Shabana Mahmood

Shabana Mahmood

Labour — Birmingham Ladywood

Speaking in the House of Commons on 17 November 2025

Debate

Asylum Policy

Contribution

Let me tell the hon. Lady that I could not care less about what any other political party has to say about these matters. I do not care what other politicians are saying on the television. I do not care what other activists are saying either. I care about the fact that I have an important job to do, and I can see that there is a problem here that needs to be fixed. If there was not a problem, I would not be pretending there was one. There is a genuine problem in the asylum system and we need someone to sort it out, not to pretend that it does not exist, which I am afraid is one of the things that fuels division in the first place. Since I have been Home Secretary, my own constituents have been telling me directly of abuses in the visa system that they can see with their own eyes, long before any officials in Whitehall have ever clocked on to those things. When we see something broken, we have a moral responsibility to fix it and to make sure that the fact that it is broken is not fuelling division in our country. Let me also say to the hon. Lady that it is Green party politicians who are absolute hypocrites, because they talk great language in here and then oppose asylum accommodation in their own constituencies.

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