Home secretary scraps plan to make migrant care workers wait 15 years for settled status

The home secretary has announced reforms to the immigration system which she says are based on “fairness” and an expectation “that everyone is playing their part”. Shabana Mahmood revealed that foreign care workers who earn at least £25,000 a year will have to wait five years for permanent settlement in the UK. This is a dilution of her original plans to make migrant care workers wait 15 years, after criticism from senior Labour figures including Angela Rayner.

As long as workers arrived in the UK before May 2025 and earn over £25,000, they will be able to apply for indefinite leave to remain (ILR) after five years have passed. In addition, Mahmood told the Commons that refugees who arrived in the UK after crossing the Channel by small boat will have to wait 20 years for settlement. This will rise to 30 years if they do not enter work or study. Mahmood's original proposals from November 2025 would have doubled the qualifying period for settlement for most migrants from five to 10 years, and potentially triple it to 15 for care workers.

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. What could be the new rules for legal migrants and why are they controversial? Andy Burnham: 'Difficult to say' whether legal migration is too high or low In a statement to the Commons, Mahmood accused the Conservatives of losing control of migration with “significant abuse of the care route”.

She said the government will address this by “providing a five-year path to settlement for care workers who lived up to the promise that they made on coming to this country – worked hard and answered our call when we needed them”. Prime Minister Andy Burnham said it was “only fair that those who are making the most valuable contribution to our communities are given the opportunity to settle earlier”. He said in a statement: “People want to see an immigration system based on control, contribution, and which rewards those who play by the rules.

These proposals are based on that principle and recognise the contribution made by overseas workers to our country. Subscribe free to our weekly newsletter for exclusive and original coverage from ITV News. Direct to your inbox every Friday morning. “Following Brexit, the previous government lost control of immigration, with an unprecedented spike in numbers. This Home Secretary is gripping this problem, and she has my full support in doing so."

The PM was not in the Commons for the announcement as he is on route to the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) in Antigua. Tensions in the Cabinet over the policy surfaced earlier this year when Housing Secretary Angela Rayner publicly attacked the prospect of backdating the plans. Angela Rayner has previously criticised the plans. Credit: PA Rayner, who was not part of the Cabinet at the time, called the proposals to make it more difficult for immigrants to permanently settle in the UK "un-British".

How have the plans been received? Shadow Home Secretary Chris Philp described Shabana Mahmood’s announcement as “a U-turn” and claimed it will cost the taxpayer £10 billion. Philp told the Commons: “The Home Secretary now proposes to allow every single care worker and their dependents who arrived prior to May 2025, a number running into hundreds of 1000s, to stay in this country beyond the expiry of their visa – and, in the case of 75% of them, to stay permanently, even though she acknowledges that many of them arrived fraudulently.”

Reform UK leader Nigel Farage branded Mahmood’s decision to water down plans for longer foreign worker settlement routes into the UK “the beginning of the capitulation”. Unite, one of the largest trade unions in the UK, said the home secretary's decision to ensure care workers, NHS workers and teaching assistants don't have retrospective detriment as far as indefinite leave to remain is concerned is a "welcome victory". Unite general secretary Sharon Graham maintained that the announcement was, however, "still short of some necessary detail".

Nick Beales, Head of Campaigning at charity Refugee and Migrant Justice, has criticised the reforms. He told ITV News that the new rules will "harm social cohesion and make life far more difficult for everyone affected, including her own government which will now face unprecedented challenges processing more and more visa renewal applications". "Her party has though made clear that they judge so-called contribution by the size of a person’s salary alone," he added.

Fellow Labour MP Diane Abbott has warned Shabana Mahmood is at risk of creating another Windrush scandal . The Windrush scandal erupted in 2018 when British citizens were wrongly detained, deported or threatened with deportation despite having the right to live in Britain. Abbott told the Commons: “It is right that care workers are exempted from the new arrangements for (indefinite leave to remain). But for the rest of the workforce, the retrospective nature of these new arrangements still seem to be unfair because you can come in legally, you can work legally and then have your residency rights turned upside down.

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