Problems ahead
And speculation on how Andy Burnham plans to deal with them
The final legislative reform to be introduced by Sir Keir Starmer’s government will start its parliamentary scrutiny this afternoon when MPs debate Shabana Mahmood’s immigration and asylum bill. As I reported when the bill was published, it will allow adjudicators with no legal qualifications to charge migrants and their representatives unspecified fees if they waste the resources of a new appeals body by acting improperly, unreasonably or negligently.
Those adjudicators may be just the sort of people who might otherwise have applied for unpaid appointment as magistrates. Many more magistrates would be needed under the government’s plans to reduce the availability of jury trials in England and Wales. I suggested last month that Andy Burnham would scrap Starmer’s jury reforms when he becomes prime minister and that is now looking increasingly likely. Certainly, there will be no progress in parliament before the autumn.
The home secretary will be answering MPs’ questions today before moving the second reading of her bill. She may be asked about a report in today’s Times that foreign workers and their families who arrived in the UK since 2021 — a group known as the Boriswave after the boom in immigration under Boris Johnson — would be exempted from her plans to increase the time it takes to qualify for indefinite leave to remain from five years to 10. But although these migrants would have the right to live, work and study in Britain permanently, they would have to wait longer to claim benefits.
There is little doubt that Mahmood will be questioned about two developments that have emerged since her bill was published at the beginning of this month.
