Shabana Mahmood MP: speeches 2025

Speeches

• 15 Sept 2025 · Neighbourhood Policing · Hansard source

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  Every day the police make us safer, but the public are rightly concerned that there are crimes that blight their communities and too often go unpunished. We are focusing police on the crimes that matter to local communities. We have delivered the neighbourhood policing guarantee, including a dedicated named officer in each neighbourhood, guaranteed response times and 3,000 more officers by April 2026.

• 15 Sept 2025 · Neighbourhood Policing · Hansard source

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  The neighbourhood policing guarantee is absolutely critical to dealing with the issues that my hon. Friend raises and to raising confidence more generally. The guarantee will ensure that all areas, including her constituency, will have a named, dedicated officer, guaranteed patrols and reliable response times, and will give communities absolute clarity about local policing priorities.

• 15 Sept 2025 · Channel Crossings · Hansard source

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  I say to the hon. Lady that we are following what is working. Rather than having an arbitrary time period, we are working with local authorities to make sure we have the appropriate move-on period. It is in nobody’s interest that people remain in hotels for longer than is absolutely necessary, and of course this Government will end the use of asylum hotels.

• 15 Sept 2025 · Channel Crossings · Hansard source

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  Let me be very clear: I understand the strength of feeling across communities in this country about the use of hotels, in particular—the right to protest is an ancient right in this country, and we will protect it—but it is important that we do not slip into rhetoric that incites violence or hatred towards other communities. I love the St George’s flag and I love the Union Jack. Those flags belong to me as much as they do to anybody else, and we must never allow any of our flags to become symbols of division.

• 15 Sept 2025 · Channel Crossings · Hansard source

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  Coming from one of the Conservative Members who, frankly, did nothing across their period in office and who are responsible for the mess I am having to clear up, I think that is a little bit rich. This Government have been absolutely transparent. We will carry on being so, and we will publish all the relevant data at the appropriate time. I am very clear that nobody who tries to game our system will get away with it. We will strengthen our rules, rather than weaken them, which is what we saw under the Conservative party.

• 15 Sept 2025 · Channel Crossings · Hansard source

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  Under this Government, the National Crime Agency has led 347 disruptions of immigration crime networks—its highest level on record, and a 40% increase on the previous year. We are passing legislation to give both the National Crime Agency and law enforcement more powers to arrest those suspected of facilitating people smuggling at a much earlier stage. I was very sorry to see that the hon. Member did not match his rhetoric with real action by voting for those measures when they were before the House.

• 15 Sept 2025 · Channel Crossings · Hansard source

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  I think the hon. Member has just admitted to having a hotline to a bunch of people smugglers. Perhaps he would like to contact the National Crime Agency and tell it that he is in touch with a bunch of criminals, so that they can be appropriately dealt with. All he and his party have is a bunch of rhetoric and no answers to the problems that the previous Government left behind. It is this Government who will clean up the mess and secure our borders.

• 15 Sept 2025 · Channel Crossings · Hansard source

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  I welcome the tone of the first part of the right hon. Gentleman’s question. It is in our collective national interest that we secure our borders, and I look forward to working with Members from across the House as we get on with that important task. It is important not just to prevent criminality, but to hold our own country together, which is why I have always said I will do whatever it takes. The Rwanda agreement, which is what the right hon. Gentleman referred to as a deterrent, was nothing of the sort. From the day that agreement was signed to the day it was cancelled, 84,000 people crossed into this country. That shows it was not a deterrent that was ever going to work. I am clear that I will do whatever it takes. I am already considering other measures that will deter people from making that crossing in the first place, and I will update the House in due course.

• 15 Sept 2025 · Channel Crossings · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend is absolutely right that international co-operation is the key to us securing our borders here at home and assisting our international partners to do the same with theirs. I am already in touch with my French counterparts. That was a landmark agreement, which the Conservatives tried to achieve for many years, but they were all words and no action. It is this Government who struck that landmark deal, and we are working with our partners in France to get the first flights off the ground as soon as possible.

• 15 Sept 2025 · Human Rights Act 1998: Immigration · Hansard source

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  After that performance, I have to confess that I find myself rather missing the shadow Justice Secretary, the right hon. Member for Newark (Robert Jenrick). The shadow Minister says that we are tinkering at the edges. He could not be more wrong; we have a proper plan for looking at legislative reform. But tinkering at the edges would have been fantastic under the Conservatives, because their track record is that they did nothing—sod all—in 14 years. Suddenly, they have found their reforming instincts now that they are in opposition. This Government will take forward domestic as well as international reform.

• 15 Sept 2025 · Human Rights Act 1998: Immigration · Hansard source

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  Clearly the balance between the human rights of illegal migrants and the wider public interest is out of kilter. This Government will legislate to limit the application of article 8 of the European convention on human rights, which covers the right to a family life. This will mean that we can deport and remove more illegal migrants, and we will pursue international reform, too. In my previous role, I was already involved in conversations with other member states of the Council of Europe, and this Government will continue that work.

• 15 Sept 2025 · Human Rights Act 1998: Immigration · Hansard source

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  I hope the hon. Gentleman will take a bit of time to look at the speech I made to the Council of Europe just before the summer recess, in which I made a very similar argument to the one he is making. For those of us who are supporters of the convention and who want to see it stand the test of time, we have to recognise that it is a treaty formed many decades ago in a different reality and we should have a conversation about whether it is still fit for purpose. It is a conversation that others in Europe are having, and we are taking a leading role in those discussions. We will pursue international reform and also reform of our domestic legislation.

• 15 Sept 2025 · Human Rights Act 1998: Immigration · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend is right to point out that the fact that we are signed up to the European convention underpins other international agreements that we have with partners. It underpins the Good Friday agreement. It also underpins our treaty with the French on the France returns pilot. That is why we should be responsible in taking forward a conversation on reform of the convention, and that is the approach we are taking. I was taking that approach in my previous role, and I will carry on doing so as Home Secretary.

• 8 Jul 2025 · Prison Security · Hansard source

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  This year, we are investing over £40 million in physical security across 34 prisons, which includes anti-drone measures to prevent drugs and other illicit items from entering prisons. Starting this month, we will trial the use of tasers by specialist staff, and we are increasing tactical staffing resource to strengthen prison security.

• 8 Jul 2025 · Prison Security · Hansard source

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  I thank my hon. Friend for her question. Under the last Government, between 2019 and 2023, drone sightings around prisons increased by over 770%. As I have said, we are investing £40 million in bolstering security measures in our prisons, and we are currently trialling new anti-drone netting on the long-term, high-security estate to tackle drone incursions.

• 8 Jul 2025 · Prison Security · Hansard source

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  I believe the Prisons Minister may well be attending the event that the right hon. Member mentioned. I will happily pick that up in my regular conversations with trade union officials. She is right to highlight the scale of violence across our prison system. We are already taking measures, and I hope that the combination of sentencing reform and investment in our prisons will bring down the level of violence we are currently seeing.

• 8 Jul 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  What absolute nonsense. Let me tell the House the definition of soft justice: it is what the Tory party did, building only 500 prison places in 14 years in office. That is why we are in this mess and that is the mess that I am cleaning up.

• 8 Jul 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  I have said many times at this Dispatch Box that that whole episode revealed a democratic deficit. I am reviewing the roles and powers and we will come forward with legislative changes in due course.

• 8 Jul 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  Honestly, the shadow Justice Secretary really ought to pay more attention to his day job—rather than to the job he is looking for, which the Conservative party might give him. First, had he paid any attention, he would know that prosecutions do not fall to the Ministry of Justice; they are dealt with independently through the Crown Prosecution Service. We will of course publish the statistics when we get them, and I will happily write to him with the details. We are making sure that, across Government, we are taking all the action necessary to protect our borders. He is misrepresenting what the immigration guidelines do; I have picked him up on that before. I will happily write to him again, but maybe he could actually read them and learn something.

• 8 Jul 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  It is a little over a year since this Government were elected, and ever since I have been clearing up the mess created by the previous Government, who left our prisons days from collapse. I am ensuring that we can never run out of space again. We have already opened around 2,500 new prison places, with the aim of creating 14,000 by 2031. We have accepted most of David Gauke’s sentencing review, and I will increase funding for the Probation Service by up to £700 million. In our courts, we are reversing 14 years of under-investment that left us with a record and rising courts backlog. I have funded a record number of Crown court sitting days—4,000 higher than the Conservatives managed—and Sir Brian Leveson will soon propose once-in-a-generation reform. Make no mistake: unlike those on the Conservative Benches, I will do what it takes to bring down the backlog and deliver swifter justice for victims.

• 8 Jul 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  I do not have those figures directly to hand, but I am sure that if they are available, I can write to him with the details.

• 8 Jul 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  The hon. Member will know that, with a judicial challenge, there will be some constraints as to what I can say publicly, and indeed even privately in a meeting. I will take advice to ensure that nothing compromises the legal process.

• 8 Jul 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  The hon. and learned Member will know that for devolved matters it would of course be deeply inappropriate for me to try to influence or put pressure on the Minister of Justice in Northern Ireland. On a cross-UK basis, we regularly meet our fellow Justice Ministers in the devolved Administrations, and I will happily pick up those conversations in a constructive way.

• 8 Jul 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  I thank the hon. Lady for raising that important point. It is why we are reducing the threshold for the early removal scheme and looking carefully with the Home Office at the Gauke review’s recommendation of effectively sentencing to deportation, to deal with the very types of cases that she has raised.

• 8 Jul 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  The regulation of websites and content falls either within Home Office responsibilities for criminal law or with the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology, and I will happily pick up with them the detail around the regulatory issues that are raised by that case.