Burnham declines to say net migration still too high as Mahmood prepares to unveil tougher settlement rules – UK politics live

Chris Philp, the shadow home secretary, is already ridiculing the indefinite leave to remain (ILR) announcement coming this afternoon. In a post on social media, he claimed that she was surrendering to “the open-borders Labour left”.

Later today the government will announce their u-turn on ILR, or Indefinite Leave to Remain.

It’s clear Shabana Mahmood has been forced to surrender to Angela Rayner and the open-borders Labour left. She will now allow hundreds of thousands of low-wage and no-wage migrants to stay in the UK forever and claim benefits.

By Mahmood’s own admission in a speech this March, letting low wage care workers alone stay forever will cost taxpayers £۱۰ billion and be an “affront”. Now it looks like she’s about to do exactly that. After talking tough all year, Mahmood appears to have capitulated control of immigration policy to Angela Rayner – and Mahmood’s position is looking increasingly untenable

The Conservative plan is a ten year route to ILR, only for high wage workers. No more low wage workers should be allowed in, and those already here should be required to leave when their temporary work visa expires

Nigel Farage, whose Reform UK party wants to get rid of ILR completely, has made a similar argument in his own social media post.

The Labour Party is at war with itself over Indefinite Leave to Remain (ILR), with Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood losing a fight to the far left of her own party. Tomorrow, she’s expected to cave on plans to even tinker with the ILR numbers. Angela Rayner emerges victorious, with her defence of the Tory-era policies hinging on “fair play” towards foreign nationals.

But what about fair play towards the British public? Doesn’t that count for anything anymore? Villages, towns, suburbs, and cities have to deal with the weight and strain of all this. Not only are ordinary Brits never consulted, but this current cabinet doesn’t even have an electoral mandate. It is rightly infuriating to most people who increasingly want net negative migration into Britain.

Shabana Mahmood, the home secretary, is due to meet some union leaders today to discuss with them her plans for indefinite leave to remain. Andrea Egan, who as Unison general secretary has many members working in the care sector, has been particularly critical of the original proposal to make foreign care workers wait ۱۵ years for ILR. Recently she condemned Mahmood for refusing to let her bring a care worker to a meeting they were due to have about the plans.

That care worker was a Nigerian called Kolade. Aamna Mohdin has interviewed him, and he explained what he wanted to tell Mahmood.

For Kolade, the row encapsulates what he believes is missing from the immigration debate: the voices of those whose lives could be upended by its policies. He has watched politicians dismiss care work as low-skilled and portray migrant workers as a burden on the British economy.

“I was just going to tell her that is not correct,” he said. “We are not a burden to the British state. We are also contributing as much as we can, supporting British families.

“She talked about fairness to the British people. I was going to tell her that caring for British families is our own little way to show that we are contributing, and that we have earned our rights to stay in this country, a place we’re currently calling home.”

Here is Aamna’s article in full.

Good morning. Often these days, when the government has a big announcement and just before the relevant minister starts to give the details in a statement to MPs, Lindsay Hoyle, the Commons speaker, erupts with fury and rants and raves at the Treasury bench about how all the main points have already been leaked to the media, in contravention of the ministerial code.

Not today. Shabana Mahmood, the home secretary, will this afternoon unveil the final version of her plans to make foreign workers wait longer before they can apply for indefinite leave to remain, and we know relatively little about what she will say. The original plans were unveiled last November and they would require most workers to wait ۱۰ years, not five, for ILR, with care workers having to wait ۱۵ years. They would also apply to foreign workers already here, not just new arrivals. These proposals were hugely controversial, and Andy Burnham himself was among the ministers arguing that care workers should be treated more kindly.

As Jessica Elgot and Chris Osuh report in our overnight story, there has been some sort of climbdown in relation to care workers.

But it also seems to be the case that the broad thrust of the plan is being retained and that ILR rules are being toughened in a way that will affect hundreds of thousands of people.

The detail, which is coming after ۳.۳۰pm, will be crucial; so will the reaction of Labour MPs. When Mahmood announced these plans last autumn, some government backbenchers were horrified. But mostly public condemnation was muted. At the time Reform UK had a lead of more than ۱۰ points over Labour in the polls and Mahmood – who was arguing that net migration was too high and that low-skilled foreign workers ended up being a burden on the taxpayer (a key Reform UK claim, although one contested by experts) – was pushing at an open door.

Now the situation is very different. The electoral threat from Nigel Farage has receded quite a lot. And net migration is falling like a stone. Here are the figures from last week’s OBR report.

To implement the ILR changes, Mahmood does not need primary legislation and that means there will be no chance for potential Labour rebels to amend the plans in the Commons. But it has been reported that more than ۱۰۰ MPs are queasy about what is being planned.

And Andy Burnham himself has accepted that the context has changed. We won’t hear from him until much later, because he is spending most of the day on a flight to the Commonwealth summit. But, in an interview for an ITV documentary being broadcast tomorrow, he declined to say that net migration was too high. When Keir Starmer was PM, he regularly did say this, and that he wanted immigration to fall “significantly”. Burnham told ITV small boat crossing numbers were “too high, for certain”. However, asked about legal migration, he replied:

It’s come right down. And I think when you have planned migration, it’s difficult to say is it too high or too low, because it’s got to be, if you like, following gaps in the economy.

Burnham said legal migration had “come right down”. He declined to be drawn on whether it had to come down further.

This means that Mahmood will today be defending plans drawn up in response to a problem that some might argue no longer exists. However, speaking in the Commons last November, Mahmood argued she had to do something about the “so-called Boriswave, specifically the cohort of lower-qualified workers who – along with their dependants – entered the country through the health and care visa” because some of them were “never expected to be net economic contributors”, making “more stringent” controls needed.

Here is the agenda for the day.

۱۱.۳۰am: Downing Street holds a lobby briefing.

۱۲.۳۰pm: Danny Kruger, Reform UK’s head of government preparations, gives a speech to the Policy Exchange thinktank.

۲.۳۰pm: Angela Rayner, the housing secretary, takes questions in the Commons.

After ۳.۳۰pm: Shabana Mahmood, the home secretary, gives her statement on the changes to indefinite leave to remain rules.

Evening: Andy Burnham arrives in Antigua for the Commonwealth summit.

Also, at some point today Labour will give an update on how many power-sharing agreements at council level with Greens will continue, in the light of Labour HQ saying recently Labour councillors should only continue to work with local Green parties willing to disown the “Zionism is racism” motion passed at the Green conference.

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