The ally said: “Andy has been on Shabana’s side throughout this row over ILR. He is holding the line.”
The Energy Secretary, in a post on her constituency website last week, said extending the time foreign migrants had to wait before being granted ILR threatened “the process of building cohesion”.
Ms Mahmood’s plans are set to be introduced to Parliament as soon as next month, with 100 Labour MPs said to be opposing the plans.
Earlier this year, as many as 80 MPs wrote to the Prime Minister, asking him to “water down” the Home Secretary’s reforms.
