The New Statesman.

Shabana Mahmood has returned to the Commons today, announcing further immigration reforms.

Meanwhile, Clive Lewis MP for Norwich South has stated that he would give up his seat for Andy Burnham to challenge Kirstama as Labour leader.

I'm Anusha Kellyan and this is the New Statesman podcast. Later in the programme, we're going to be joined by Callum Weir from Labour Together to discuss what really matters to voters. But with me now to discuss the latest from Westminster, I have Alvare and Rachel Cuneliffe. Shibana Mamoud is making more announcements today. Rachel, can you explain what she's talking about today?

Yes.

So the announcement earlier in the week were all about reforms to the asylum system

generally aimed at making it harder for people to gain asylum if they cross into more boats

and the crisis in the channel.

These announcements today are all

about reforms of legal migration. And so we know that those are two quite separate policy

areas that are often sort of grouped together. And the headline is that people are going to have

to stay here for longer in order to get indefinite leave to remain,

also known as settled status. It's currently, if you are in the country for five years,

you can apply for indefinitely to remain. That's going to be extended to possibly 10, possibly 15,

possibly 20 or even 30. And crucially, it's going to be different for different groups.

The idea being that you can earn your way towards settled status with a shorter time period

by paying lots of taxes, if you have a really high paying job, by volunteering in your local

community, by proving that you've

integrated. So it won't be an automatic. You've been here for five years. You're now in the

settled status pipeline. Great for you. It's much more about, well, what are you actually

contributing to British society? Do we want to give you this immigration status? So it's quite

radical. Yeah. And it also applies to the 1.6 million people who have arrived since 2021,

...