Mahmood set to outline ‘firm but fair’ asylum system in speech this morning
Home secretary Shabana Mahmood is due to give a speech later this morning as she looks to make the case for a “firm but fair asylum system”.
Up to 21,000 asylum seekers who have waited for a year for their claims to be processed could be allowed to enter the jobs market so they can support themselves, the Home Office has said, as part of a package of measures to be announced.
As the government seeks to empty asylum hotels, claimants who break the law, work illegally or are found to have enough assets to live without support will from June be ejected and lose their support payments.
The developments have been questioned by the Refugee Council for risking an increase in rough sleeping among those escaping war and famine.
There are about 30,600 people awaiting asylum claims living in roughly 200 hotels across the UK, and 107,000 people receiving asylum support, the Home Office said.
British Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood walks outside of Downing Street, in London, Britain, March 3, 2026. Photograph: Toby Melville/Reuters
Key events
Mahmood: ‘No denying’ it has been a difficult time for the Labour party
Shabana Mahmood said it was a “difficult time” for the Labour party, and that the party’s identity is being “bitterly” contested on issues like migration.
The home secretary said the party needed to be “more Labour” in a speech at the IPPR (Institute for Public Policy Research), telling the event:
It is a pleasure to be here and to be hosted by the IPPR, Britain’s leading progressive think tank, a fitting host to set out not just what this government is doing on asylum and migration, but why.
There is no denying that we meet at a difficult time for my party. It is a time when who we are and what we stand for is contested, sometimes bitterly, and nowhere is that contest more keenly felt than in the politics of migration.
She added:
I have, of late, been offered wise counsel on this topic from certain quarters. I have been told that we must, quite simply, be more Labour. Well, you know what? I happen to agree we should be more Labour.
Of course, we should be more Labour. The real question is, what does more Labour mean, because, in my view, more Labour doesn’t mean more Green, just like more Labour doesn’t mean more Reform.
More Labour means reconnecting with who we are, who we represent, and what we believe. That begins by understanding that the Labour party has always been a broad church.
She says “we will always offer protection to genuine refugees” and outlines how the UK has taken in Ukrainian and Hong Kong refugees.
She says “restoring control at our borders is not a betrayal of Labour values”. She says we must attract high-skilled workers. And that “the privilege of living in this country forever must be earned”.
Home secretary Shabana Mahmood is now giving her speech at the IPPR (Institute for Public Policy Research) on changes to the asylum system.
The husband of a Labour MP and two other men have been released on bail after being arrested on suspicion of spying for China.
David Taylor, who is married to the Scottish Labour MP Joani Reid, is accused of assisting a foreign intelligence service.
Taylor, 39, and two other men aged 43 and 68 were arrested by counter-terrorism officers at addresses in London and Wales on Wednesday and have been released on bail until May, the Metropolitan police have said.
After Taylor’s arrest, Reid, who sits on the home affairs select committee and is MP for East Kilbride and Strathaven, said she had “never seen anything to make me suspect my husband has broken any law”.
Mahmood hit back yesterday in a column for the Guardian at demands from senior labour movement figures for ministers to stop focusing on migration and to soften their attacks on the Green party.
The home secretary wrote:
Restoring order at our border is not just an embodiment of Labour values, it is the necessary condition for a Labour government to do anything at all.
Mahmood wrote that Labour’s vision should appeal to the mainstream and be “neither the nightmare of Farage’s borders, effectively closed, nor the Greens’ fairytale of borders effectively open”.
She also said the government planned to launch a new “safe and legal” route in the autumn for students seeking refuge.
Read her full column here:
Kiran Stacey
The home secretary’s speech this morning comes after Labour MP for Folkestone and Hythe, Tony Vaughan, co-ordinated a private letter to her, signed by 100 Labour MPs, expressing concerns about her “earned settlement” and temporary refugee status proposals.
The letter, which was sent on 4 March, calls for progressive changes which are rooted in Labour values.
It argues that some of the proposals undermine the government’s integration and cohesion objectives – like temporary refugee status, which leaves open the possibility of forced removal of settled refugees even after 20 years of lawful residence here.
It also argues that the proposals risk worsening child poverty, unfairly shifting settlement “goalposts”, and would harm the UK’s economic competitiveness by exacerbating skills shortages.
Mahmood set to outline ‘firm but fair’ asylum system in speech this morning
Home secretary Shabana Mahmood is due to give a speech later this morning as she looks to make the case for a “firm but fair asylum system”.
Up to 21,000 asylum seekers who have waited for a year for their claims to be processed could be allowed to enter the jobs market so they can support themselves, the Home Office has said, as part of a package of measures to be announced.
As the government seeks to empty asylum hotels, claimants who break the law, work illegally or are found to have enough assets to live without support will from June be ejected and lose their support payments.
The developments have been questioned by the Refugee Council for risking an increase in rough sleeping among those escaping war and famine.
There are about 30,600 people awaiting asylum claims living in roughly 200 hotels across the UK, and 107,000 people receiving asylum support, the Home Office said.
British Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood walks outside of Downing Street, in London, Britain, March 3, 2026. Photograph: Toby Melville/Reuters
Defence secretary John Healey has arrived in Cyprus, where he had a meeting with their country’s counterpart, according to Reuters.
Healey has travelled to the island amid criticism from Cypriot officials over how Britain has acted to defend it from drone attacks linked to the war in the Middle East.
UK officials believe a drone that hit an RAF base in Cyprus evaded detection by flying low and slow when it was launched by pro-Iranian militia in Lebanon or western Iraq.
But an investigation has been unable to establish conclusively where the Shahed-type drone was launched from. The attack occurred during the Iranian retaliatory bombardment over the weekend after the US and Israel launched a wave of strikes on Iran, killing the country’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
Badenoch says Britain should join US offensive action against Iran
Kemi Badenoch has said the UK should take offensive action against Iran after UK bases were attacked.
“We need to do what we can to stop the ability for these attacks to take place,” the Tory leader told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.
“I think that we should look at what our allies in the region are saying. Even if we’re not talking about Iran, Cyprus feels that we have not been helpful. It is extraordinary that Bahrain and Kuwait in the UAE are publicly criticising us…
“They think that we’re abandoning them.”
She continued:
If your principle is, we will only wait until we are attacked rather than dealing with imminent threats properly, then we will be in a lot of trouble.
Asked about concern over her enthusiasm for British involvement in the bombing of Iran, Badenoch said:
Being realistic is not gung ho. I don’t want a wider war.
But sometimes the best way to de-escalate a situation is to try and finish it quickly, rather than let it drag out because you don’t want to get involved.
Cabinet ministers ‘blocked’ Starmer from letting US use British bases for Iran strikes – report
Hello and welcome to the UK politics live blog.
Cabinet ministers, led by energy secretary Ed Miliband, blocked Keir Starmer from allowing Donald Trump to use British airbases for its attacks on Iran, it has been reported.
Chancellor Rachel Reeves, foreign secretary Yvette Cooper and home secretary Shabana Mahmood rallied behind Miliband to oppose the prime minister granting the US permission to use bases in Gloucestershire and the Chagos Islands for bombing runs to the Middle East, according to the Spectator.
Starmer, reportedly backed by defence secretary Jon Healey, wanted to allow Trump to carry out “defensive strikes” against Iran but bowed to the pressure of vocal opponents in his cabinet.
The political journalist Tim Shipman wrote on X this morning that the US first made the request on 11 February but attorney general Richard Hermer advised that “his would be a breach of international law and Britain cannot facilitate, let alone participate”.
He said that the Ministry of Defence worked with and advised its US counterparts on how draft the request and, by Sunday afternoon, the national security council gave the green light for US to launch “defensive strikes” – more than 24 hours after its first “pre-emptive strike” on Iran.
It comes after it was revealed that the US did not share exact operational details or timings with the UK before the joint strikes with Israel on Iran, sources have told the Guardian.
The US decision to cut the UK out of the official loop on the airstrikes alongside Keir Starmer’s decision to decline permission for the US to use British military bases for the operation.
In other developments:
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John Healey has flown to Cyprus to calm the diplomatic fallout over a drone that evaded detection and hit an RAF base, which has prompted fury from local ministers. UK officials believe a drone that hit an RAF base in Cyprus evaded detection by flying low and slow when it was launched by pro-Iranian militia in Lebanon or western Iraq.
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Up to 21,000 asylum seekers who have waited for a year for their claims to be processed could be allowed to enter the jobs market so they can support themselves, the Home Office has said, as part of a package of measures to be announced on Thursday. As the government seeks to empty asylum hotels, claimants who break the law, work illegally or are found to have enough assets to live without support will from June be ejected and lose their support payments.
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One of the three men arrested on suspicion of spying for China is David Taylor, the husband of a Labour MP. Joani Reid, MP for East Kilbride and Strathaven, told Sky News in a statement: “I have never seen anything to make me suspect my husband has broken any law. I am not part of my husband’s business activities, and neither I nor my children are part of this investigation, and we should not be treated by media organisations as though we are.
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Andy Burnham has reignited hostilities with Keir Starmer’s Labour leadership, criticising what he described as the “bankruptcy” of the party’s approach to campaigning, a week after it lost the previously safe seat of Gorton and Denton. The mayor of Greater Manchester and former MP, regarded as a rival to Starmer, said Labour’s campaigning style prevented it from connecting with non-Labour voters and other progressive parties, as he evoked the system of clipboard-wielding canvassers going door to door with records of previous Labour supporters.
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The BBC is to call for an end to political appointments to its board as part of sweeping changes designed to protect its independence. The corporation will also demand that its royal charter be put on a permanent footing in an attempt to end the existential threat posed by having to negotiate with ministers over its future every 10 years.
