numbers tell their own story, with almost 200,000 BNO Hongkongers now living in the UK. Crucially, the overwhelming majority came in the first two years after launch, and BNO grants now account for about 1% of total visas. We must appreciate that today’s debate is not about headline immigration numbers but about the welfare of a community that is already here. In Rushcliffe, as I mentioned, more than 2,000 Hongkongers are already on their five-year pathway to ILR. The impact will be on them. Shifting the rules would hand Beijing and its regime in Hong Kong a propaganda gift: “You trusted Britain, yet Britain broke the deal.” We cannot allow that narrative to stand, which is why the Government must keep their promises. Extending settlement to 10 years would force a decade-long wait for home fee status for BNO students, pricing out the vast majority of BNOs currently studying for their A-levels at schools in my constituency from starting university until their mid-20s. It would also delay access to an estimated £3 billion in Hong Kong pension savings that can be released only once ILR is granted.