UK Expected to Soften Settlement Rules for Care Workers

Britain's Home Secretary, Shabana Mahmood, is expected to announce her final decision next week on new rules that would make most migrant workers wait far longer for permanent settlement, and the BBC reported on Saturday, October 31, that care workers already in the country are likely to be protected from the longest wait.

Mahmood had proposed extending the wait for indefinite leave to remain from the current five years to 10 years for most workers, with some lower paid migrants facing a 15 year wait. The BBC understands the proposals are likely to be revised for most of those currently working in social care, and that social care workers already in the United Kingdom are now likely to be exempt from the longer wait.

For most other workers, the 10 year wait is likely to stand, the BBC reported. The wait can be reduced for people who contribute to their local communities or have higher incomes.

Indefinite leave to remain gives a person the right to live, work and study in Britain for as long as they like, and to apply for benefits if they are eligible. It is the last step before British citizenship for those who seek it.

A consultation that drew 200,000 replies

The government's consultation on the reforms drew 200,000 responses, one sign of how many lives the change would touch. The Home Office will not comment on Mahmood's final decisions until they are presented to Parliament in the coming week, the BBC said.

Mahmood has said she was concerned about the number of people who would become eligible for permanent residency after a period of very high net migration under the previous government. She outlined the government's approach at the Labour Party conference in September, saying the administration would come to a position that balances fairness for people who came legally and fairness to British citizens.

Opposition inside the government

The plan has split the government that would have to defend it. Before she rejoined the cabinet, Housing Secretary Angela Rayner described the proposals as "un-British" because they sought to change the rules for people who had come to Britain in good faith. Many lower paid social care workers faced a wait of up to 15 years rather than five.

Energy Secretary Miatta Fahnbulleh at first declined to explicitly back the proposals in a BBC interview, then affirmed her support for the Home Secretary and the government's position on migration reform. "I fully support our home secretary and the government's position on migration reform," she said, according to reporting of her clarification.

The numbers behind the fight

Between 2022 and 2024, about 616,000 workers and their dependants moved to Britain on health and care visas, The Times reported. More than half of them, about 384,000 people, are expected to apply for indefinite leave to remain when they become eligible between next year and 2029. More than 100 Labour members of Parliament are opposed to the reforms, The Times has reported.

Care providers have warned in the debate that a 15 year wait could push foreign staff out of the sector, while officials have raised the opposite concern in private: that exempting care workers could lead some to leave care jobs once they gain permanent residence and are no longer bound by their visa terms.

What happens next

The decision goes to Parliament in the coming week. The points that will decide the argument are who is exempt, whether the new waits apply to people already in Britain, and what counts as a contribution that shortens the wait. Workers who arrived in 2022 or 2023 expecting settlement in five years are the group with the most at stake in those answers.