Shabana Mahmood has asked Sir Keir Starmer to sack her immigration minister for suggesting foreign care workers should be exempt from her plans to tighten settlement rules.
In an article for The Times, Mike Tapp said his “strong belief” was that those already working in the UK care system should not have to wait longer to qualify for indefinite leave to remain (ILR).
The Home Office minister reportedly wrote that he had been working closely with officials to “develop a better approach than a blanket retrospective extension from five years to 10 years for everyone”.
Home Secretary Ms Mahmood has proposed to double the time it takes for most migrants to qualify for permanent residence to a decade, including for claimants who are already in the UK but have not yet received ILR.
A Government source said: “The Home Secretary has asked the Prime Minister for Mike Tapp to be sacked for breaching the ministerial code.”
They suggested he had broken collective responsibility, a convention whereby individual ministers speak publicly for the Government as a whole, by writing an article out of step with Home Office policy.
In the article, Mr Tapp wrote: “It is my strong belief that those who have come to the United Kingdom on care worker visas who have played by the rules and have genuinely contributed to our care system should not be required to wait longer to apply for settlement. That is the issue I am working hard to address.”
Downing Street has declined to comment.
Mr Tapp is understood to remain in his post as immigration minister as of Thursday evening.
