Jas Athwal

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms Lewell. I thank the Petitions Committee for securing this important debate. I speak today because Ilford South ranks second in the country in terms of the number of residents who signed the petition calling for the five-year ILR route to be maintained. In short, I say: “Don’t change the rules—don’t move the goalposts mid-game.” When I was seven, my parents left the life they knew in the Punjab so that their children might have a better future. Life here was tough. We had to work hard. The values of sacrifice, hard work and contribution are still alive in families across Britain today: families who have come here lawfully and fill vital skills shortages, who give up stability, work hard, pay their taxes and contribute fully to British life. Let us not let them down. I accept the Government’s diagnosis that our immigration system is no longer fit for purpose. It was allowed to fail under a Conservative Government that lost control of the system, left people waiting in limbo and offended our sense of fairness. Now, in government, we must restore order—but restoring order must never mean abandoning fairness. British fairness is clear: when people play by the rules, we honour our side of the bargain. Changing the five-year ILR route retrospectively for those already on that pathway breaks that principle and is wrong. Since the White Paper’s publication I have had countless constituents asking for just one thing: that we do not change the rules for those who have already complied with them. That was the framework they relied on when they uprooted their lives, and changing it after the fact plunges families into uncertainty.