Home secretary: ‘Illegal migration is tearing our country apart’
Mahmood says she is the “child of migrants” and rejects that dealing with illegal migration is engaging with far-right talking points.
“This is a moral mission for me because I can see that illegal migration is tearing our country apart,” she says.
“It is dividing communities, people can see huge pressure in their communities and they can also see a system that is broken and where people are able to flout the rules, abuse the system and get away with it.
“I am not willing to stand by a pretend there isn’t a problem, when I know there is one, and then suggest that any solution to that cannot work because I believe they can.”
She says she knows she has to persuade people across the country, and in parliament, that the government’s reforms can work in this area.
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Updated at 04.47 EST
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Streeting accused of ‘chaotic and incoherent approach’ to NHS reform
Kiran Stacey
Wes Streeting has been accused of taking a “chaotic and incoherent approach” to reforming the NHS, which makes it unlikely the government will hit its own targets, according to a damning report by the Institute for Government (IfG).
The report praises elements of how the health secretary has managed the health service in his first year in office, including improving performance and staff retention in hospitals. Thepay settlement he reached with resident doctors last year avoided a winter plagued by NHS strikes
But it also criticises significant aspects of his performance, including the way he handled the abolition of NHS England and his lack of action to stem the exodus of senior GPs.
The findings threaten to puncture Streeting’s reputation after a turbulent week during which he was forced to deny accusations from allies of Keir Starmer that he was lining up a leadership challenge against the prime minister.
Stuart Hoddinott, the IfG’s associate director and the author of the report, said: “There have been some positive steps: performance is trending slowly upwards in hospitals, there’s been a genuinely large increase in GPs and the rate at which hospital staff are leaving their jobs is the lowest on record outside the pandemic.
“But that has been undermined by a chaotic and incoherent approach to reforming the service. The announcement of NHS England’s abolition was abysmally handled and management cuts in integrated care boards have been a needless distraction.”
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Prime minister Sir Keir Starmer’s first 500 days in office have been “500 days of failure”, the SNP said.
The SNP highlighted issues such as pensioner winter fuel payments, the two-child benefit cap and the proposed “Brit cards”.
SNP Westminster deputy leader Pete Wishart said: “Five hundred days of Starmer has been 500 days of failure.”
He added: “From robbing pensioners of their winter fuel payments or the pledge to cut energy bills by £300, just about every promise the Labour party made has been broken.
“Vicious infighting has plagued Starmer’s first 500 days and caused utter chaos while the public face an economy in decline and a cost-of-living crisis made worse by the Labour party – it’s no wonder they’re languishing in fourth in the polls.”
Wishart continued: “I doubt bookies will give you odds on Starmer surviving another 500 days, but when he goes it’ll just be another instalment in the depressing tale of broken Brexit Britain.
“In May, Scots will have the chance to get rid of Starmer, be free of (Reform UK leader Nigel) Farage and have the chance to build a fresh start with independence – that is the prize and after that first 500 days, it’s no wonder more and more Scots are concluding that’s the way to create a wealthier and happier Scotland.”
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Former deputy prime minister Angela Rayner has refused to rule out a return to frontline politics and called for party unity, condemning recent Labour infighting as “arrogant tittle tattle”.
Speaking to the Daily Mirror during a constituency visit to a care centre, Rayner said recent reports of anonymous briefings and speculation over possible leadership manoeuvring was detached from the issues affecting everyday people.
When quizzed if a return to frontline politics may be on the cards, the former deputy Labour leader told the newspaper she had not “gone away”.
She said: “I’m really humbled and I always have been, the people of Ashton-under-Lyne have always supported me.
“The 10 years that I’ve been in government I’ve had quite a number of front bench positions, and I’ve always brought it back to the people that I was there to represent and having this opportunity now, to be more in the constituency and to champion those views is something that I’m humbled to do and I’m looking forward to the challenge.
“I’ve got a lot of interests like child poverty, the fair pay agreement, and making sure the Employment Rights Bill is carried out in full.”
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Labour ‘fighting like rats in a sack’, Chris Philp says
Just turning back to Philp’s earlier interview with Trevor Phillips on Sky News, he accused Labour of “fighting like rats in a sack”.
He claimed the Tories have moved on from party divisions, adding: “The Labour party are unable to do that. They are fighting like rats in a sack.
“You’ve got Keir Starmer briefing against Wes Streeting. You’ve got Angela Rayner sharpening the knives in the background.
“Goodness knows what Bridget Phillipson and Lucy Powell are both up to.
“Instead of serving the national interest, the Labour government are fighting each other just weeks away from a budget that will unleash enormous tax rises on this country that will drive up unemployment even further.”
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Updated at 05.11 EST
Questioned on the row between Trump and the BBC, Philp says Trump is the “wronged party” and that the BBC should have apologised a lot faster.
However, he adds he does not think licence fee payers’ money should go towards compensation for the US president.
“We all work hard and pay our licence fee, I don’t think sending some of it over to Mar-a-Lago would be a smart thing to do,” he says.
And that concludes the interview.
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Updated at 04.50 EST
Philp: 10,000 people have crossed channel illegally since Mahmood became home secretary
Philp says 10,000 people have crossed the channel illegally in the 75 days since Shabana Mahmood became home secretary.
He says Labour made a “huge mistake” in cancelling the Rwanda scheme with no alternative and says the UK must leave the ECHR.
BBC handout photo of shadow home secretary Chris Philp, appearing on the BBC1 current affairs programme, Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg. Photograph: Jeff Overs/BBC/PAShare
Updated at 04.50 EST
Shadow home secretary Chris Philp has made it across Millbank and is now in the chair with Laura Kuenssberg.
He immediately launches into why the Tories would be “much tougher” on illegal immigration than Labour and repeats that people should be deported within a week of arrival.
“If someone’s come here legally and gets asylum, they could of course apply for a work visa,” he says. “I don’t think providing people with temporary protection should be a permanent right to stay.”
The only thing that will stop people getting on small boats is the knowledge they will be deported within a week, he says.
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Asked about the chaos this week surrounding briefings against cabinet ministers and talk of replacing Keir Starmer as prime minister, the home secretary calls it “unacceptable”.
“One of the difficulties of these sorts of briefings is that is is very difficult to find out exactly who was responsible,” he says.
“But I hope that the individuals who were responsible – who are now feeling the abject humiliation of what has happened – that the humiliation will serve as a reminder that they should not indulge in a repeat performance.”
She says Starmer has made it clear that is was not acceptable.
Mahmood says she will not engage in hypothetical questions about a future run as Labour leader and also refuses to suggest what Starmer should say to US president Donald Trump over the BBC.
“The BBC needs to get its own house in order but its an institution that we absolutely support,” she concludes.
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Home secretary: ‘Illegal migration is tearing our country apart’
Mahmood says she is the “child of migrants” and rejects that dealing with illegal migration is engaging with far-right talking points.
“This is a moral mission for me because I can see that illegal migration is tearing our country apart,” she says.
“It is dividing communities, people can see huge pressure in their communities and they can also see a system that is broken and where people are able to flout the rules, abuse the system and get away with it.
“I am not willing to stand by a pretend there isn’t a problem, when I know there is one, and then suggest that any solution to that cannot work because I believe they can.”
She says she knows she has to persuade people across the country, and in parliament, that the government’s reforms can work in this area.
Share
Updated at 04.47 EST
Mahmood says she has the “misfortune” of looking at the way people smugglers are advertising and selling the “generosity” of Britain and that is driving people to get on small boats.
“It is important that we send a signal,” she says, adding that she was been working with other European countries.
Kuenssberg asks if the govenment cannot bring down the cost of taxis for asylum seekers, how can they be trusted on the wider issue?
Mahmood says she inherited contracts and that she is “furious” about the cost to the taxpayer in relation to taxis. “Give us a little bit of time,” she says.
BBC handout photo of Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood (left) appearing on the BBC1 current affairs programme, Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg. Photograph: Jeff Overs/BBC/PAShare
Updated at 04.51 EST
