Home secretary to announce new immigration rules

Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood will make a statement on new immigration laws on Monday. <p>Measures set out last year included increasing the five-year wait for claiming indefinite leave to remain (ILR) - which gives people the right to settle, work and study in the UK and even claim benefits - and drew criticism from some <strong><a href="https://news.sky.com/topic/labour-5700/1">Labour</a></strong> ministers.</p><p>Under the original plans, foreign care workers would potentially have a 15-year wait for settlement.</p><p>It is understood the proposals, initially announced in November 2025, could be watered down to exempt social care workers already living in Britain.</p><p>Housing Secretary Angela Rayner previously described applying the rules retrospectively as "un-British", particularly if they affected migrants already in the UK.</p><p>The home secretary initially set out the measures to delay settlement amid concerns over the wave of legal arrivals approaching eligibility in the wake of record post-Brexit net migration figures under the previous Tory government.</p><widget id="1"></widget><p>This could come at a lifetime cost to the taxpayer of £10 billion, Ms Mahmood said, pointing to figures from the Migration Advisory Committee.</p><p>Last week, Prime Minister Andy Burnham said he believed that ILR was a "right to be earned", but did not commit to bringing in all of Ms Mahmood’s reforms.</p><p>In a speech in March, Ms Mahmood said that between 2021 and 2024 the country experienced levels of migration it had previously seen over four decades.</p> <widget id="2"></widget><p>She added that over the next five years, about 350,000 low-skilled workers and their dependants who arrived via the health and social care visa would qualify for settlement, gaining access to certain benefits.</p><p>The government's year-long consultation on the proposed reforms has drawn more than 200,000 responses.</p><p><strong>More from Sky News:<br /><a href="https://news.sky.com/story/139-people-arrested-during-protest-in-support-of-palestine-action-13606066" target="_self">Police arrest 325 at Palestine Action protest</a><br /><a href="https://news.sky.com/story/the-king-to-speak-about-slavery-with-unflinching-honesty-13606556" target="_self">King to speak about slavery with 'unflinching honesty'</a></strong></p><p>Reform Leader Nigel Farage said Ms Mahmood's plans were "rightly infuriating to most people who increasingly want net negative migration into Britain".</p><p>He said reform would scrap IRL "in its entirety and indeed rescind existing awards".</p> <widget id="4"></widget><p>Shadow home secretary Chris Philp said Ms Mahmood has been "forced to surrender to Angela Rayner" and the "open-borders Labour left".</p><p>In a post on X, he wrote: "[Mahmood] will now allow hundreds of thousands of low-wage and no-wage migrants to stay in the UK forever and claim benefits."</p>