- Migrants will have to contribute to society and their local communities to earn their right to live in Britain for good
- Proposed changes could see “indefinite leave to remain” dependent on paying National Insurance, claiming no benefits, having a clean criminal record, and volunteering in their community. The Government will consult on these changes this year.
- This sets a clear dividing line between the Government and Reform – whose divisive plan for indefinite leave to remain would force those who have lived here for decades to leave the country, breaking up families.
- The Home Secretary will also launch a “Winter of Action” to tackle shoplifting, following intensive police activity and a rise in arrests during the recent “Summer of Action” – delivering the Government’s Plan for Change to make our streets safer.
Today, Monday 29th September, in her first speech to Labour Party Conference as Home Secretary, Shabana Mahmood will announce that legal migrants must contribute to society to earn the right to stay for good.
The Home Secretary has set out a series of conditions for gaining “indefinite leave to remain”, including being in work, making National Insurance contributions, not taking any benefits payments, learning English to a high standard, having a spotless criminal record, and giving back to your local community (e.g. through volunteering). A consultation on these proposals will be launched later this year.
This marks a marked shift from the situation today. Currently, “indefinite leave to remain” is often automatic at five years when basic conditions are met. In the Immigration White Paper, published in May, the Government announced this would be lifted to a baseline of ten years. Settlement must then be earned. Some, based on their contribution or skills, could earn earlier settlement. Others, who have made a lesser contribution, will only earn leave to remain later, or not at all.
These measures draw a clear dividing line between the Labour Government and Reform, whose recent announcement on “indefinite leave to remain” would force workers, who have been contributing to this country for decades, to leave their homes and families.
Also in today’s speech, Shabana Mahmood will launch a new “Winter of Action” to tackle shoplifting and anti-social behaviour during retailer’s busiest weeks of the year. This will see forces across the country working in partnership with local businesses, aiming to reach hundreds of locations.
This follows on the success of the “Summer of Action”, earlier this year, which saw a crackdown on street-level crime in 600 locations across the country. This saw more visible police patrols, more undercover operations, more fines, protective orders and arrests.
This announcement comes midway through Labour’s annual conference, where the government is setting out how it will deliver a programme of national renewal, which will make working people better off.
As the Home Secretary will set out in her speech, Labour is keen to reject the quick fix solutions offered by Reform and the Tories, who want to divide the country and return Britain to the path of decline.
Mahmood will argue her toughness on secure borders, fair migration and safe streets are essential components of an “open, generous, tolerant” country. She will warn party members that “you won’t always like what I do”. But while she will be a “tough home secretary”, she will also be a “tough Labour Home Secretary, fighting for a vision of this country that is distinctly our own.”
She will argue that the last Conservative Government lost control of our borders, ran a failed open border experiment on migration, and left communities feeling unsafe on their own streets.
She will talk of her fear that, as a result, many in this country feels things are “spinning out of control”. She fears “patriotism, a force for good, is turning into something smaller, something more like ethno-nationalism.”
She will pitch her role as part of a fight to “keep the country together”. And she will warn that if the Government does not succeed, “working people will turn away from us – the party that for over a hundred years has been their party – and seek solace in the false promises of Farage.”
In a personal speech, she will touch on her parents’ experience arriving in this country, and why the acceptance of migrants depends on their contribution to local communities. She will talk about her own experiences as the victim of shoplifting, while working behind the till of her family’s corner-shop as a child, and why that inspired her to cracking down on street-level crime.
