Dame Karen Bradley

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1. 2 Nov 2026·Parliament·Dame Karen Bradley

   Immigration: Earned Settlement

   The Home Secretary will know that the Committee conducted a piece of deliberative democracy work, in which we worked with the public to find out their attitudes to people who are coming in on work visas. It was very clear that the public want skills training so that those in the domestic population can take vacancies. Can she confirm what work she is doing across Government to make sure there is appropriate skills training for those who are here to take the jobs available, and can she confirm when she expects the new provisions to start?

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2. 29 Oct 2026·Parliament·Dame Karen Bradley

   Local Government Reorganisation

   The Government are very good at imposing on people things that they do not want. In Staffordshire Moorlands, the Government want to impose the end of Staffordshire Moorlands district and the end of Staffordshire police—reorganisations that will have different timeframes and will lead to great confusion. Will the Minister consider my proposal for local government reorganisation—this has been my proposal all along—which is to leave our councils and local authorities in the state they are in? The Government can give us a mayor, if that is what they want, but we really do not need any more distractions for our local government officials, who need to get on and deliver services.

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3. 29 Oct 2026·Parliament·Dame Karen Bradley

   Budget Resolutions

   It is an honour to follow the hon. Member for Blaydon and Consett (Liz Twist). I join my right hon. Friend the Member for Maldon (Sir John Whittingdale) in paying tribute to Sue Holt. I was in Strasbourg with her only a few weeks ago when she was taken ill. It was a great shock to all of us to learn what had happened to her. I want to cover measures in the Budget that relate to my constituents, the Home Affairs Committee and my constituency, but I realise I have limited time so I will race ahead. It is pretty quick on the Home Affairs Committee side of things, because there was not very much in the Budget about such matters. In fact, there was only one mention in the speech: £15 million over three years for a misogyny prevention fund. We are yet to see what that actually involves, but I worry that priority is being given to perpetrators. Where is the money for victims? A victim-centred approach to violence against women and girls is essential. The Government have already said that £1 billion needs to be spent on tackling violence against women and girls during the life of the strategy, but the Red Book states: “the government is prioritising £55 million of funding over two years to accelerate delivery of the Violence Against Women and Girls strategy.” Again, £55 million out of £1 billion does not sound too much. On issues that were not mentioned but relate to home affairs, the Committee is conducting two inquiries at the moment. I am interested in the work that the Government are doing on apprenticeships and so on, but I urge them to look at the work the Committee did with Demos—a piece of deliberative democracy—looking at the public’s attitude to work-based immigration. They will find really interesting insights on the need to prioritise upskilling UK workers to take job vacancies, not just looking overseas to fill those roles. The Committee is also doing to a piece of work on the impact of serious and organised crime on local neighbourhoods. My right hon. Friend the Member for Maldon made some really interesting comments about the high street. It is the case that we have seen the hollowing out of the high street, and the measures that the Government have taken on national insurance, business rates and so on have left a vacuum that is being filled by <span id="522" class="column-number" data-column-number="522"></span>organised criminality. That is filling our high streets in a way that is inappropriate and that we do not want, so I urge the Government to deal with that issue. Moving on to issues that affect my constituency, I welcome the £100 for A to D council tax payers. We have a disproportionately high number of properties in bands A to D in Staffordshire Moorlands, so more people will be affected by that than in some other constituencies. However, there was nothing in the Budget for those who rely on heating oil, and they will not benefit from the abolition of gas standing charges. Those people really do need help; the price of heating oil is hideous and, as we come into winter, the numbers that have been quoted to fill a tank of heating oil are astonishing. Again, I join my right hon. Friend the Member for Maldon in commenting that there was nothing about hospitality and tourism. As the Member of Parliament for Alton Towers and other great local attractions, including the Peak Wildlife Park, I know how much they welcomed the reduction in VAT over the summer and how much they want to see that made permanent. There was also nothing for farmers in the Budget. It would have been very heartening if the Chancellor had mentioned something about the family farm tax, to give farmers the respite that they need. The Government tell us we need to have local government reorganisation in order to benefit from many of the measures in the Budget. As I said following the Minister for Local Government’s statement earlier, if we are going to have a mayor, we do not need to reorganise the structure of our local government as well. Let officials and councillors spend their time and effort on delivering services and let the mayors have the strategic overview. That would be a much better approach. The Peak Cluster project proposes to enable the cement industry to continue in the Peak district through carbon capture, with plans to transport the carbon to Morecambe bay. This is of great concern. How much carbon is going to be emitted in building the pipelines that will go underneath the Peak district, Cheshire and other areas to get out to Morecambe bay, where the carbon can be put into an empty gas field? Surely, it would just be better to allow the cement industry to continue producing cement in as clean a way as possible in the United Kingdom, without the need to build the pipeline, with all the environmental damage that will cause. I welcome the comments around new battery storage, and solar farms needing to be connected to the grid to start with. That is a measure that many of my constituents will welcome.

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4. 28 Oct 2026·Parliament·Dame Karen Bradley

   Draft Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Act 2025 (Specified Purposes Related to Policing) Regulations 2026

   It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship for what I believe is the first time, Mrs Hobhouse. I have a message to the Whips: if they put the Chair of the relevant Select Committee on a Delegated Legislation Committee, they may find that it takes slightly longer than they were expecting—<em>[</em><em>Interruption.</em><em>]</em> I am fine for now, but the Whips might want to think about that. I want to take the opportunity put a few questions to the Minister. First, will this measure be used purely for immigration offences? When I was invited by the Metropolitan police to join the policing operation for Notting Hill carnival, I was very struck that the majority of the offenders who were picked up by the facial recognition technology being deployed were actually wanted for sexual and domestic abuse offences. I thought that such an event was a very good way to attract those offenders, as it is one where people are scantily clad and therefore might attract those who are <span id="6" class="column-number" data-column-number="6"></span>more inclined that way—<em>[</em><em>Interruption.</em><em>]</em> I can see Members’ looks of shock, but that is the point the police made to me. The Notting Hill carnival is an occasion that people want to attend purely for the opportunity to offend and sexually abuse those taking part, which is absolutely wrong. The facial recognition technology was picking up sexual offenders, not drug offenders or the other things that we might think of with Notting Hill carnival. This legislation could be used beyond just immigration enforcement—for violence against women and girls and other offences—and I hope the Minister can confirm that it will be. I am also curious to know whether “policing” will include immigration enforcement. Again, from the work we have done in the Select Committee I have been struck by the number of people who have arrived, claimed asylum and do not have the right to work but do continue to work, and immigration enforcement should be able to share information on trailers and other vehicles if people who are here without the right to work are trying to work, so that we can stop that and remove that incentive. My final point is wider. I wonder whether the Government are looking at extending the registration scheme to boat engines, perhaps in a Europe-wide scheme. If we had a Europe-wide register of boat engines, law enforcement across the continent might have more traceability of those boats that are trying to leave northern France, Belgium and other places. I wonder whether there may be scope to further the measure. 4.41 pm

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5. 26 Oct 2026·Parliament·Dame Karen Bradley

   Topical Questions

   In our inquiry looking at the impact that serious and organised crime has on local neighbourhoods, we have heard evidence from Trading Standards that organised criminals are now using online second-hand marketplaces to sell stolen goods and launder money. What conversations <span id="21" class="column-number" data-column-number="21"></span>are the Government having with those online vendors to try to stop such sites being used by organised criminals to make money?

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6. 26 Oct 2026·Parliament·Dame Karen Bradley

   Work-based Immigration

   I am grateful for this opportunity to highlight the Home Affairs Committee’s new inquiry on work-based immigration and to explain the innovative approach we have used with this inquiry. I thank the Backbench Business Committee for allowing time for this statement. I know that the Chair of the Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow East (Bob Blackman), was staying just for that thank you; he is welcome to leave now. <em>[</em><em>Laughter.</em><em>]</em> When I was elected Chair of the Home Affairs Committee, one of the things I talked about was wanting to have a more informed and considered debate on immigration that recognises the distinction between legal migration—visas for work, family, study and humanitarian purposes—and irregular migration, which primarily means small boats nowadays, where the numbers are much lower but the attention much higher. We want a debate that digs into the reasons why net migration numbers have followed the path they have and how reducing those numbers, which is the stated aim of successive Governments, can be achieved in a fair way that serves our economic and national interests. To do that, the Committee decided to commission a series of deliberative workshops. Instead of relying on opinion polls or surveys, which can only give a snapshot of views, we partnered with the think-tank Demos to design and deliver a rigorous deliberative process, and I thank the Liaison Committee for supporting us financially. This process is one where ordinary people, selected to reflect the make-up of the local population, learn about the issue, discuss it with one another, and work towards agreeing conclusions. We chose work-based immigration as the focus of these workshops because it is an area of ongoing contention, the policy is constantly under review and therefore open to influence, and, importantly, the Government have effective levers to determine who is allowed to come to the UK on a work visa. So that people could better understand the complexities and the trade-offs in policy making, we wanted to hear from people in different parts of the country. We chose North Tyneside, Leicester and Renfrewshire. We wanted to share with them the kind of conversations that go on within Whitehall. We know these questions are hard to resolve. I have been a Minister in the Home Office, and I know that it is hard—I sympathise with the challenges faced by the current Minister, the hon. Member for Bassetlaw (Jo White). Earlier this month, the Home Secretary revealed that she gets almost weekly requests from other Ministers to provide visas for foreign workers in different sectors. This is at the heart of the issue: the extent to which we <span id="70" class="column-number" data-column-number="70"></span>want to rely upon migrant labour and skills, and the weighing up of the economic and social factors that influence the decision. The report produced by Demos on the results of the workshops was published on 7 September, and it is available in the Vote Office. I hope it will be of interest to hon. and right hon. Members and to other Select Committees whose remit includes areas affected by immigration. Between them, the 89 participants at the three workshops produced a list of 13 principles that they thought should underpin policy on work-based immigration and ranked them. It was striking that the No. 1 priority at all three workshops, in three totally different parts of the country, was that the Government should focus on training, upskilling and employment opportunities for UK residents, especially young people, before relying on migrant labour. The second-highest ranked principle was the need to ensure that local infrastructure can support migrants and existing residents. The third and fourth principles were the need for better workforce planning and for migrant workers to be protected from abuse by employers. The fifth principle was about promoting an honest and balanced public conversation about immigration. That was our intention when we started this work, and I am pleased that the members of the public who participated at our workshops agreed with that aim. It is now up to us, in this House, to help promote that honest conversation. I am pleased that the Prime Minister has now joined us in calling for an honest discussion on this subject, although freedom of movement was not a question on the table when we started this work. We are also reliant on the media to move away from the soundbites, simplistic characterisations, misleading memes and social media disinformation that only serve to polarise and infantilise. While there was more support for restricting numbers of low-skilled migrant workers than higher skilled, there was also some support for restricting neither. Similarly, there were differing views on whether we should prioritise short or long-term work visas. The most common view was that we need both, but the discussions revealed interesting nuances. For example, participants who prioritised greater integration found themselves arguing for longer-term work visas, which was not necessarily their starting position. They saw how policy design can have wider impacts and considered the interaction between competing objectives in reaching conclusions. That is the value of this deliberative approach. When we received the report on the results of the workshops, we considered how best to use the conclusions to inform our future work on immigration. At the launch event for the report in Portcullis House on 7 September, I announced our intention to hold an inquiry based on the principles identified through the workshops. Our inquiry will focus on the top principle agreed in the workshops: to focus on training, upskilling and employment opportunities for UK residents, especially young people, before relying on migrant labour. We announced the full terms of reference on 15 September. These outlined the detailed questions that need to be answered in order to deliver an outcome that respects that principle. The Government have undertaken to link their immigration policy to skills. We will scrutinise how they propose to do that. We will also examine the role that migration does and should play in responding to labour shortages, and how that can be more firmly linked <span id="71" class="column-number" data-column-number="71"></span>to skills. We will look at the Home Office’s approach to managing the skilled worker visa, and how that links to wider skills policy. We plan to scrutinise the Labour Market Evidence Group—the agencies that advise on work-based migration policy—and test how the different objectives of different Departments are managed and how judgments relating to shortages and skill levels are made. We also plan to hear the views and voice of the public throughout our evidence sessions—both through the evidence we gather and from what we learned from the workshops. Artificial intelligence is affecting pretty much every aspect of life and will continue to do so. Consultations are no exception. Most of our inquires attract large volumes of written evidence. We value that evidence and draw heavily on it to inform our thinking, conclusions and recommendations. We depend on it to do our work, but there are signs now—I am sure that colleagues are seeing this in their constituency correspondence and in other Committees—that AI is increasingly being used to generate lengthy submissions that do not necessarily add anything new to the evidence base. There are resources implications for handling large volumes of written evidence, and questions around its value. Work is going on among Select Committees to look at how we can secure high-quality contributions to our inquiries: the experiences from those at the sharp end of policies and, when warranted, the considered views of an informed cross-section of the public. There are of course resource implications here as well, but I hope that the Liaison Committee might consider how best we allocate resources to best support our scrutiny of difficult policy issues in the age of artificial intelligence. Those of us who observed the workshops and spoke to the participants learned that, even on a subject as sensitive and divisive as immigration, people are capable of having a reasoned, respectful and constructive conversation. Not only that, but they obviously valued the opportunity to engage with each other—different communities that do not always mix—and with the political process, in a meaningful way. They valued being listened to, and at the end, their views on our political process were more positive. I look forward to returning to the House with the conclusions of the inquiry, and the Government response to it, in due course. In the meantime, I am happy to respond to any questions.

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7. 26 Oct 2026·Parliament·Dame Karen Bradley

   Work-based Immigration

   The hon. Gentleman—who I will call my hon. Friend—will be very much missed on the Committee. He is officially discharged this evening, along with the Minister, and it is a sad day for the Committee to lose his expertise. All of us who attended the workshops found that the conversations became sophisticated. People started off with polarised positions and opinions—they spent a day and a half together, hearing from experts and talking about the issues, and each of the workshops made 10 recommendations, which could be distilled into 13 recommendations in total—but from some very different places we finished with remarkably similar recommendations. The hon. Gentleman is right that the level of conversation and debate was heartening to hear and showed that those conversations can happen in an adult way.

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8. 26 Oct 2026·Parliament·Dame Karen Bradley

   Work-based Immigration

   The right hon. Gentleman makes his point eloquently. There are many skills that we simply do not train people in. Welding is another example: the pay is so good, why would anyone teach it on a much lower salary when they could be a welder themselves? That is why we have the problem with training welders in this country. The right hon. Gentleman makes a valuable point about sheepshearers. As an MP for a rural area, I do not have the sheepshearing problem, but I am sure that issues on dairy will be raised with me.

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9. 26 Oct 2026·Parliament·Dame Karen Bradley

   Work-based Immigration

   I thank the Chair of the Liaison Committee for her support allowing us to conduct this work. She makes an important point, and I am sure that many of us have enjoyed eating and drinking in the high-end, excellent restaurants in her constituency. We ensured that experts in the areas were involved in the evaluation committee, but it is a point that we will come back to during our work.

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10. 26 Oct 2026·Parliament·Dame Karen Bradley

    Work-based Immigration

    I would have been disappointed if I had not got the chance to respond to the hon. Member, so I appreciate his question. The Committee has just started work on the inquiry, but I note his comments and I am sure that evidence will be given to us on that issue, of which we will take account.

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