Immigration Reforms

Neil Duncan-Jordan Excerpts

Tuesday 17th March 2026 Westminster Hall

[Neil Duncan-Jordan (Poole) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair, Mr Stringer.

I congratulate the hon. Member for Perth and Kinross-shire (Pete Wishart) on securing a very timely debate. In fact, it took only hours after the Home Secretary’s announcement on settlement rights for messages from worried constituents in Poole to start flooding in. One of them, my constituent Olebanjo, put it very powerfully. He said:

“Migrants are not just statistics; we are carers, professionals, volunteers, and parents raising children who already call this country home. We want to belong, to integrate fully, and to continue giving our best to the UK. This proposal would make that harder, not easier.”

I think he is right. The idea that making life harder for people who are already here, working, raising families and contributing somehow improves assimilation or cohesion simply does not make sense at all.

The Government have described settlement as a privilege to be earned, but that ignores the valuable contribution that those workers have already made to our country, the economy and their local communities. In Poole and across the country, our health service relies on thousands of workers from around the world. In social care, the changes risk turning a staffing crisis into a catastrophe. We cannot tackle that problem by punishing the migrant workers caring for our relatives and providing dignity and warmth to our elderly.

The problem, then, is that migrant workers are being made to pay for issues that they did not cause. The outcome will be, I fear, depressingly predictable. When care homes, particularly those outside big cities, struggle to fill vacancies and care worsens as a result, right-wing politicians and their media outriders will not admit that punishing migrant workers has failed; they will double down and the clamour for harsher measures will grow. Our Labour Government must challenge that approach.

[Iqbal Mohamed]

Care workers make an invaluable contribution to our country and the people that they care for. Does the hon. Member agree that illegal care companies that are charging to issue visas to people who then come to this country with no job are—along with those people arriving illegally—demonising the legitimate care workers without whom this country would not function?

[Neil Duncan-Jordan]

I led a debate in this Chamber some months ago on the need for a certificate of common sponsorship, which would make sure that individuals coming over to this country and working in the care sector were not tied to a single employer and could move between employers, giving them the power rather than the employer. I hope that the Government will look very seriously at that point.

It is wrong fundamentally to pull the rug out from people and change the rules halfway through the process. What message does it send about the kind of country we are if our laws and promises hold no meaning and if the British Government can make a deal with someone on a Monday, but by Wednesday, we could have changed our mind? That is part of why these policies have provoked such a reaction: they run against our values. British people believe—and Members across the Chamber have said today—that if a person works hard and plays by the rules, the Government should tread lightly on their life. What someone gets out should be what they put in.

Labour must be clear-eyed about where the real value in our economy lies. It is not with the billionaires and bankers, but with the workers—wherever they come from—who keep this country running every day.

[Several hon. Members rose—]