Speeches by Mahmood.

“What I would say to the hon. Gentleman is what I said in response to a question from another Liberal Democrat earlier today. It would be a pull factor, because we know that the ability to work in this country illegally is already a pull factor, which is why we are clamping down on illegal working—we have seen 11,000 ra…”

“My own parents were migrants to this country in the late ’60s and ’70s. Migration is woven into the story of my family, and those of thousands of people I represent in my constituency of Birmingham Ladywood. I agree with my hon. Friend that ethnic minority Brits are just like every other kind of British: we value fairn…”

“We already do safe country reviews, and we would seek to continue that. Those reviews, and our position on different countries, are publicly available; in fact, most pass through the House, in secondary legislation. I make no apology for a system that will privilege those who come to this country through a safe and leg…”

“Let me tell the hon. Lady that I could not care less about what any other political party has to say about these matters. I do not care what other politicians are saying on the television. I do not care what other activists are saying either. I care about the fact that I have an important job to do, and I can see that …”

“Of course, I will always happily meet my hon. Friend. We made it clear in the asylum policy statement that these measures do not apply to unaccompanied children and other vulnerable groups. We will set out our specific policies in relation to vulnerable groups, including unaccompanied children, separately; these measur…”

“If the hon. Gentleman reads the asylum policy statement, he will know that, on age verification, we are pursuing artificial intelligence as a more effective and workable model, unlike that suggested by the Conservative party, which was all about MRI scans and bones. We believe we have a much more effective way of ensur…”

“We are closing that loophole through the Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill, and it is important that colleagues support us when that is debated again on Wednesday. My hon. Friend is absolutely right to say that closing loopholes and ensuring that everyone is subject to a right-to-work check, thereby building…”

“The Government always play their full part in peace processes wherever we can, and we have put our shoulder to the wheel on the delicate diplomatic efforts required to bring conflicts to an end, but that is not relevant to what we are discussing today. We have a broken system today. We have thousands of people stuck in…”

“It is this Government who are exiting hotels. We will do so—it is a manifesto commitment —by the end of the Parliament, and I intend to bring that forward as much as possible. Let me say to the hon. Member that we will always fulfil our international obligations, but I make no apology for wanting to privilege safe and …”

“Not for the first time, I am a little mystified as to what the right hon. Gentleman is talking about. He starts with the global context. I guess my starting point is different from his, because I start with our domestic context first. He ought to know that in this country there have already been bespoke schemes for the…”

“I really caution my hon. Friend not to defend a broken status quo. He should know that it is foreign national offenders who are deported from this country, and I hope he can agree that foreign national offenders should be deported from this country. We should not be keeping convicted criminals in our nation for a day l…”

“I urge the hon. Member to look at the detail of the asylum policy statement, the whole point of which is to deal with the pull factors that we know are drawing people to get on a dangerous boat and cross the channel illegally. The upshot of the reforms will be to deal with those pull factors, and he will know that we h…”

“I encourage my hon. Friend to look at the detail of the asylum policy statement on our intentions for the protection “work and study” route, which in future will be the route by which refugees can contribute and earn their way to settlement in this country. Of course, it is the express intention of this policy statemen…”

“I am sorry, but that is just unserious from the right hon. Lady. I am sorry to find that the Reform party is living rent free in so many people’s heads, but I can assure hon. Members that it is living nowhere near mine. These policy proposals are designed to fix what we all know to be true, which is that we have a brok…”

“I thank my hon. Friend for her question. We will pursue the consultation on measures that require it as quickly as possible, and there will be legislation in the coming months—certainly in the second Session—which we will obviously seek, subject to the agreement of the House, to pass as quickly as possible.”

“I say to Conservative Members that they are going to have to ditch their addiction to Rwanda. The scheme did not work, and nobody in the country supported it. As the hon. Member and Opposition Members well know, when we are negotiating with other countries about possible agreements, the one thing we do not do is public…”

“I thank my hon. Friend for her question. The whole purpose of the new safe and legal routes is that those individuals are accepted as refugees before they enter the United Kingdom. The point is that they never pay thousands of pounds to illegal smugglers along any sort of route on which they may travel. In fact, exactl…”

“We are moving to a system of age verification, based on artificial intelligence modelling, which we believe is effective in verifying someone’s true age. Let me assure my hon. Friend that we will move to consult and legislate on these measures as quickly as possible. I am seized of the need to move quickly to restore p…”

“I thank my hon. Friend for her comments and her question. Let me assure her that I know that the way to build public confidence in the new system is not just to announce the reforms here, but to get on with legislating, and with implementing the reforms, so that her constituents and mine, and people across the country,…”

“I am not going to provide a running commentary on countries. The right hon. Member will know that I referenced Syria specifically in my statement. Many thousands of Syrians were making claims related to the regime that was in place before, during the conflict, but it has fallen and there is a new regime, so we have alr…”