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The Conservative MP Katie Lam spoke “imprecisely” in stating the party would deport large numbers of legally settled families from the UK, Kemi Badenoch said, adding she had no plans to make tougher immigration rules retrospective.
Badenoch’s comments to reporters after a speech in London end days of confusion over Tory migration policy, particularly over whether many thousands of people who have made lives in the UK could lose their status of indefinite leave to remain (ILR) under a future Conservative government.
In an interview earlier this month, Lam, a shadow Home Office minister, said that the party’s policy was to revoke ILR, and people would “go home” in order to ensure the UK was mostly “culturally coherent”.
Her comments prompted some Conservative MPs to complain to party whips, and renewed focus on a Conservative draft bill tabled in May, under which people would lose ILR if they or a dependant claimed any benefit or if their income was less than £38,700.
While Badenoch’s spokesperson initially said Lam was “broadly in line” with party policy, the Tories then said its policy on ILR had changed, while refusing to say if changes to rules would be made retrospective.
But speaking on Thursday, Badenoch clarified this was not the plan. “No, we’re not. We’re not being retrospective,” the Conservative leader said.
The only element that could result in someone losing their ILR could be if they committed a crime, which was already the case, she said, adding: “But we have a principle. We don’t believe in making things retrospective.”
Now that the Conservatives had committed to leaving the European convention on human rights (ECHR) it was possible to deny benefits to non-EU overseas nationals, she said, allowing a policy change, adding: “What we are trying to do is make sure that all our policies are coherent and work with changes and adaptations like leaving the ECHR.”
In explaining the migration policy, Badenoch said that Lam “just stated it imprecisely”.
Amid the confusion, Labour wrote to Badenoch asking how the rules on losing ILR if claiming a benefit would work, for example whether this would apply to maternity pay.
Badenoch said this was not the case: “Maternity leave is not a benefit. It’s an entitlement. It’s pay. What we have said is that people who come to our country should be contributors. They shouldn’t need to go on benefits.”
Lam’s statement that ILR would be removed from large numbers of people had prompted a backlash, with Keir Starmer saying it showed “how far the Conservative party has sunk”, and a number of Conservative MPs privately criticising Lam’s remarks.
