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Angela Rayner has hit out at Shabana Mahmood’s plans to make it harder for migrant workers to claim settled status in the UK, warning it would “change the goalposts”.
In an interview with The Times on the eve of Labour’s party conference in Liverpool, the communities secretary and former deputy prime minister stood by her previous description of the home secretary’s plans as “un-British”.
The reforms will increase the timeline for permanent residence from five years to 15 years for foreign social care workers, and will apply to all those who have come to the UK since 2021.
The plans are also opposed by other figures across Labour, and could be the source of a row among its ranks at its conference, which begins in earnest in the prime minister’s native Merseyside on Sunday.
Asked whether she had raised the issue with Ms Mahmood, Ms Rayner, who stood down from government in 2025 before being reappointed by Andy Burnham, told The Times: “I think Shabana knows. It was in the newspaper at the time. I have not changed my view on that.”
“Especially in regards to the carers, who were asked to come to this country to care for some of our most vulnerable and then we changed the goalposts years down the line, I think that’s very disruptive.
“I do have concerns about that … when you ask someone to come here and look after your most vulnerable and they spend years dedicating themselves, moving their lives here to look after our loved ones.”
However, culture secretary Lisa Nandy said she did not think the planned changes to migration law were “un-British”.
“I don’t think that we’ve ever had an automatic right to citizenship for most people who come to the UK from overseas”, she said.
“The home secretary is trying to “balance the respect and gratitude that we all feel to people who come to this country, who make a contribution” with the need for an immigration system the public can have confidence in, Ms Nandy added.
It comes after another challenging week on the issue of small boats for the Home Office which saw more than 700 people arrive in the UK on Wednesday, and two vessels landing undetected on British shores within two days.
But the overall number of crossings this year (18,609) is down 42 per cent on this time last year (32,188), and 26% below the figure at this stage in 2024 (25,165).
Brexit has hampered the Government’s ability to stop migrants crossing the Channel in inflatable dinghies, Mr Burnham has said.
The prime minister said there has been a “loss of collaboration with neighbours” since the UK left the European Union and that smuggling gangs are changing their methods after another departure from Normandy.
A boat containing 51 migrants spent more than 30 hours at sea this week after setting off from close to the village of Vierville-sur-Mer, west of Bayeux.
Boats rarely set off from so far west in France because of the extra distance to travel across the Channel.
The arrival of small boats has also led to several demonstrations in recent weeks.
Six people were arrested after anti-migrant protesters gathered at a marina in Gosport, Hampshire on Tuesday night. Some of the protesters wore black clothing and face coverings, and chanted “send them back”.
And earlier this month crowds of masked men blocked road access to the port in Dover.
Mr Burnham said turning up to a protest dressed in black and wearing a face covering is “not the British way”.
“I recognise the concern that many people in the public have around immigration. But this is something different”, Mr Burnham told ITV Meridian.
“You don’t take it out on the police. You don’t attack the police. You don’t intimidate the rest of the public.
“If, you know, you are just expressing a concern. This is a different agenda and it needs to be seen as such, and dealt with as such.”
