Fahnbulleh clarifies she backs migration policy after 'lie' joke
Energy secretary Miatta Fahnbulleh has stated she fully supports home secretary Shabana Mahmood's migration policy, including the plan to extend indefinite leave to remain to 15 years, after joking at a Westminster event that she had not been able to "lie" about her views.
Fahnbulleh clarifies she backs migration policy after 'lie' joke
What Fahnbulleh said, and what she walked back
Miatta Fahnbulleh was forced to clarify her position on Shabana Mahmood's migration policy after joking that she had not been able to "lie" about a key element of the changes. The original remarks came at a journalists' event in Westminster, where she referred to an awkward Sky News interview in which she repeatedly declined to say she supported the indefinite leave to remain 15 years plan requiring foreign workers to wait 15 years for permanent residency.
At the event, she said: "I made three promises to myself when I came into politics. The first was never lie…"
On Thursday evening she posted a statement on social media, saying: "Today I made what was meant to be a lighthearted, self-deprecating remark. I didn't get it right and it hasn't come off as I intended."
In the same statement she wrote: "I fully support our home secretary and the government's position on migration reform."
Downing Street stays silent on who prompted the clarification
No 10 refused to say whether it asked Fahnbulleh to issue the clarification, though the remark is understood to have gone down badly among government colleagues.
The policy behind the row
Mahmood is consulting on plans to increase the period before foreign workers can claim indefinite leave to remain from five to 15 years, backdated to anyone arriving from 2021 onwards. She has previously hinted the plan could be watered down through a care workers exemption, but reports on Tuesday said she was holding firm against changes.
The Home Office has argued against exempting care workers, saying it would lead to an exodus of foreign workers from the sector once they were no longer bound by their visa terms. Earlier this week a Home Office spokesperson said:
This government has announced reforms that mean settlement must be earned and not automatic.
Where the consultation stands
No 10 stressed on Wednesday that Mahmood was "carefully considering" more than 200,000 responses to the consultation before finalising the planned changes.
Burnham's press secretary, asked whether tweaks including no retrospective application could be ruled out, said: "We set out proposals for consultation. We've consulted on what the transition arrangement should look like for people already in the UK." The press secretary added: "The home secretary is leading a thorough piece of work to ensure we get this right."
The next step, then, rests with Mahmood: more than 200,000 consultation responses are being weighed before the changes are finalised, with transition arrangements for people already in the UK still under review.
