Which Labour cabinet minister had the worst inheritance? Rachel Rpoeeves, Wes Streeting and Yvette Cooper could all make plausible cases. But the person with the strongest argument of all might be Shabana Mahmood.
The Justice Secretary was bequeathed a prison system close to collapse – having operated at 99 per cent capacity since the start of 2023 – by Rishi Sunak (as an independent review confirmed last week). This left her with one unpalatable move when she entered government: the early release of thousands of prisoners who had served 40 per cent of their sentence. Though Mahmood, the UK’s most senior Muslim MP, blamed the Tories’ “guilty men”, she could easily have become a politically toxic figure, typecast by Labour’s opponents and the media as “soft on crime”.
Instead, by turning a crisis into an opportunity, she has emerged as one of the government’s most effective cabinet ministers. Mahmood knew sentencing reform was unavoidable but has advanced liberal measures with a conservative face, appointing the former Tory justice secretary David Gauke to lead a review and choosing Texas as her model (rather than the Netherlands or the Nordics). Plans to expand chemical castration for sex offenders, which dominated the debate on the day Gauke published his report in May, was an act of astute media management.
Over the weekend, Mahmood again demonstrated her radical streak by announcing that most foreign criminals will now face immediate deportation upon sentencing and be barred from returning. Only terrorists – for security reasons – and those on indeterminate sentences such as murderers will be exempt (the government has already increased deportations by 14 per cent).
The move partly reflects the need for extra prison capacity – foreign criminals account for around 12 per cent of the inmate population – and a sea change in public opinion. “Where once people wanted to force someone to spend time in our prisons first, now they just want them out,” says a Mahmood aide. Internal polling by Labour – which clearly stated that foreign criminals would not necessarily face imprisonment abroad – found that 80 per cent favour the policy.
But for Mahmood it is also a point of principle. As the child of migrant parents, who came to the UK from rural Kashmir, she has an authentic outrage over foreign criminals. “To be welcomed into this country, as my parents were, is to assume responsibilities as well as rights,” she wrote in the Sunday Telegraph.
Mahmood, as I reported in my column last week, is one of the cabinet champions of “contribution”, an idea being discussed at the top of government that makes clearer the link between what voters put in and get out. For some, this could mean a more generous system of “unemployment insurance” or protection from the tax rises looming in Rachel Reeves’ Budget. But Mahmood has shown the tougher side of the contributory principle: those who do not live up to their responsibilities will be penalised.
Obstacles remain: foreign criminals will have the right to appeal against deportation under the European Convention on Human Rights. For this reason, Cooper’s review of article 8, which protects the right to a family life and has been blamed for thwarting action, is regarded inside government as pivotal. “We will discover after that whether domestic law can triumph over international law,” says a Mahmood ally.
For now, the Justice Secretary can draw satisfaction from the praise she is attracting across the spectrum. Michael Gove, one of her predecessors, last week named her the politically sharpest cabinet minister. Charlie Falconer, who held the same role under Tony Blair and criticised Mahmood for her opposition to assisted dying, told the Guardian: “Shabana has been an absolutely brilliant, reforming lord chancellor in enormously difficult circumstances. She is somebody whose sense of confidence about what she’s doing is something the whole government should emulate.”
Yet while her Blue Labour admirers ponder the role Mahmood could play in a future Labour leadership contest, others ask whether she will keep her seat. Zarah Sultana, the putative co-leader of the new left party, is considering standing against her in Birmingham Ladywood (Mahmood’s majority is 3,421). “It would be a big mistake to go for Ladywood where Shabana’s roots are deep and Sultana’s are non-existent,” warns a Mahmood source.
But whatever her future, we can already say with certainty that no one will remember Shabana Mahmood as a cabinet minister who wasted her time.
This piece first appeared in the Morning Call newsletter; receive it every morning by subscribing on Substack here
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