Business of the House

Liz Saville Roberts Excerpts

Thursday 17th July 2025 Commons Chamber

[Lucy Powell]

I will certainly join my hon. Friend in wishing all the young people and children finishing school this week in her constituency and elsewhere a full and happy summer, which I hope they will get. She rightly raises the issue of children’s mental health. She will know that we inherited a dire situation, especially post covid, and that a whole generation of our children have been let down on mental health support. We are determined to put that right; it is a priority for this Government. That is why we are putting in specialist mental health professionals in every school and ensuring support for a million more children this year. We will be doing a lot more to tackle this issue in coming months.

[Liz Saville Roberts (Dwyfor Meirionnydd) (PC)]

I refer the House to my registered interest as co-chair of the justice unions parliamentary group. Substantial changes to skilled worker visa thresholds will automatically come into effect on 22 July under a procedural anomaly that permits no opportunity for debate. Trade unions have warned that thousands of the UK Government’s own staff could face deportation because their pay will now be too low. That includes prison officers, whose going rate appears to fall short by at least £3,000. I note my early-day motion 1686, which I tabled against the statement of changes.

[That the Statement of Changes in Immigration Rules, HC 997, a copy of which was laid before this House on 1 July, be disapproved.]

Will the Leader of the House grant a debate in Government time to scrutinise those decisions? Otherwise, how will that scrutiny be done?

[Lucy Powell]

These issues are laid before the House and scrutinised by the House, but I will ensure that the relevant Minister responds to the right hon. Lady. We have had to get net migration down from record levels of nearly a million a year over the last year of the previous Conservative Government, which was unacceptably high and put pressure on our housing and services. That is why we have had to look at the appropriate levels of pay and income and the skills that this country needs in order to ensure we are giving skilled worker visas to people in the areas we need and not giving visas where British workers could fill those roles.