Mahmood restricts minister's access to documents as Home Office row escalates

Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood is restricting one of her minister’s access to government documents, in an escalation of a row over a newspaper column.

Immigration Minister Mike Tapp wrote an unauthorised article about Home Office policy, which prompted Mahmood to ask the prime minister to sack him.

A Home Office source said Mahmood believed the article constituted “freelancing on policy” and was a breach of both collective responsibility and the Ministerial Code.

But her request for the prime minister to sack him has not yet been heeded, and a Downing Street spokesman said the prime minister was “taking advice”.

Tapp, a loyal ally of Sir Keir, said he “won’t be intimidated to drop my views”.

The Downing Street spokesman said decisions on the ministerial code were for the prime minister and added that the PM had confidence in both Mahmood and Tapp.

The dispute began when Tapp used an article in The Times, external to argue that foreign care workers should be exempt from Mahmood’s plans to change visa rules for migrants already living in the UK.

He 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,” he added.

After the article was published on Thursday evening, a Home Office source told the BBC: “Mike Tapp is expected to be sacked for breaching the Ministerial Code.

“He has taken possible ideas that the home secretary and her team were working on, and briefed them as his own to try to win a job in the new administration.”

Reporters were pointed to a passage in the Ministerial Code which says: “The principle of collective responsibility requires that ministers should be able to express their views frankly in the expectation that they can argue freely in private while maintaining a united front when decisions have been reached.”

In response, Tapp said on the social media site X, external: “It’s gone from ‘he broke the ministerial code’ to ‘he stole my idea’.

“I have put my views across on a policy I’ve been working on for months (I have the receipts) in an op ed in The Times. Give it a read, and let’s continue to discuss.

“I won’t be intimidated to drop my views. Stay classy!”

Allies of the home secretary interpreted the reference to “receipts” as a threat to leak sensitive documents.

Tapp will now need the approval of the home secretary before seeing government documents or attending government meetings.