Migration: Settlement Pathway

Julian Lewis Excerpts

Thursday 20th November 2025 Commons Chamber

[Shabana Mahmood]

Nothing I have said today changes the position of those who have come to this country on the Ukrainian scheme. That is a bespoke scheme for the people who have arrived here from Ukraine. In fact, it is seen not as a refugee route, but as a temporary scheme. All its provisions were supported by us in opposition, and they continue to be supported by us in government. Nothing in the position of Ukrainians in this country will change as a result of anything in the asylum policy statement or today’s Command Paper.

[Sir Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)]

As the descendant of immigrant grandparents, I have a high degree of empathy with the Home Secretary’s opening remarks about her own family. Does she agree that the reason that both main parties are facing the possibility of an electoral bloodbath is not so much the overall level of immigration, but the fraction of it—still a very large number of people—who come to this country on small boats and by other illegal means? We do not know what they believe, we do not know what values they have, and because in many cases they destroy their documents, we do not even know who they are. Can she explain how the measures she has outlined today will have an impact on deterring that sort of person from breaking into our country?

[Shabana Mahmood]

I have acknowledged that the way the system is working—or, more appropriately, not working—is causing deep unease across the country, including in my constituency and among people who are of immigrant backgrounds themselves, because of a sense of unfairness. A lot of people in my constituency regularly report overstaying to me, which they see as an abuse of visas and as a particular problem, while others are more concerned about the small boats. I acknowledge that those concerns are legitimate, real and felt deeply across the country. That is why I think it is so important that we rebuild public trust in the overall system by dealing with both illegal migration and legal migration, based on the principles of fairness and contribution, and give the public confidence that the rules we have can be maintained, enforced and followed properly.

The right hon. Gentleman is right that the destruction of documents and the other ways in which people seek to frustrate our ability to remove them from this country is driving some of the discontent. That is why the reforms I set out in the asylum policy statement are designed to say to those making the calculation in the north of France, “Don’t get on a boat. It’s not worth it. That is not the way to come to this country.” As we build safe and legal routes to this country—which will clearly be a much more privileged way of entering, with a faster path to settlement at 10 years, as I have said—the reforms will show very clearly to people making that calculation which path is worth it and which one is not.