Mahmood says immigration cannot be used as an ‘easy’ fix for worker shortages

Shabana Mahmood has warned against using immigration as a quick fix for labour shortages, saying she is regularly approached by ministers seeking visas for overseas workers.

In an interview with The Rest is Politics podcast, the Home Secretary said she receives requests from colleagues in other departments as often as every “week or two”.

“Since I’ve been in the Home Office, the sheer number of requests I get from colleagues across government, from other departments, ‘can I have ten visas over here’ for, you know, welders or something,” she said.

“I’m like, you’re telling me that we can’t find ten welders in Britain? It’s become a lever that is easy to pull.”

She argued that ministers should instead be doing more to anticipate workforce shortages and ensure people have the skills needed to fill vacancies.

“From their side of the equation, they’d be thinking, we’ve got to plug a gap really quickly and this is the best way to do it really quickly,” she said.

“To which I would say you’ve got to be able to do a bit more medium- and long-term planning for your workforce in your own country.”

Ms Mahmood has set out a series of immigration reforms since becoming Home Secretary, including proposals to extend the standard qualifying time period for indefinite leave to remain.

Asked about people on the far-right praising her immigration policies, Ms Mahmood said they could “sod off”.

“Let’s just be really clear about who and what they are. They don’t think I’m a true Brit and they hate the fact that I’m a Muslim,” she said.

Her comments came as migrants arrived in Hampshire after crossing the Channel from France by dinghy on Sunday.

Ms Mahmood said many asylum seekers attempting to reach the UK from France had been exploited by people smugglers.

“You can almost guarantee that every woman that’s in the north of France has probably been raped along the journey. Some of the men too, they’ve certainly been abused and threatened.”

She continued: “That is not the model that should decide whether somebody gets to come to the UK, make this their place of sanctuary and ultimately become one of us.”

Elsewhere, she defended the ban on Palestine Action despite admitting it has been “very uncomfortable” to see some protesters arrested.

The Home Secretary said the law had to be “equally applied when you’re on the other side of the political equation”.

Palestine Action was proscribed as a terrorist organisation by her predecessor Yvette Cooper in July 2025, making it a criminal offence to belong to or express support for the group.

Ms Mahmood said: “For those of us who have been in the pro-Palestinian cause all of our lives, these are people; sometimes you’ll know who they are, you know, you’ve been on the same marches with them.

“It feels very uncomfortable to see them falling foul of section 13 of the Terrorism Act.”