Speeches by Mahmood.

“No, I disagree. If you look at our paper on the new proposals for settlement, the intention is to restore the element of contribution at the heart of the system. I think that our country is full of very tolerant and generous people—we are very open—but I think there is a condition to that, which is about contribution. …”

“Well, we should never have been in the position where we were in the contracts in the first place—”

“We have already announced that we want to go from a baseline five-year qualifying period to 10 years, which we are not consulting on. We have a relatively generous welfare state. Five years is actually quite a short period before people can be permanently settled in the country, with all the benefits that brings. It is…”

“I think that asking somebody with commercial experience to look at the actual contracts so that they are able to advise me on that is the right thing to do.”

“Evidence has already been given to the Committee about what was said in front of me on 8 October—”

“You are absolutely right. Obviously, what I want is for as much as you can physically do on site to be done there. As this part of the estate grows, and as we get out of hotels and into more large sites, there will be a rationalisation of what we are able to do. A lot of lessons have been learned, even since Wethersfie…”

“You are only bringing in workers to benefit your economy, right? Of course you would want to look at earnings in that context; I do not think there is anything wrong with that. Successive Governments have made the argument for wanting this country to be able to attract the brightest and the best. It would be odd if we …”

“The consultation asks a very open question about whether the way to manage this part of the problem is to change what is available to you once you get settled status, versus just extending the qualifying period. There are pros and cons to both. On that particular question, the consultation is, and I am personally, very…”

“As I have said already, we have had a very large number of people arrive in the country, much more than were expected, in an unprecedented way. It does demand an answer from the Government because, potentially without any changes, a very large number of people—1.6 million, on our central estimate—would become eligible …”

“I would dispute that net migration is at very low levels. It is still really quite high. It has had a big drop from the very large increases that you saw under the previous Administration, but it is still comfortably over 200,000, which is still quite high on any measure. When I first came into Parliament, back in the …”

“Yes, I do, because we are talking about moving to a system where we are rewarding contribution. You will know that the questions that are open in the consultation refer to the need for transitional arrangements, potentially, for some groups. We will obviously want to consider all the responses properly, but we are not …”

“I am not, as you will know, able to see the papers of the previous Government, so, being in the building now, it is difficult for me to see exactly what was happening under the previous Administration. I would say that the publicly available numbers showed a big increase. As a constituency Member of Parliament, I was s…”

“Well, we are talking about a system of economic migration, so I think it would be odd to say that we are not looking at earnings. You are looking for people to come and work, and the intention is that they can support themselves. You are not looking to bring in people who will ultimately require assistance from the wel…”

“Yes, and I understand that, but I repeat that under the previous Government there was an expected market shortage for social care workers of between 6,000 and 40,000. That is quite a big range, which tells you that there is unreliability in the understanding of exactly what the needs of that part of the workforce are. …”

“We are very committed to opening up new safe and legal routes. We have obviously set out proposals for specific routes for workers and students, and the third part of that is a new community sponsorship model to be able to bring refugees into the country. We are designing and consulting with people as we speak, and we …”

“At the moment, once you are here there are still mandatory requirements to fulfil before you get settlement, but it is much more of an automatic process, I guess. Beyond that, I think it is a year to citizenship after you have settled status. They are quite quick processes actually, but I am not seeking to limit the nu…”

“Yes, it is when you apply.”

“In the consultation, we ask a specific question on transitional arrangements. Obviously, there are going to be knock-on impacts from any of these changes. On the mandatory economic contribution, we are looking at just the threshold for paying national insurance contributions: it is quite low, actually. One of the criti…”

“The initial proposal is based on individual contribution being the means by which you earn settlement in the country, and that proposal is being consulted on. We are very aware that there will be knock-on consequences for those who, as an individual, cannot meet the test that we are proposing. Again, we have received m…”

“I am confident that the measures that we have announced will have an impact and start to bring numbers down. I cannot give you a timeline of exactly when all of that will happen, partly because we have to pass legislation. That all necessarily takes time. We are obviously dealing with counterparts in other countries an…”