The home secretary’s plans ‘may leave people in a sense of limbo and unable to integrate’, Burnham said
In his Today interview Andy Burnham was also asked how he felt about Clive Lewis, the Labour MP for Norwich South, yesterday saying he would be willing to give up his parliamentary seat to allow Burnham to return to the Commons and stand for Labour leader.
Burnham replied:
I appreciate the support, but I couldn’t have brought forward a plan of the kind I brought forward today [his Manchester “good growth” plan] without being fully focused on my role as mayor of Greater Manchester.
And I’m providing leadership on growth, which is what I think the country needs, and is helpful to the government right now.
And we’re doing this in advance of the budget, I hope, to really bring to life the growth story for the government.
I would just finish by saying this; I think part of the country’s problem is the political culture of Westminster, which is playing out in front of us right now. You go to Manchester, and we’ve built a new economy, and a new way of doing politics, and more of that is what the country needs.
I agree that Shabana Mahmood is right to grasp this nettle and have root and branch reform of the system. I agree with that.
But I do have a concern about leaving people without the ability to settle, one of the concerns being that if there’s a need to constantly check up on the status of countries where people have come from, that might limit the ability of the Home Office to deal with the backlog. And it also may leave people in a sense of limbo and unable to integrate.
I’m not going to say that the home secretary is wrong to call for this level of change.
What I would say is it’s really important, on the back of the measures that she’s announced, that there is a considered debate, time is taken to see if consensus can be built around it. Because that would be hugely valuable to the country if that could be secured.
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Source link : https://www.theguardian.com/politics/live/2025/nov/20/covid-inquiry-report-pandemic-labour-conservatives-andy-burnham-uk-politics-live-news
Author : Andrew Sparrow
Publish date : 2025-11-20 09:24:00
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