Andy Burnham calls on Labour to rethink plans to make it tougher for asylum seekers to settle permanently – UK politics live

8.51am GMT Good morning. On Monday Shabana Mahmood, the home secretary, announced drastic changes to the asylum system. Today, in a statement to MPs, she will announce changes to the legal migration rules – in particular those affecting how long people have to wait until they are given a permanent right to stay in the UK. Mahmood was strongly criticised by the Commons speaker over the amount of pre-briefing there was ahead of Monday’s announcement, and this morning the Home Office has been more tight-lipped. But the Times reports that Mahmood is expected to announce “that migrants would usually be allowed to apply for indefinite leave to remain only after ten years — double the five years at present — and must meet certain conditions such as speaking English to A-level standard, having a clean criminal record and not claiming benefits”. The Monday plans outraged some Labour figures, but the various lists of MPs who had publicly spoken out (like the New Statesman’s) never got much beyond 20 and, from the government’s point of view, internal opposition (so far) remains contained. But this morning Andy Burnham, the Greater Manchester mayor and the most popular (with the public) of the various plausible Labour candidates to replace Keir Starmer as PM, weighed in. In an interview on the Today programme, to promote a speech on Manchester’s “good growth” plans he is giving later, Burnham said he thought it was a mistake to tell asylum seekers they would have to wait 20 years until they can get a permanent right to remain in Britain. Burnham was at pains not to sound disloyal. He said he backed the overall intention behind the asylum plans. I agree that Shabana Mahmood is right to grasp this nettle and have root and branch reform of the system. I agree with that. And he said he was pleased she wanted to change the way asylum seekers are housed. However, he also said: But I do have a concern about leaving people without the ability to settle, one of the concerns being that if there’s a need to constantly check up on the status of countries where people have come from, that might limit the ability of the Home Office to deal with the backlog. And it also may leave people in a sense of limbo and unable to integrate. Burnham was referring to the fact that, under Mahmood’s plans, there would be regular reviews of whether it might be safe for asylum seekers to go home, potentially going on for up to 20 years, until settlement became permanent. He also urged the government to find a “consensus” on this. I’m not going to say that the home secretary is wrong to call for this level of change. What I would say is it’s really important, on the back of the measures that she’s announced, that there is a considered debate, time is taken to see if consensus can be built around it. Because that would be hugely valuable to the country if that could be secured. Mahmood is unlikely to regard this intervention as helpful. Here is the agenda for the day. Morning: Keir Starmer and Bridget Phillipson, the education secretary, are on a school visit in Berkshire to promote applications opening for another round funding for primary schools in England to open free breakfast clubs. 9am: Emma Reynolds, the environment secretary, speaks at the CLA Rural Business conference in London. 9.30am: The Ministry of Justice publishes quarterly figures on knife crime. 11.30am: Downing Street holds a lobby briefing. Around 11.30am: Shabana Mahmood, the home secretary, is expected to make a statement to MPs about legal migration, and changes to rules relating to indefinite leave to remain and citizenship. 3pm: Andy Burnham, the mayor of Greater Manchester, gives a speech. 4pm: The Covid inquiry publishes its report into government decision making during the pandemic. Journalists are getting several hours to read the report before it gets released at 4pm, and so detailed stories about what is in the report will drop at this point. If you want to contact me, please post a message below the line when comments are open (normally between 10am and 3pm at the moment), or message me on social media. I can’t read all the messages BTL, but if you put “Andrew” in a message aimed at me, I am more likely to see it because I search for posts containing that word. If you want to flag something up urgently, it is best to use social media. You can reach me on Bluesky at @andrewsparrowgdn.bsky.social. The Guardian has given up posting from its official accounts on X, but individual Guardian journalists are there, I still have my account, and if you message me there at @AndrewSparrow, I will see it and respond if necessary. I find it very helpful when readers point out mistakes, even minor typos. No error is too small to correct. And I find your questions very interesting too. I can’t promise to reply to them all, but I will try to reply to as many as I can, either BTL or sometimes in the blog. Updated at 8.58am GMT