Some MPs and charities believe Shabana Mahmood’s immigration bill is too draconian. Photograph: Wiktor Szymanowicz/Future Publishing/Getty ImagesView image in fullscreenSome MPs and charities believe Shabana Mahmood’s immigration bill is too draconian. Photograph: Wiktor Szymanowicz/Future Publishing/Getty ImagesMahmood outlines safe immigration routes plan to win over Labour leftHome secretary speeds up major part of bill governing asylum and refugees as new prime minister set to take over
Shabana Mahmood will seek to shore up support for her controversial immigration bill on the progressive left of Labour, as she sets out plans to speed up the opening of new safe and legal routes that will permit thousands of refugees to come to the UK.
The home secretary, who is the leading contender to stay in her job if Andy Burnham becomes prime minister, will next week introduce the legislation, which will also set new limits on immigration claims on human rights grounds and under modern slavery law.
Burnham has been under pressure to clarify his stance on Mahmood’s immigration policies, amid unhappiness among some Labour MPs and charities who believe the restrictions on asylum claims are too draconian.
Alf Dubs, the Labour peer, called on Friday for Burnham to move Mahmood out of the Home Office and for her asylum policies of “performative cruelty” to be ripped up.
The veteran Labour peer, who came to the UK aged six in 1939 fleeing the persecution of Jews in Nazi-occupied Czechoslovakia, said the home secretary’s talents “would be better used elsewhere in the cabinet”.
“This is Labour’s reset moment when we can consign to the past some of the appalling language used by politicians to describe refugees: ‘invaders’, ‘an island of strangers’, ‘tearing our country apart’,” he said.
With Burnham set to take over in No 10 next month, Mahmood has been attempting to soften some of her hardline plans including reassessing separate proposals to make migrants wait 10 years instead of five for indefinite leave to remain.
She has also been involved in talks to exempt care workers from the changes and was embroiled in a row on Friday with Keir Starmer over the future of the immigration minister Mike Tapp, who is accused of briefing the Times on the proposals and passing off the plans as his own. Mahmood asked for Tapp – a Starmer loyalist – to be sacked, but No 10 declined.
Sources in Burnham’s camp said Mahmood is most likely to stay in the Home Office but cabinet jobs are yet to be nailed down. The broad thrust of the home secretary’s immigration plans are backed by Burnham, although he has previously suggested he has reservations about the indefinite leave to remain changes applying to migrants already in the UK.
He is understood to have agreed that the new immigration bill should be introduced as planned on Tuesday, even though he is not expected to be installed as prime minister until 20 July.
The bill is due to be introduced within days and will include two safe and legal routes for refugees to open from the autumn – one sponsorship scheme allowing community groups to identify refugees to support and another university student scheme – with applications taking place within months and refugees arriving next year. A third scheme will allow employers to sponsor refugees from next year.
Mahmood has previously said the new safe and legal routes will allow hundreds of refugees a year to come to the UK and a Labour source said the aim was for it to reach thousands a year.
A similar scheme in Canada on which the community sponsorship is based has allowed 400,000 refugees to enter the country since 1979.
Analysis of the latest immigration statistics shows a 50% drop in refugees arriving on safe and legal routes in Q1 2026 compared with Q1 2025. Just over 3,600 people were granted protection through resettlement schemes or family reunification.
In the UK, refugee family reunion – which allows family members to reunite with loved ones – was paused by Mahmood in September 2025 and was expected to reopen in spring 2026. Currently, there is no date for when applications will reopen.
Critics point out that families fleeing war and persecution have almost no safe and legal way to reach the UK, increasing the risk that they will be driven towards dangerous journeys out of desperation to find safety and reunite with loved ones.
A Labour source said: “The home secretary’s belief is we must play our humanitarian role to provide safe harbour to those fleeing peril. “That is why we will open new, safe and legal routes for genuine refugees. These will be modest at first, they will grow in time, with the aim of thousands of refugees a year eventually coming to build a new life here in Britain once order and control has been restored.”
Other measures due to be included in the bill include:
Removing modern slavery protections for any foreign national who has committed a crime and received a sentence, scrapping the previous 12-month threshold.
Rejecting last-minute modern slavery claims where an objection could have been raised earlier or where there is evidence of false documentation.
Allowing immigration claims to be brought under the right to a family life only if the family member is a parent, spouse or child under 18 except in exceptional circumstances.
A new test to make clear that deporting foreign national offenders is in the public interest and should only be blocked in the most exceptional circumstances. Applications for family reunion under the right to a family life will in future have to be brought by a UK-based sponsor, not the overseas family member.
Giving every trafficked and exploited child a dedicated independent guardian to support their safeguarding and recovery.
Speaking ahead of the bill’s introduction, Mahmood said: “I will open new legal routes for genuine refugees, while closing loopholes that have been too often abused. My goal is simple: to ensure we have an asylum system not just today but for generations to come.”
Dubs called for a Burnham-led government to champion “human rights, compassion, fairness and equality” while advocating control of UK borders.
Read more“This is Andy Burnham’s opportunity to correct some of the mistakes that the Starmer government made as regards asylum seekers and refugees,” he said.
“The proposed changes to indefinite leave to remain, for instance, which would apply retrospectively to people who came here in good faith and according to the rules, are simply unjust and should be reconsidered.”
Dubs, 93, was transported to the UK through the Kindertransport train, which he subsequently discovered had been organised by the London-based stockbroker Sir Nicholas Winton.
He said the proposed changes would leave children in his position “out in the cold” and unable to seek sanctuary in the UK.
Labour should seek to control the UK’s borders, but do so “without cruelty”, Dubs said.
“This control should also come with our commitment to basic rights, and compassion for those who are in time of greatest need. Not performative cruelty – like briefing the Home Office would start seizing refugees’ jewellery at the border. Or using incendiary language to blame refugees for ‘tearing our country apart’.”
The chief executive of Safe Passage International, Jo Cobley, has said she was anticipating the bill to be introduced “after a new prime minister is confirmed, but it seems the home secretary is determined to push through these harsh plans for refugees”.
Madeleine Sumption, the director of Oxford University’s Migration Observatory, said the proposed scheme would be attractive to potential sponsors who want to bring in specific members of their community.
“I suspect that as the details are finalised, there will be some debate about who is allowed to sponsor. For example, will faith groups like churches and mosques be licensed as sponsors, and if so will they be able to select on the basis of faith?” she said.
