'Another Windrush': Labour MP sounds alarm over Mahmood's new immigration rules

Dianne Abbott has hit out at the Home Secretary’s plans to adjust the timescale for indefinite right to remain in the UK. High-rate tax payers, earning over £50,271 will be able to settle after five years, while those earning less than £50,000 will be placed on the 10-year settlement path. Those working in healthcare and education will also be eligible after five years. Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood arrives for a Cabinet Meeting ahead of the Autumn Budget last weekGettyDianne Abbott, pictured in 2019, has slammed the Home Secretary’s new immigration reformsAFP/GettyMs Abbott, MP for Hackney North and Stoke Newington, slammed Ms Mahmood’s plans, questioning whether the rules are “fair”. She said: “You can come in legally, you can work legally and then have your residency rights turned upside down. How can that be fair?”Ms Abbott warned that Ms Mahmood is “in danger of finding herself in the same position as the home secretary who was in office at the time of the Windrush scandal”The Windrush scandal - which some campaigners have suggested should be called the Home Office scandal - erupted in 2018 when British citizens were wrongly detained, deported or threatened with deportation despite having the right to live in Britain. The Home Secretary defended her reforms, telling MPs on Monday that those who come to the UK must “play their part”. She said settlement decisions are made based on the rules at the time an application is made, rather than when someone enters the country. Read MoreShe added: “I’ve seen a number of people try to suggest that these changes to settlement are akin to what we saw during the Windrush scandal.“Again, respectfully, I do disagree with her on that.“The issue relating to the people that were caught up in the Windrush scandal was a scandal precisely because the country already had obligations to those individuals that related to their right to be in this country and failed to honour the obligation that we already had.“That is different to workers arriving in this country on temporary work visas and the rules that apply to them for settlement itself.”Shabana Mahmood announces her plans in the House of Commons on MondayPALabour MP Stella Creasy asked whether the increased wait time for those earning less than £50,000 would have a positive or negative impact on our economy.The Walthamstow MP said: “There are still around 200,000 people who do not earn more than £50,000 but are in work, who do not have a British spouse or connection and are not working in the care sector or public sector – for example, scientists, researchers, skilled technologists – who will now face a 10-year wait to get settlement in this country.”Ms Mahmood replied: “I do expect there to be economic benefits, not least the billions saved to DWP (Department for Work and Pensions) from people waiting longer before they are able to access benefits.”Neil Duncan-Jordan, the Labour MP for Poole, asked how the Government will “assess whether a lawyer”, earning more than £50,000, “offers more value to our society than a teaching assistant”.Teaching assistants will have a five-year route to indefinite leave to remain because they are in the “health and education” bracket, the Home Secretary replied.Rachael Maskell, the Labour MP for York Central, warned that migrants are in the UK at a time when “skills and contribution do not correlate with wages”.She said: “I am concerned about retrospective changes because our word should be our bond to people coming here.”Green Party MP Hannah Spencer (Gorton and Denton) argued the changes “amount to an attack on lower-paid workers”, adding: “Does the Home Secretary agree that her changes send a clear message to people who’ve come here or people who are born here that they are worth less if they don’t earn enough?”Ms Mahmood said she “rejected that entirely”.“The highest earners, of course, pay the highest in tax, and it is our taxpayers’ money that funds the public services that we all rely upon,” she added.Labour former minister Mike Tapp pressed Ms Mahmood to “seriously consider looking at an umbrella sponsor system” as he pointed to the poor working conditions some face in the care sector.She replied: “The immigration system will reflect any changes made to improve standards in the care sector, and that we will follow those changes.“It would be inappropriate for us as an immigration department to change licence routes ourselves without the wider work that is required to improve the functioning of the care sector, which the Health Secretary is undertaking.”Elsewhere, Conservative former minister Sir Edward Leigh said any Tories who served as Home Office ministers during the so-called Boriswave “should wear sackcloth and ashes”.In the House of Lords, shadow Home Office minister Lord Davies of Gower questioned whether the Government consultation responses on its plans to reform the immigration system were representative of public opinion.He told peers: “73% of respondents were current visa holders, and yet the Government seems to have taken their opinions to be representative of the entire country.“Well, of course people who are not British citizens would have negative views of the Government’s original policy because they are the beneficiaries of the current regime.“Unfortunately, we are now in a situation where our country’s immigration policy is being decided based on the views of those who are not even British citizens.”