Shabana Mahmood

I tell you what is an affront, Mr Speaker, and that is the shadow Home Secretary’s response. He might have amnesia, but given the muted response from those on his Back Benches, they clearly still remember what happened on their watch when they were in government, as does the country. When he was immigration Minister, it was his Government who ran around the country signing up people to become sponsors of foreign workers. He might have complaints about the companies on the register, but it was his Government who signed them up. Perhaps an apology for that would have been appropriate. His Government were responsible for a number of arrivals in four years that we had previously seen in four decades. Before he starts trying to lecture anybody about being tough on immigration, perhaps an apology for his Government’s abject track record would be appropriate. It is this Government who have cut net migration by 82%, and it is this Government, with me as Home Secretary, who have found a fair solution to the mess left behind by the shadow Home Secretary and his colleagues. He talks about the cost of those who will be settling. If he had been paying attention to my fair solution and the detail in the response to the consultation document, he would know that the cohort most likely to impose a cost will now, as a result of my measures, wait longer for settlement. That is why the DWP says that these measures will save billions in the benefits bill. Half a million people will settle later as a result of these reforms. That is a fair solution to the mess I inherited from the Conservatives. The shadow Home Secretary talked about the arrangements for those workers on low pay who were allowed by previous Conservative Governments to extend their visas up to 2030. That was in order to allow them to attain settlement in 2030. To honour the promise made by the previous Government, I have extended that period to 2035, reflecting the changes in the earned settlement consultation. Again, that is a fair solution, honouring promises made previously—there are also exceptional cohorts and exceptional circumstances—in order to clean up the mess left behind by the Conservatives. I could answer more detailed questions, but apart from political rhetoric, the shadow Home Secretary had nothing else to say, so I have nothing more to say to him.