Andy Burnham calls on Labour to rethink plans to make it tougher for asylum seekers to settle permanently – UK politics live

The home secretary’s plans ‘may leave people in a sense of limbo and unable to integrate’, Burnham said

Good morning. On Monday Shabana Mahmood, the home secretary, announced drastic changes to the asylum system. Today, in a statement to MPs, she will announce changes to the legal migration rules – in particular those affecting how long people have to wait until they are given a permanent right to stay in the UK.

Mahmood was strongly criticised by the Commons speaker over the amount of pre-briefing there was ahead of Monday’s announcement, and this morning the Home Office has been more tight-lipped. But the Times reports that Mahmood is expected to announce “that migrants would usually be allowed to apply for indefinite leave to remain only after ten years — double the five years at present — and must meet certain conditions such as speaking English to A-level standard, having a clean criminal record and not claiming benefits”.

I agree that Shabana Mahmood is right to grasp this nettle and have root and branch reform of the system. I agree with that.

But I do have a concern about leaving people without the ability to settle, one of the concerns being that if there’s a need to constantly check up on the status of countries where people have come from, that might limit the ability of the Home Office to deal with the backlog. And it also may leave people in a sense of limbo and unable to integrate.

I’m not going to say that the home secretary is wrong to call for this level of change.

What I would say is it’s really important, on the back of the measures that she’s announced, that there is a considered debate, time is taken to see if consensus can be built around it. Because that would be hugely valuable to the country if that could be secured.

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Source: www.theguardian.com

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