Cabinet Minister Refuses 7 Times To Back Mahmood's Immigration Crackdown In Toe-Curling Exchange

A cabinet minister refused seven times to back Shabana Mahmood’s immigration crackdown in an awkward interview this morning.

The home secretary’s reforms will increase the timeline for permanent residence in the UK from five years to 15 years for foreign social care workers and will apply to all immigrants who have come to this country since 2021.

Energy secretary Miatta Fahnbulleh has criticised the plans in a post on her website, saying she would prefer to “see a system based on control and compassion with a much stronger focus on integration”.

Fahnbulleh was asked directly on Sky News’s Mornings with Ridge and Frost if she supported the home secretary’s plans, only to dodge the question repeatedly.

The cabinet minister said: “I support reforms that say that people have to contribute and make a contribution to this country, in order to get citizenship.

“We are consulting on the package of reforms that we’ll put forward and the home secretary, as you can imagine, having looked at all the responses, will set out what the final position is.”

Presenter Sophy Ridge replied: “Do you support the plans or not? It’s my fourth time asking. Normally I hate these things where you ask the same question over again.”

The cabinet minister said she “absolutely supports the plan to reform” the “broken” immigration system.

But Ridge hit back by asking again if she backs the plans for people to live in the UK for 15 years before getting permanent residency.

Fahnbulleh just repeated that the home secretary was “consulting”, adding: “I 100% back Shabana Mahmood and everything she is trying to do, but there is a package of reforms.”

Ridge then suggested for the seventh time that the minister does not support the reforms, to which Fahnbulleh said: “Don’t put words in my mouth.”

The minister, who came to the UK as a child refugee from Liberia, has joined Angela Rayner in criticising Mahmood’s plans.

The housing and communities secretary has described the reforms as “un-British”.

“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,” Rayner told The Times.

Mahmood suggested she could water down her plans during her Labour conference speech last month.

She said: “I know that, throughout our consultation process, some have said elements of these reforms are not fair.

“And to that, let me say this: we will come to a position that balances fairness for those who came here legally and fairness to British citizens across this country.”

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