Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood stood up in the Commons on 13 July and spelled out a simple truth. The law that was meant to protect long-term Commonwealth residents should not shield men who raped children.
She announced plans to amend the Immigration and Asylum Bill. The change would let the Home Secretary disapply Section 7 of the 1971 Immigration Act in cases of serious criminals. The target could not be clearer: Shabir Ahmed, the ringleader of the Rochdale grooming gang.
Ahmed was convicted in 2012 of multiple child sexual offences, including the rape of girls as young as 12. He received sentences of 19 or 22 years, served about 14, and walked out on licence in early July. His British citizenship had already been stripped. He is Pakistani. Yet the 1971 Act still stands in the way of sending him back.
Our amendment will provide the home secretary with a new power to disapply Section 7 of the Immigration Act 1971 for serious criminals. This provides protections for long-term U.K. residents, but clearly should not be acting as a bar against removal in cases like that of Shabir Ahmed.
Mahmood's words cut through years of institutional hand-wringing. The grooming scandals exposed not just the depravity of the perpetrators but the reluctance of authorities to act decisively. Victims watched their abusers exploit vulnerabilities while agencies looked the other way. Deportation is the bare minimum justice demands.
The 1971 legislation was designed to stop arbitrary removal of people who had built lives here over decades. Officials insist the tweak will not touch the Windrush generation or other lawful long-term residents. It is narrowly drawn for exceptional cases of serious criminality where citizenship has been revoked. That distinction matters. Public safety and the protection of children must come first.
