Mahmood asks Starmer to sack immigration minister as article row engulfs Home Office
Mike Tapp MP could be set to lose his job after being accused of breaching the ministerial code by allies of the home secretary
Home secretary Shabana Mahmood has asked the Prime Minister to sack immigration minister Mike Tapp after he wrote an unauthorised article calling for care workers to be exempt from residency reforms.
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In an article published by The Times on Thursday, Tapp made clear that he believes that migrant care workers should not have to wait longer to apply for permanent settlement.
Under home secretary Shabana Mahmood's hardline reforms, the Government is set to increase the threshold to be able to apply for indefinite leave to remain (ILR) from five years to ten years.
After the article was published, Ms Mahmood asked outgoing Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer to sack Mr Tapp over a perceived breach of the ministerial code.
As per the code, ministers are bound to support each other and the Government in public and keep all disagreements private while debating policy.
Sources close to Ms Mahmood have accused Mr Tapp of leaking Home Office plans as his own to win a job under the next Labour leader.
Mr Tapp is the sitting MP for Dover and Deal after he replaced Conservative-turned-Labour politician Natalie Elphicke at the 2024 General Election.
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A Government source said: “The Home Secretary has asked the Prime Minister for Mike Tapp to be sacked for breaching the ministerial code.”
A source close to the home secretary earlier told The Times: “Mike Tapp is expected to be sacked for breaching the ministerial code. He has taken possible ideas that the home secretary and her team were working on, and briefed them as his own to try to win a job in the new administration.”
The controversial ILR reforms are set to be a major talking point should Andy Burnham become Prime Minister.
He has criticised the plan to retrospectively change the rules to extend the qualification period for migrants already in Britain, saying it would leave them in "a sense of limbo and unable to integrate".
Mr Burnham, the frontrunner to replace Sir Keir Starmer as Prime Minister, has told reporters he has not made a final decision on the policy.
Mr Tapp urged Burnham to take his time assessing the changes because “changes in one area can create unintended consequences elsewhere”.
He added: “That is why we are taking the necessary time to fully develop these reforms, assess their impacts, and ensure that the policies we implement deliver the outcomes we intend. I hope to provide further updates in the autumn as this work progresses.”
Ms Mahmood suggested that those who came to Britain during the so-called Boriswave from 2021 to 2023 would be subject to transitional arrangements, with the Home Office understood to be considering who may qualify for exemptions to the reforms.
Tapp suggested that exemptions to the ILR reform should apply to all those who came on the health and care visa route.
A total of 616,266 of these visas were issued between 2022 and 2024.
Chris Philp, the shadow home secretary, told The Times: “This is a shameful U-turn from a weak Labour government being pushed around by its left-wing MPs. There are nine million adults in the UK who are economically inactive. We should get some of them off benefits and into work, not allow low-wage migrants to stay here forever.
“When the temporary work visa of low-wage migrants expires, they should be asked to leave, not given the right to stay here permanently. Shabana Mahmood promised it would take ten years before migrants could get the right to stay permanently — but her own junior minister now seems to be undermining what she said.”