Mike Tapp has left his role as immigration minister, saying he is no longer the Minister for Migration and Citizenship after a row with Shabana Mahmood over proposed indefinite leave to remain reforms. He said he had been overseeing the legal migration system and that he was disappointed to be leaving government.
“I am disappointed to be leaving government, but I have no regrets remaining loyal to Keir Starmer until the end,” Tapp said in his departure message on X. In his letter, he added: “For me, service has always meant putting the country first, and I’m proud to have approached the role with that principle at its heart.”
Home Office migration portfolio
Tapp said his Home Office brief covered the legal migration system, and he pointed to the Electronic Travel Authorisation scheme, visa pauses and improvements to the Windrush Compensation Scheme as work completed in the role. He also said: “Every decision I made in the Home Office began with my top priority: our national security.”
The departure matters because the migration portfolio sits inside the Labour Government’s wider effort to manage legal migration, visa policy and immigration reform. Tapp said he would continue to bring experience from working at the highest levels of national security to Parliament, and he wished his successor the very best of luck.
Shabana Mahmood row
The split followed a public disagreement with Shabana Mahmood towards the end of Sir Keir’s initial tenure. Mike Tapp reportedly suggested exempting care workers from Mahmood’s proposed indefinite leave to remain reforms, a move that brought the dispute into public view.
Sir Keir resisted calls from the home secretary to dismiss Tapp at the time, and Downing Street issued a rebuke to both ministers involved in the row. That left Tapp in post for the moment, even as the argument over the proposed reforms continued to sit over the migration brief.
Downing Street succession
Downing Street has not yet announced who will take over the migration portfolio. Until that name is released, the practical question for the Labour Government is who will carry responsibility for the legal migration system, including the next phase of any debate over indefinite leave to remain reforms.
