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Tony Vaughan (Folkestone and Hythe) (Lab)
I beg to move,
That this House has considered e-petition 727372 and e-petition 746363 relating to indefinite leave to remain.
It is always a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Sir Edward. I open this debate on behalf of the Petitions Committee, and I am grateful to the 330,000 people who have signed these two petitions. Evidently, they have generated a lot of interest, given the high number of hon. Members in attendance.
The Government are currently consulting on changing the rules around whether, how and after how long somebody who is legally here is entitled to permanent residence in the UK, which is known as indefinite leave to remain or ILR. The first petition was started by Laurence Bansil, who is sitting in the Gallery, and it calls on the Government to protect legal migrants and scrap the proposed 10-year settlement route. The second petition was started by Pulasthi Weerasinghe, and it calls on the Government to keep the five-year route to ILR, but to restrict access to benefits to protect the public purse.
My mother once had ILR. She came from the Philippines in the 1970s on a work visa. She worked in London hospitals, got ILR and then got British citizenship. She built a life here and cared for generations of patients right to the end of their lives. One of those patients was a former member of the House of Lords and a senior judge, and I remember my mother recounting her many conversations with him about his distinguished career, as well as about my own legal studies and aspirations, which he showed a keen interest in.
Mr Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi (Slough) (Lab)
I thank my hon. and learned Friend for leading this very important debate. Many of my Slough constituents, especially healthcare workers, have signed these petitions about indefinite leave to remain. Many feel that the goalposts are being moved and that this policy will have a hugely detrimental impact on their lives. Does he agree that there should be no retrospective implementation of the change? That would be truly unfair on them and on the rest of us.
Tony Vaughan
I do agree, and that is the exact point I was going to make.
Returning to the example I was just recounting, my mother attended this patient’s funeral, as she did for many. That shows that roles like hers are not just work; they provide a real service to the public. Her profession is extremely important during critical, vulnerable times in people’s lives. It is hard work, but vital work. However, the sector has been plagued by labour shortages for many years. After Brexit shut off the social care worker recruitment pipeline from the EU, and with a pre-existing recruitment crisis in that sector, a large vacancy problem had emerged by 2021, which led to the Home Office putting social care on the shortage occupation list. Those who came here to work have moved their entire lives here; they brought their families here as they were entitled to do. They did so when the rules said that, after five years, they could apply for settlement in the UK—that was the deal.
Mr Alistair Carmichael (Orkney and Shetland) (LD)
The hon. and learned Gentleman is making a compelling case. The position is particularly acute in island communities, where we need to bring people in to be part of our community. Their role is welcomed, as we cannot just ship workers in from another town or village 10, 15 or 20 miles down the road. This extended period of ILR will make it less likely that people will want to settle in communities like mine, because they will not want that extended period of uncertainty in their lives.
Tony Vaughan
The situation in the right hon. Gentleman’s constituency is similar to that in my constituency of Folkestone and Hythe, where there has been a long-term recruitment and retention crisis. As a coastal area, workers can only go one way. There are massive problems and, as he said, they will be worsened by this proposal.
Bell Ribeiro-Addy (Clapham and Brixton Hill) (Lab)
My hon. and learned Friend is making a fantastic speech, and I thank him for bringing this debate to Westminster Hall. According to the Royal College of Nursing, 60% of internationally educated staff without ILR have said that it is very likely that extending this qualifying period will affect their decision to remain in the UK. That equates to 46,000 nursing staff at risk of leaving the UK. Does he agree that this policy would worsen the retention crisis? Also, does he agree that the Government ought to produce an NHS-specific impact assessment for this policy?
Tony Vaughan
I completely agree, and will go on to make those very points.
That was the deal. The Government are now considering doubling the wait for settlement from five years to 10, and up to 15 years for care workers. One of the most contentious elements of the consultation is that that will apply to people who are already here. I fundamentally oppose that rule change. Migrants entered this country on a contract, and the deal was simple: if they came to work in the sectors where we needed them, obeyed the law and paid their taxes, they could stay. Changing the terms of that contract after people have spent years building a life here is not just bad policy but a breach of trust. It makes Britain look unpredictable and like a country that does not keep its word. We cannot talk about earning settlement if we keep moving the goalposts after the game has started. In my view, retrospectivity is un-British and undermines our sense of fair play. The position of the two petitioners who sit in the Public Gallery is that it should be abandoned, and I wholeheartedly agree with them.
Tulip Siddiq (Hampstead and Highgate) (Lab)
I am sure that my hon. and learned Friend’s mother is very proud of him. My constituents, a same-sex couple with a child, fled from Russia because of fear of persecution. They work here, they pay tax and their child is in a local school. They are fully integrated into the community, but have written to me to say that they are 10 months away from gaining ILR and feel that changing the rules retrospectively does not honour the commitments that were made to them when they were granted refugee status. Does my hon. and learned Friend agree that it is very shameful for our country to row back on what was promised to my constituents when they first arrived here?
Tony Vaughan
I completely agree. It is the moving of the goalposts that most colleagues in the Chamber find really problematic.
Warinder Juss (Wolverhampton West) (Lab)
Does my hon. and learned Friend agree, as a fellow lawyer, that it is rather unusual to bring retrospective legislation into effect? There have been previous cases where legislation has been made retrospective, but that has been to punish crime. We are talking about ordinary, decent people who have come to this country to better not only their own lives but our lives and those of the rest of the community. Does he agree that it is absolutely wrong to have the law applied retrospectively, and that it puts the legal system to shame?
Tony Vaughan
I completely agree. The common law sets its face against retrospectivity, and that principle should preclude this change.
I want to address other elements of the consultation. The Government suggest a system of credits, for things including “social contribution”, to shorten the 10-year wait. On the face of it that sounds reasonable, but its proposed definition is dangerously narrow. It includes the police and the NHS but inexplicably, in my view, excludes care workers in the private sector. Why are we proposing a bureaucratic minefield of “volunteering credits”, which could be very difficult to verify, while ignoring the immense social value that care workers give during a 12-hour shift looking after our elderly? Their job is their contribution, and that should be the credit.
Adrian Ramsay (Waveney Valley) (Green)
The hon. and learned Member is making a really important case. In my constituency, the care sector is one of the largest employers, but local providers tell me that the proposed changes could drive 10% to 20% of people out of it. Does he agree that, before proceeding with these changes, the Government must do a proper impact assessment on the care sector and address the fact that, if the NHS has different criteria for allowing settlement routes, that could punish the care sector, which is particularly struggling already?
Tony Vaughan
Those are exactly the points made by the first petitioner, who works in the care sector and is sitting in the Public Gallery.
I am also concerned about the proposal to place lower earners, including most care workers, on the 15-year route to settlement. We have heard about the problems of recruitment, and that will certainly make the position worse. During that limbo, people cannot progress. As one of the petitioners, Mr Weerasinghe, told me, he must complete the entire qualifying period on the same job code, meaning he has to stay, essentially, in the same job. He cannot progress and move beyond the job that he originally came here for so, at the end of the 10 years, ultimately he pays less tax. That is not in the interest of the public, and it makes no sense. If we tell a care worker they must wait 15 years for security, while Australia offers it in three and Canada in five, they will simply vote with their feet. We risk becoming a training ground for economic competitors: recruiting talent, training them up and then watching them leave for jurisdictions that offer them a stable future.
Kim Johnson (Liverpool Riverside) (Lab)
I thank my hon. and learned Friend for leading this very important debate. I apologise if I frightened people with my very loud voice—[Laughter.]—but I wanted to be heard.
Does my hon. and learned Friend agree that the proposal is both unfair and dehumanising? The Government need to halt it immediately. More than 1,000 of my constituents signed the petition. I have met care workers in my constituency and here in Parliament and they are very frightened for their livelihoods and their futures. Does he agree that the proposal needs to be halted?
Tony Vaughan
I do agree. The people already in the system who do not have stability, who do not know what will happen and who made a huge investment fear for their future, which is at stake. I want to address very briefly—
Several hon. Members rose—
Sir Edward Leigh (in the Chair)
Order. Many Members want to speak in this debate. We will try to get them all in, but the hon. and learned Gentleman has to realise that every time he takes an intervention, there is less time for speeches.
Tony Vaughan
I will press on quickly to the end. I just want to address very quickly public funds and integration. Mr Weerasinghe’s petition does advocate for restricting benefits for new ILR holders, but in my view that is a political choice, not an economic inevitability. If we raise core care worker pay by around £4,000 a year, that is a step towards the sector-wide fair pay agreement that Unison is calling for. Then we could bring a single care worker up to the level where they are a net contributor in tax, reducing churn in the sector and finally rewarding people who hold our health and care system together.
Under the no recourse to public funds system, many migrant families are just one crisis away from disaster. Depriving migrant families of benefits to which they would otherwise be entitled contradicts the Government’s own child poverty strategy. If we want sound public finances, we need integration. Integrated families are stable—they are renters, homeowners and taxpayers. We do not build stability by keeping people on the edge of destitution for over a decade.
I do not deny that the Government’s consultation is based on the potentially legitimate aim of ensuring that the path to settlement for non-nationals is fair and serves the public interest. But on the key consultation points, I would say abandon retrospectivity, integrate those who are already here and honour the contract. Secondly, I understand the fear of so-called leakage, where care workers get ILR after five years and then immediately quit for better pay in other sectors, but a 15-year trap is not the answer—it is a charter for exploitation and modern-day slavery. Instead, let us look at time-limited, sector-specific conditions, possibly requiring people to remain in a sector for a period of time. Thirdly, we must recognise care work as a valid social contribution, and fourthly, not overcomplicate the penalty system. We already have robust good character rules; we just need to apply the rules we already have.
I urge the Minister to listen to the voices we have heard in the petition and today in this debate. Let us drop the retrospective measures and rethink the 15-year wait. Let us be a country that has sustainable economic migration rules, but remain one that always honours its debts—not just its financial ones, but its moral ones, too.
Several hon. Members rose—
Sir Edward Leigh (in the Chair)
Order. Many Members wish to speak. We will try to get you all in, but I have to impose an immediate three-minute time limit. Every intervention means that somebody at the back of the queue might not get in at all, so do bear that in mind, but we will try and get everybody in, starting with Cameron Thomas.
Cameron Thomas (Tewkesbury) (LD)
It is an honour to serve under your chairship, Sir Edward. Let me begin by thanking my constituent, Pulasthi, whose petition has led in part to this important debate. I believe that when we make a deal with somebody, we honour it. We are honour-bound to keep it.
Ayana does not understand politics, nor should she have to. She began her education at nursery here in the UK, where she began to learn how to interact and play with others, and she made her first friends in that nursery. Almost four years since her father made a deal with the UK to uplift his family and come here to work, Ayana now has many friends at school, where English is one of her strongest subjects. Everything that Ayana has come to learn about the world, she learnt here in the UK. She has no meaningful connection anywhere else. Like any other child, she imagines growing up together with her friends and completing her GCSEs. When she grows up, she wants to be a dancer or a lawyer, as is the nature of childhood.
Almost five years ago, Ayana’s father made a deal with the UK: the five-year route to indefinite leave to remain gave him enough certainty to justify bringing his family here, plan their futures and guarantee stability in Ayana’s formative years. I am glad that she is yet unburdened by the instability that her father now feels. The changes to indefinite leave to remain announced by the Home Secretary in November 2025 have caused unnecessary stress to many who have already lived here for several years, and who have paid visa fees, the immigration health surcharge, income tax and national insurance.
On 2 September 2025, I invited the Government to demonstrate true leadership over the issue of immigration, rather than follow the Conservative party and Reform UK into the abyss. If the Government have the moral courage to navigate this sensitive issue with compassion, they must honour the deal they made with families such as Ayana’s before the goalposts were moved. Regardless of whatever else changes, will the Government honour the timeline to indefinite leave to remain, as was promised to those who are already here?
Rebecca Long Bailey (Salford) (Lab)
There are few people who are opposed to a robust and fair immigration system, but sadly these plans are not that. They would rip up the promise on which people built their lives. For workers who were asked to come here to fill skills gaps in our public services and industries, the route to settlement would double from five years to 10. Lower-paid public service workers could be forced to wait 15 years, longer than the new standard, while those earning six-figure salaries are offered a fast track of three years. It is contribution measured by wages, rather than care given, lives saved or children taught.
Rebecca Long Bailey
I am sorry, but I want everybody to have time to speak.
Worse still, the changes would apply retrospectively. Nurses, social care staff and council workers who came here under one set of rules would suddenly find the goalposts moved or, worse, find they could be deported due to harsher income thresholds, with their public sector employers unable to meet the increased salary requirements and their colleagues left behind, stressed and overworked.
Even after gaining indefinite leave to remain, people would have no recourse to public funds—settled in name, but excluded in reality. For women fleeing domestic abuse, disabled people, and the LGBT communities, the impact will be cruel and profound.
The problems reach beyond skilled worker routes. Charities and clinicians in the asylum system warn that prolonged insecurity deepens trauma and drives people into destitution. Earlier access to work, settlement and citizenship improves outcomes for individuals and the communities they join. A humane asylum system, with safe routes and timely decisions, is not an act of charity, but an investment in social cohesion.
Another community unfairly affected is the British national overseas visa holders from Hong Kong. For them, the five-year path to settlement must be protected and made permanent. Retrospective rule changes or excessive salary thresholds and language barriers would simply betray the commitment that this country made to people seeking safety and freedom. Children born here should have automatic and secure status, not years of uncertainty.
I urge the Minister to stand for dignity, fairness and humanity. Retain the five-year route to settlement, end retrospective changes, protect refugees and BNO families, reform skilled worker visas so that they prevent exploitation rather than enable it, and above all, recognise the simple truth that those who care for Britain are part of Britain.
Iqbal Mohamed (Dewsbury and Batley) (Ind)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Sir Edward. Last week I held a meeting with the Nigerian community in my constituency. Around 30 workers were present, many of whom work intolerably long hours performing vital tasks for scandalously low pay in the healthcare and social care sectors. These people are scared: they are scared that the state will arbitrarily deprive them of their security and their ability to plan for the future with any certainty.
One of those individuals—her name is Uzoamaka—wrote to me outlining her concerns. Uzoamaka came to our country in 2022, and works in the NHS. She wrote:
“I am an immigrant, a taxpayer, a worker, and a human being. But the new immigration white paper strips me and others like me of dignity, stability, and belonging”,
She goes on to say that proposals to extend indefinite leave to remain
“to make someone live in limbo for ten years, despite working hard and paying taxes, is cruelty in slow motion. Ten years of exclusion, from a future. This is not about integration. It is about humiliation.”
How can a Labour Administration who profess to care about social justice participate in such performative barbarity against immigrants—a group already vilified in the media and subject to acute marginalisation in wider society? As Uzoamaka writes:
“this entire system treats immigrants as disposable tools. We are good enough to pay into the NHS, but not to benefit from it. We are needed but never welcomed.”
Similarly, a proposal that workers could still qualify after five years if they earn over £50,000 is
“a gatekeeping tool. Most healthcare assistants, carers, cleaners, and laboratory technicians will never meet this bar. Yet we clap for them, we depend on them, we call them key workers. Now we discard them.”
Carla Denyer
On that point, last week more than 45 migrant rights groups described the earned settlement proposals as “fundamentally racist and classist.” Does the hon. Member share my deep concerns that the proposals will hit the most vulnerable the hardest, and create a discriminatory, two-tier system in which wealth and certain jobs or nationalities are prioritised over others?
Iqbal Mohamed
I wholeheartedly agree. We must have equal compassion for all in our society, whether they were born here or came here to build a life for themselves and support our country and the prosperity that we all share in.
Uzoamaka concluded her letter by asserting that
“we do not want favours. We want fairness. We do not seek sympathy. We demand justice.”
If Labour politicians did not go into politics to give a voice to the otherwise powerless, such as Uzoamaka, and to fight for a humane state, why are they here? That is why Labour Members must vehemently oppose any changes that would extend indefinite leave to remain or unjustly penalise those on low incomes.
I urge the Minister to examine the Home Secretary’s proposals, which would marginalise even further the lowest earners and the most marginalised in our society, who make a key contribution to our society. They will destroy the fabric of our country, our NHS, the care sector and many other industries that rely on people from outside Britain to keep our country running.
Barry Gardiner (Brent West) (Lab)
I congratulate my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Tony Vaughan) on securing the debate.
Legislation should be clear, and the people to whom it applies should know where they stand. Retrospectivity and arbitrary or subjective criteria make for bad law, precisely because they destroy clarity and certainty. Many of my constituents in Brent West are deeply concerned by the Government’s consultation.
I welcome the Government’s saying that they will not change the status of those who already have settled status here. To do so, they admit, would be unfair. They say:
“These are people who have been in our country for years, or even decades. They have families here…and have been contributing to our society…. Fairness is the most fundamental of British values. We made a promise when we gave those people settlement, and we do not break our promises.”—[Official Report, 20 November 2025; Vol. 775, c. 891.]
Ah, but we do break our deals, it would seem. Take the family in my constituency who came lawfully to the UK 16 years ago. They did not meet the requirements for other settlement routes, but after 10 years, they have put down roots: they have had two children, and were earning just enough to apply for the 10-year path to settlement under the long residency rule.
So far, this family have paid a further leave to remain application fee of £1,321 per person, plus an immigration health surcharge of £2,587.50 per adult, reduced to £1,940 for their children. That is a total of £14,363—paid not once, but twice, because the fee is due every 30 months. Can the Minister tell me whether next year, when the third payment is due, and having scrimped to save the £28,726 they have already paid, this family should double down and pay the third instalment of £14,363 so that they can go on to make the final ILR fee payment of £12,126? Or will they suddenly find that their pathway has been blocked by a new requirement that one of them cannot fulfil, and that the £43,089 they have already spent is lost, or that the process has been extended so that they continue to pay for another five years under what looks like indentured service?
These people, too, have been in our country for years, even decades; they have families here and have contributed to our society. We held out a promise to them, too—that of a 10-year pathway, which now looks more like a road to nowhere except penury.
Ayoub Khan (Birmingham Perry Barr) (Ind)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Edward. I represent a constituency that is proud of its diversity, and I see at first hand how welcoming talented, hard-working people from around the world enriches our society. That is why the Government’s proposed changes to indefinite leave to remain hit so close to home and threaten to up-end the lives of many in my area.
Few in this Chamber will truly understand the insecurity that comes with moving to another country—of building a life while your future, family plans and financial stability rest on political decisions that are beyond your control. It is no surprise that so many who contribute enormously to our communities and economy feel frustrated as the goalposts are moved yet again.
Helen Maguire (Epsom and Ewell) (LD)
One of my constituents is incredibly distressed: they are a dependant of a local business owner and they contacted me about the European Community association agreement route. They are concerned that the proposed earned settlement skilled worker metrics cannot be applied to ECAA entrepreneurs, who must demonstrate a genuine business rather than meet salary thresholds. Does the hon. Member agree that any changes to indefinite leave to remain must properly consider those on the ECAA route, and any other specific routes?
Ayoub Khan
I totally agree. These changes are simply unfair—not just unfair, but economically short-sighted. They risk driving away the very people our country depends on—highly skilled professionals who make up a small group of fewer than 70 specialist occupations, yet who are critical to productivity, innovation and competitiveness. Employers already struggle to recruit domestically, particularly in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics fields. Raising the salary threshold to £50,000 ignores the labour market reality and places further strain on businesses that are already paying visa fees, skills charges and the immigration health surcharge. The hon. Member for Brent West (Barry Gardiner) mentioned how much people pay, but there is an added cost: that of legal fees, which can run into thousands of pounds.
These workers are not burdens on the state: they pay tax, national insurance and over £1,000 per adult each year through the health surcharge. Many have partners who are also highly skilled and work full-time, yet whose contributions are simply overlooked. Most concerning of all is the proposal to extend the settlement route from five years to 10, potentially applied retrospectively. People—doctors, carers, engineers and teachers—came here in good faith, having been recruited during shortages and given a clear promise of settlement after five years. Changing that promise years later breaks that trust and undermines confidence in an already punitive system. If the Government truly want a controlled and effective system, they must value contribution over political expediency. I urge Ministers to rethink this proposal, protect existing routes and ensure that the UK remains a country that keeps its word.
Abtisam Mohamed (Sheffield Central) (Lab)
I congratulate my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Tony Vaughan) on his expert advocacy on this issue.
As a former lawyer who worked in immigration before being elected to this House, I can say with confidence that the changes announced last year, and expected to emerge from the consultation, represent some of the most complex and far-reaching reforms in decades. We are told that this is a moral mission to restore order and control and create a system that is fair and firm. If that is the aim, why are we proposing changes that strip away certainty for people who are already here—people who believed that ILR was a transitional route to stability, and not a moving target?
Yuan Yang (Earley and Woodley) (Lab)
So many families in Reading, including my own parents, decided to accept positions in the UK and bring their children over on the promise of a stable educational future. We know how transformational education can be for children’s ability to contribute to the economy in future. Does my hon. Friend agree that we must ensure that stability for those who are already here?
Abtisam Mohamed
I agree entirely. Many people uprooted their lives, accepted jobs, bought homes, enrolled their children in schools and planned their futures in good faith, on the understanding that settlement after five years was the agreed pathway. They are now being told, midway through that journey, that the rules have changed. Retrospective application of this policy would be not only deeply unfair, but entirely unjustified.
At the same time, the uncoupling of joint routes to settlement would leave families separated for longer periods. Consider a family where the primary breadwinner is fast-tracked to settlement, while their spouse—the primary caregiver, perhaps working part time—is left on a longer and more precarious route. Where are the impact assessments for those on maternity leave, part-time workers, carers or people with disabilities? We cannot announce a two-dimensional approach to migration and work out the consequences later—not when it concerns some of the most life-altering decisions that people will ever make.
I know that the proposals are under consultation, but we must be clear about the direction of travel. They risk recreating the very conditions that defined the hostile environment: long-term uncertainty, barriers to stability, and communities living with the constant fear that the rules could change again. When my constituents hear migration described as a destabilising event and migrants framed as a burden to be managed, and see policies recycled from failures of the past, they know that this is not reform, but a road to insecurity and division.
The congregations of St Mark’s and St Mary’s in my constituency have also presented me with a petition that urges the Government to show compassion and make suitable transitional arrangements for those who are already here, building their lives and contributing to our communities in Sheffield. They, like many of my constituents, know that the proposals lack humanity. They know that they will impose extraordinary hardship on friends, neighbours and the wider community. And they know that a country that truly believes in sanctuary does not make belonging something that has to be earned again and again, over a lifetime. I urge the Minister to end any retrospective changes, and to retain the five-year route for people who are already here.
Pete Wishart (Perth and Kinross-shire) (SNP)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Edward.
Of all the grotesque and grim things that have been conducted by the Labour and Conservative parties in the race to the bottom with Reform, this is by the far the grimmest and most grotesque. In my constituency, I have met countless families who will be on the wrong side of this—families who do not deserve any of it, and have done everything asked of them. They work, they study, their children speak with a Scottish accent, and Scotland is the only home that many of them have ever known. They are cherished members of our community, yet many of them still wake up every morning unsure whether the life they are building for themselves and their family will be taken away. That is why indefinite leave to remain matters: it is the difference between planning for the future and simply enduring the present.
Victoria Collins (Harpenden and Berkhamsted) (LD)
I will quickly add the voices of the Hong Kong BNOs in my constituency who feel just like that. One said:
“We have built our lives—our careers, finances, childcare and caring responsibilities”
on the rules that were promised by this Government. Does the hon. Member agree that this limbo and instability is a disgrace?
Pete Wishart
Absolutely. When people are given security, it takes away that limbo. I do not know whether many people around this room can imagine that type of uncertain status, but that is what people have to live with every single day of their lives.
Because of the proposed changes, people will remain for longer in the immigration system, where they face repeated applications, fees, health charges and often legal costs. Illness, injury or redundancy can throw everything into question, and it might even be penalised. What is most unforgiveable, though, is that the Government have left open the possibility that the changes could apply retrospectively to people who have already started their journey towards citizenship in the UK, and who are building their lives under the current rules. This is a profound betrayal of those who trusted the system and have made the UK their home.
I have a large Sri Lankan community in my constituency. They are partly—almost exclusively—responsible for keeping our social care service together. I met them a couple of weeks ago, and they told me they are going home, just because of the threat of this. They have had enough. They do not want to be treated like this any more. They are refusing to go along with this, and I have to say I do not blame them, but I worry: where we will get the staff to replace them in a Scotland that is in the early stages of depopulation and has some of the most challenging demographics in the whole of western Europe? They are irreplaceable.
Migrant families are already in survival mode, working long hours in low-wage jobs, saving for Home Office fees and living in insecure housing. Some risk destitution simply to keep up with the cost of maintaining lawful status. These pressures leave them with little time or energy to contribute to the volunteer initiatives that will be required of them. They have grown up here, and they have no home but this.
It is so encouraging to see so many Labour Members here today. I say to them: “Get down to the PLP this evening and put your case forward. Let’s make sure that they know the voice of the Labour Members of this House—and please, for goodness’ sake, get another one of those famous U-turns.”
John McDonnell (Hayes and Harlington) (Lab)
Through you, Sir Edward, may I address the Minister? Just read the room. The only other times it has been as packed as this when I have been here in recent times have been for debates on the two-child limit and on welfare benefits. I do not want to see our Government make another embarrassing U-turn like that.
The reason we are here is that every one of us has a case that, if the proposed change goes through, will be absolutely tragic. Families have settled, sold their accommodation and everything in their home, worked hard and delivered everything asked of them, and we are going to deny them and their children the right to the future that they hope for. If this goes ahead, every one of us will report social care collapsing in our constituencies.
I remind people that it was many of these workers, with their experience, who delivered us through covid. Some of them sacrificed their lives. This is just unjust, and the Minister needs to recognise that, take the message back to those who are developing our strategy as a Government and say, “This isn’t the route to go down.”
Jamie Stone (Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross) (LD)
Will the right hon. Member give way?
John McDonnell
I would rather not, because other people need to come in.
Let me just make a point about parliamentary process. If this is to be done not through primary legislation that we can debate and amend, but via a statutory instrument, it needs to be done under the double affirmative process, so that we can have a debate and the opportunity for amendments. Otherwise, I think the Government are going to run into opposition of a scale that they have seen on other issues, frighten people and undermine our support, completely unnecessarily. If there are issues around immigration that we have to deal with—if people can remember, we did it with the bogus colleges—we should do it through proper legal process and prosecution. If there are abuses in the system, let us address the abuses, but do not harm people in this way as a result.
Charlie Maynard (Witney) (LD)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Edward. I thank the hon. and learned Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Tony Vaughan) for securing this important debate.
This morning I met a constituent, Petra, who has been in the country for three and a half years. She works in the care sector. She works extremely long hours, which are not in her control; sometimes she is loaded with work six days straight from 7 o’clock in the morning to 10 o’clock at night, and sometimes she gets no work at all. When she talks to her employers, they say, “Well, you and the rest of your team are on visas, and if you report us and we go out of business then you’re all going to be leaving the UK.” We are creating this enormous class of indentured servitude.
Oliver Ryan (Burnley) (Lab/Co-op)
Those were exactly the words of my constituent Arshad Khan when he came to see me at my constituency surgery this weekend; he made that point about indentured servitude and visa licences, and how these employers operate. I just want to add to the hon. Gentleman’s argument, because this is a serious point. People are living with the power of their employer over their head. Sometimes, they are held on poor rates of pay and poor shift patterns, and they cannot challenge it because their employer has all the power in the relationship.
Charlie Maynard
I thank the hon. Member for that intervention.
The situation I described is obviously cruel, and this moving of the goalposts will make it miles crueller. To the point made by the right hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell), I really hope that the Minister is reading the room, because the country is up in arms about the proposed change, and we should not allow it to be made. I ask him to reconsider.
Mark Sewards (Leeds South West and Morley) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Sir Edward.
Controlling our borders is a basic function of the state. The Government inherited open borders and are now undertaking the serious work required to fix them, so I welcome the Minister’s efforts. However, I think there are some tweaks we could make. I have spoken on this issue several times, in particular in respect of Hong Kong BNO visa holders, and I am grateful that the Government have committed to keeping the five-year route for that group. Today, though, I am going to focus on how the proposed changes will affect families, especially those I have been speaking with in the Morley Indian community.
Around 30% of the families I have spoken with are due to receive their ILR within the next six months, so they are understandably very anxious about what the changes will mean for them. The vast majority are high earners or work in key sectors. Many of the people I have spoken to earn well over £50,000, do not claim benefits, and contribute significantly to our economy and our public services through their taxes.
Because at least one member of those families is earning a high salary, their spouse or partner has been able to move into part-time work, often so that they can help raise and care for the children. They are very worried that, as a result, they will not meet the new criteria at the same time as their partners. They came to this country under one set of rules, which allowed dependants to move to the UK with them, and now they are very concerned at the prospect of being unable to qualify together and being broken up entirely.
Have the Government considered putting in place strong transitional arrangements that do not punish families who are already here and contributing far more to the UK than they take out? Alternatively, would the Government consider allowing a family to qualify for ILR together where the family—not an individual—meets the salary threshold?
Many of the Morley Indian families I have spoken with came over here knowing that they would pay international university fees while they were waiting for ILR. They accepted that those were the rules. However, under the proposed changes, they might wait a lot longer —and, worse still, if they went back to India, they would find that they are no longer considered home students for fees purposes there. They would find themselves trapped in a situation where they cannot pay the fees here and they cannot pay the fees back at home.
Lewis Atkinson (Sunderland Central) (Lab)
I thank my hon. Friend for the speech he is making. Does he agree that although the Government seek through their proposals to increase integration, by limiting ILR to those who stay beyond 10 years we are actually going to reduce integration in exactly the sort of instance that he has outlined? That risks undermining the integration that I see in workplaces, churches and community groups in Sunderland.
Mark Sewards
I completely understand where my hon. Friend is coming from. The people I was speaking about just before he intervened will find themselves trapped, and effectively shut out from university education altogether, even though they are already integrated into this country.
I urge the Government to consider the full impact of the implementation of the proposed changes for people who are already here, working and contributing more than they ever take out, who came in good faith, and who have followed every rule we have set for them.
Shockat Adam (Leicester South) (Ind)
It is an honour to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Edward. I have much to say in this debate, hence it is very difficult for me to know where to begin. However, I will begin by thanking the petitioners.
For this MP—indeed, this is also the case for many of the MPs in this room, and for Cabinet Ministers and shadow Ministers, and even for a Prime Minister—I am what I am because of the manner in which this country treated me when I came here. I had two parents who could not speak a word of English, yet the support that we received means that now we have a dynasty of academics, entrepreneurs, professionals and even a parliamentarian—although I know, for some people, that might be enough to create a policy to make sure that it never happens again. [Laughter.]
We have a sense of belonging to this land, even though we are far away from our ancestral land. That does not happen by chance. It happens by design, and it can only happen in a country that promotes integration based on the values of decency, respect and contribution, rather than contempt, impatience and transactional values. It works when a society respects values that should be woven into its fabric—when we value our care workers, our frontline health workers, our teachers and our transport workers, not because of how much money they earn but because they are the foundation of our society.
Iqbal Mohamed
A lot of people who have come here have been branded “the Boris wave”, but one of my Nigerian constituents told me they came here under “the covid wave”, to care for people in this country.
Shockat Adam
I agree with the hon. Gentleman.
Having a policy like the current one also flies in the face of the Prime Minister’s pre-election pledge. It is a betrayal of his sixth pledge, which we were told was:
“an immigration system rooted in compassion and dignity.”
I, and I am sure many others, feel the betrayal most sharply when it comes from an Asian Home Secretary—someone whose own journey reflects the promise of migration, but who now advances policies that punish people who are just like her own family and mine once were.
Apart from the policy being morally bankrupt, it also flies in the face of fiscal responsibility. We are told that this issue is all about cost, and that migration is a burden. Yet those claims collapse under scrutiny. The widely cited £234 billion “ILR emergency figure” has been discredited even by its own authors. Correct the errors and migration delivers a net fiscal gain of £100 billion.
Shockat Adam
I am sorry, but I cannot do so, in the interest of time.
Security results in integration. Insecurity results in chaos, not to mention the serious possibility of exploitation of people by employers; colleagues have already made the point about indentured labour.
When did modern Britain become such a transactional country? If we truly want an integrated Britain, the last thing we want is longer waiting times, uncertainty and a broken promise. What we need is certainty—five years’ maximum for the process, with fast decisions—and a real acknowledgement that migration, when it is organised with respect and fairness, strengthens a country rather than weakening it.
Melanie Onn (Great Grimsby and Cleethorpes) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Edward. The proposed changes to ILR and the consultation on earned settlement have far-reaching consequences, so it is essential that they are delivered with fairness and compassion. I support the Government’s mission to restore control of and confidence in the immigration system, including the clear objective of reducing net migration and ensuring that the rules are properly enforced. Public trust depends on a system that is coherent, that is consistent, and that works, but it is worth remembering that the people who have come to the UK have come through legitimate means, and they have come to fill the Brexit work gap, to support our public services, and to contribute well to our society.
I must reflect the real anxiety that I am hearing in Great Grimsby and Cleethorpes from people who are already here, already working and already paying tax, and who entered the system in good faith under the existing framework. They have built their lives around these rules—our rules—and it would be wrong if the goalposts were moved halfway through the match.
I want to add to this debate the voice of one of my constituents, Victor Olubumoye, a care worker who has described living under what he called “visa fear”. He told me that every day he went to work fearful that a single mistake could cost him not just his job but his immigration status, and that managers repeatedly reminded him that his visa depended upon them; we have already heard about that situation from other Members. In Victor’s own words:
“You cannot give what you do not have. People who are treated without dignity struggle to give dignity.”
That testimony matters, because it goes to the heart of what fairness looks like in practice. If we want a system that commands confidence, we must not create incentives for silence, exploitation and instability in our essential services. Making changes for future arrivals can probably just about be explained, but making retrospective changes for those who are already here, and who often work in our essential public services, risks undermining workforce stability and basic fairness.
In my constituency, the issue of immigration is a topic of interest, to say the least, and there is no point in pretending it is not, but that interest is not about those who came on a proper visa, through a proper scheme from the Government. Concerns about the over-reliance of employers on overseas labour are not the fault of those individuals; they are here because we asked them to come and help. As the consultation progresses, I ask for the careful consideration of transitional protections or differentiated arrangements for existing workers, so that their contribution is properly recognised, their integration is supported and their concerns are reflected in the final policy.
Mike Martin (Tunbridge Wells) (LD)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Sir Edward. On Saturday, I met with 200 members of the Paddock Wood Hong Kong community. You are probably wondering, Sir Edward, why 200 people would give up their early Saturday evening to see me. They did so because they were worried, for themselves and for their families. They came to voice their fear that their pathway to settlement had narrowed, and they came because the conditions under which they uprooted their lives in Hong Kong and came to Britain are being changed. I am deeply disappointed that the promise made by the British Government on which they came here is now potentially being rewritten.
Let us go into some detail. I am grateful that the Hong Kong BNO route will continue to allow settlement after five years, but there have been two changes: one on language requirements, and one on earnings thresholds. On language, many BNO families came here as three-generational units, in which there of course are quite elderly people. Obviously, it is more difficult for those people to achieve a much higher standard of English proficiency—any hon. Member who has learned a language in their life will know that it is easier to do at 20 than at 80—so what are they to do? If a person is 80 and fails a higher language requirement, would they get sent back to Hong Kong while the rest of their family remained? The Government need to look at that in more detail.
On income requirements, three-generational family units have come, as I said. Some 70% of BNO visa holders are degree educated, and they are working in jobs that are significantly below their professional level and standing.
Mike Martin
I will not take any interventions, as so many hon. Members are seeking to get in. The combination of highly skilled individuals and three-generational families means that, quite rightly, not everyone in a family goes to work, so what about the carers, part-time workers, the elderly and students? If a person is studying at university and is not earning, do they need to meet the income threshold? There is a complete lack of clarity.
When I attended the Chinese new year celebrations in Paddock Wood last year, which were held jointly with the congregation of St Andrew’s church, I saw at first hand just how deeply the Hong Kong community enriches our community, and how the native Paddock Wood community reciprocates that. The British Government have made a promise, and they should stick to their promises. I urge them to reconsider.
Brian Leishman (Alloa and Grangemouth) (Lab)
St Mark’s gospel says:
“Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.”
With the political discourse of today largely focusing on blaming immigration for the societal ills our country faces, that commandment is sadly not in fashion.
The Government’s proposal for pathways to settlement introduces a new 10-year baseline for people, including those granted refugee status, with time added or taken away for circumstances seen as favourable or unfavourable to the Home Secretary of the day. If someone was to arrive via illegal routes, that adds 20 years to the baseline, meaning it would be 30 years before they could apply for citizenship. Bear in mind that arriving by an irregular route is almost unavoidable due to the virtual nonexistence of safe and legal routes. It must be acknowledged that claiming asylum is a human right; it is not an abuse of any system. Proposals that differentiate between regular and irregular arrivals are unequal at their very core. Differentiating would create an inferior class of people, whose need for protection might well be internationally recognised, but whose long-term status is kept deliberately precarious.
In a Scottish context, the Scottish Refugee Council has said that in Glasgow last year there were over 2,000 children from refugee families in temporary accommodation. Scottish local authorities are already at breaking point, with over a decade of underfunding—equating to over £1 billion these last 10 years from the SNP Scottish Government. We all know that children growing up in poverty has a huge long-term impact on life chances, health outcomes, our local and national economies, and the condition and functionality of our public services.
I say to the Minister: Labour must do better than copying the right-wing parties and demonising immigrants and asylum seekers. This country does not want or need us to be some diluted version of Reform. Whether we are talking about immigration, welfare, education, the environment, industry, or all the rest, ultimately, the question is always the same: what kind of society do we want to live in? Do we want to live in one that looks after the most disadvantaged, vulnerable and destitute, or one that looks to scapegoat and point the finger at these people for the political decisions that have led to growing poverty and inequality? As a socialist, and someone who believes in the commandment of love thy neighbour, I know what I want my Government to do.
Ian Sollom (St Neots and Mid Cambridgeshire) (LD)
It is a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair, Sir Edward. I am grateful to the petitioners for bringing this important matter to Parliament, and to the hon. and learned Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Tony Vaughan) for leading the debate.
The Government are right to say that settlement should be earned through contribution—few would dispute that principle. The consultation documents point to a system that contradicts those stated goals. I am sure the Minister will say that no final decisions have been made, but the direction of travel is clear. A 10-year baseline for most routes—15 years for care workers, as many Members have mentioned—with complex reductions based largely on salary, fundamentally misunderstands what settlement is for.
Olly Glover
My hon. Friend makes a good point about salaries and how income levels are not necessarily a good predictor of usefulness to society and economic contribution. We have heard that point made clearly about social workers, but does he agree that in high-tech sectors such as space, biotech and robotics, we need global talent and that only by pooling that talent will we succeed, which is why we should not be putting in place these barriers to indefinite leave to remain?
Ian Sollom
I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend, and will shortly cite an example of that from my constituency. The key distinction to make is between selection and settlement. Our visa system is the selection mechanism; we judge whether someone has the skills we need, meets the thresholds, and fills a genuine vacancy. Settlement is about whether people can actually plan a future here and commit to staying. Five years of working, paying taxes, learning English and staying out of trouble is earning it. Extending it to 10 or 15 years does not raise standards; it just makes Britain unattractive to exactly the people our visa system should be welcoming.
I will give a concrete example. I have a constituent who came in on the high potential individual visa, which is a route explicitly designed to attract the world’s best talent. He is a skilled engineer; he chose the UK based on the clear five-year pathway. He tells me that had a 10-year route been the policy, he would never have come. That is the reality when we are competing for talent.
The Government also claim that the changes will improve integration, but uncertainty is the enemy of integration. Someone who knows they can settle after five years will invest fully in their future here; someone facing 10 to 15 years of uncertainty will keep their options open elsewhere. Another constituent who has been in touch is an orthopaedic surgeon, a professional serving our NHS. He has three children in British schools. He tells me that if the rules change, he cannot wait for another six years. He will leave, and our NHS and our country will lose him and his talent.
The moral stakes are clearest when I hear from Hongkongers in my constituency. While they may be exempted from the extension to 10 years, the consultation leaves unclear what “earned settlement” actually means for them—higher English requirements, income thresholds, whether any exemption is permanent. That is for people who fled political persecution based on our word to them. When we create uncertainty for people who follow the rules and contribute, it damages trust in British commitments.
By all means, use the visa system for selection—we can have many separate debates on that—but settlement terms should enable the people we decided to welcome to commit to staying. The current direction undermines both our economic interests and our reputation for fairness, and I urge the Government to change course.
Gareth Thomas (Harrow West) (Lab/Co-op)
I rise to raise my concerns about plans to require skilled workers, health and social care staff and those fleeing persecution to wait 10 or even 15 years, instead of the current five, to secure indefinite leave to remain. I echo the concerns of many in the Hong Kong community in Harrow, who are concerned about their status and their route to indefinite leave to remain.
As they stand, the changes will make it more difficult to attract to the UK the key staff and talent to help grow our economy and run vital public services. Of course, we need to do more to help those born and bred in the UK to access the jobs market and to prevent abuse of the existing immigration system, but to ask those in the UK who are already here to have to wait another five years or longer would be the height of unfairness.
Multiple constituents of mine in senior roles in engineering, the tech sector and other professional services have written to me with their stories, which underline their personal commitment to the UK and the expectation that Britain—of all countries, with our respect for the rule of law—would honour the implicit promise that we would hold true to that five-year commitment. At the very least, there must be transitional protections for those on the current ILR pathway.
I am concerned that too often we shy away from recognising the economic and cultural contribution that those from outside our country make to our communities. They make the UK home. It is not Britain being exploited; we gain from the talent, imagination and hard work that migrants bring to our country.
Uma Kumaran (Stratford and Bow) (Lab)
My constituent Aminbhai is a pharmacy dispenser—a skilled worker from India whose work is essential to our community. He raised concerns about recruitment and retention in health and social care roles. Alongside our investment in home-grown talent, does my hon. Friend agree that changes to ILR qualifying periods must not risk impacting sectors where we currently rely heavily on the talents of dedicated international workers?
Gareth Thomas
I very much agree, and I add that surely we have a responsibility to stand with refugees fleeing appalling conflict, including those from Ukraine, and those fleeing increasingly authoritarian regimes such as those from Hong Kong.
Gareth Thomas
Forgive me; I have taken one intervention already.
Overwhelmingly, migrants from Pakistan, the Caribbean, India, Sri Lanka and across Europe—wherever they are from—have benefited my constituency. Are we sure we want to lose those vital workers from crucial public services, such as the NHS or social care?
International students make a positive contribution to our economy and our country, too. I am certainly proud of the many Indian students who were attracted to the UK and who live in my constituency, and I do worry for our universities. The fees of international students helps to fund research. Cutting-edge universities in Britain need to attract international students, so we should not demonise those students who come here, and drive them towards other countries’ universities. I recognise that the choices before my hon. Friends in the Home Office are not easy, but I urge them none the less to recognise the particular responsibility we have to those who are already here and are already on the ILR pathway.
John Milne (Horsham) (LD)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Edward. Last week, I met 30 or so members of the Hong Kong community in Horsham. These people are professionals: they are teachers, students, engineers, doctors, business owners and directors. They are in work, paying tax, buying homes, raising families and contributing to local life. They came here legally. They came because the British Government made them a promise.
In talking to them, what struck me most was not anger but fear—fear that the basis on which they uprooted their lives is now shifting beneath them. Given the strength of feeling, the numbers affected and Hong Kong’s unique historical context as a former colony, I trust that the Government recognise that the recent proposed changes to indefinite leave to remain will have unintended consequences, and that they will want to address this matter urgently.
In Horsham, nearly 90% of BNO households are homeowners. Clearly, they are not a drain on public resources, and are financially stable, yet some will nevertheless struggle to meet the new income threshold. Some family groups include older applicants, carers or non-working spouses, just as we would expect in any household. Many cannot simply earn more to bridge the gap, and others will take time to move into higher-paid work and transfer their skills and qualifications. Will the Government consider taking account of assets and long-term stability, not earned income alone, when assessing ILR applications for Hong Kong BNOs? My constituents are also deeply concerned about the English language requirement: four in five of them say that they are worried about passing the exam, and they are people who seemed quite fluent when I spoke to them. Obviously this affects older applicants in particular.
These families moved across the world on a promise from the British Government, and there is now a genuine risk that that promise will be broken. In all honesty, I do not think that this new law was ever intended to affect them at all. My asks from the Minister are straightforward: exempt Hong Kong BNOs from the new earned settlement criteria, provide transitional protections for those already on the five-year settlement pathway, and assess household income, not individual income, to keep families together.
Steve Witherden (Montgomeryshire and Glyndŵr) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Sir Edward.
I place on record my firm opposition to proposals to dramatically extend the timeline for the route to settlement, and in particular to the deeply unfair plan to apply the changes retroactively. To now withdraw that promise is, as the Work Rights Centre has rightly said, an
“extraordinary betrayal of migrant communities”.
The proposals risk fuelling exploitation, deepening poverty, destabilising already fragile sectors and doing real harm to the wider economy. Under the new system, so-called medium-skilled or lower-paid workers, including nursing, healthcare and social care staff, could face a staggering 15-year wait before being eligible for settlement. That is not a pathway; it is a prolonged period of insecurity.
Last Thursday, I met a group of local Unison members —all migrant care workers. Their dedication to our community is unmistakeable. One told me that he regularly completes a long shift at Newtown hospital, volunteers at Newtown Food Surplus afterwards, sleeps for four or five hours, and then begins his next shift. I cannot think of a clearer example of someone who gives wholeheartedly to their community.
At a time when our care sector is already facing critical workforce shortages, the proposals will drive people away. Research from the Royal College of Nursing indicates that up to 46,000 nursing staff could leave the UK in response to the measures. That would be catastrophic. What assessment has been made of the impact on staffing levels in our public services, particularly health and social care? Does the Minister recognise that forcing care workers into 15 years of temporary, precarious status risks destabilising the workforce even further, increasing delayed hospital discharges and placing yet more pressure on unpaid family carers?
We must retain the five-year route to ILR, halt the retrospective application of these changes and honour the terms that workers originally signed up to. We must invest properly in social care, advance the fair pay agreement and protect the rights and status of existing international recruits. It is not migrants who have weakened our public services; it is successive Governments who have done so through underfunding and privatisation. Our migrant workers keep our health and social care system afloat. Punishing them with prolonged insecurity will only deepen the recruitment crisis and harm families and communities across the country.
Charlotte Cane (Ely and East Cambridgeshire) (LD)
I congratulate the petitioners on bringing forward this important debate. The Government’s immigration White Paper has caused no end of confusion, anxiety and distress since its publication last year. To me, and to countless constituents who have contacted me because they are worried for their livelihoods, it is profoundly and inexcusably unfair. Some people do not know whether they should prepare to leave or continue with plans to invest in a new house, a job or marriage. Others are seriously worried about the status of spouses and dependants under the new rules. They are facing the reality of being entirely displaced and forced to abandon careers, personal lives, colleagues, friends and homes.
I have written to the Home Office about the fear and distress of my constituents and to urge it to at the very least offer some certainty on indefinite leave to remain. Yet, time and again, I receive the same formulaic lines from the Minister, who refuses to provide the assurance that changes to ILR will not be applied retrospectively to those who arrived under the five-year rule. Instead, my constituents are told that they must now earn their right to settle by attaining a minimum income level and proving their worth through volunteering.
Numerous individuals have been in touch to tell me how, upon their arrival in the UK, they spent time to complete degrees, including master’s degrees, and on-the-job training to secure their places in valuable sectors such as science, innovation and our NHS. Now, they are unsure if they can stay or if they can trust that even an extended ILR term will ultimately ensure their settlement. Others with jobs in areas such as adult social care putting in long, unsociable hours doing invaluable work in to ensure that they are on track to settled status do not have the time to further prove themselves by volunteering.
Women are particularly disadvantaged—a fact the Government are yet to acknowledge. Whether it is due to limited access to skills, the gender pay gap, greater caring responsibilities or taking maternity leave, they too fear that they will not meet the Government’s standards to earn their settlement.
The Government’s planned changes to the immigration and settlement system are wrong, and treat with contempt the countless people who came to this country fairly and planned their lives around the rules at the time. At the very least, I urge the Government to treat those people with the respect they deserve. Will the Minister now rule out, once and for all, any retrospective application of changes to ILR and the addition of any new requirements to those already on the path to settled status?
Cat Eccles (Stourbridge) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Sir Edward. The proposals to retroactively extend the qualifying period for indefinite leave to remain create considerable insecurity and disruption for migrants living in the UK. Contrary to what many believe, the process of getting ILR is difficult and costly, so there is no need to make it even more difficult by increasing the eligibility period. We are not talking about new arrivals. These changes will impact those who have lived in the UK and contributed to our economy for at least half a decade. They are nurses, doctors, train drivers, construction workers, cleaners, carers and others who keep our economy working. Thousands of migrant workers in these sectors are now being told that we do not value their contribution. We risk losing those skilled workers, which would undermine our public services and our economy.
I declare my interest as the chair of the all-party parliamentary group for healthcare workers. The NHS and social care sector employ thousands of people on work visas to cover workforce shortages, including one of my constituents, who is a healthcare assistant living in limbo due to these proposals, with a salary just £60 a year under the arbitrary threshold. Although we do not have robust data in that area, conservative estimates suggest that about 25,000 doctors and 50,000 nurses will be impacted. As others have asked today, will the Minister confirm what data modelling or impact assessment has been conducted to assess how these changes will affect the health and social care sectors?
After many years of failing to provide enough medical school places, apprenticeships or other appropriate career training, we face labour shortages in many industries across the country. We rely on immigration to fill those gaps. These changes make the UK a far less desirable and fair place to live and work. To those who have made their home here, these changes say, “You’re not welcome.” Let us show those who have built their lives among us that they are supported, they are valued and they are truly welcome in the country they also call home.
Gideon Amos (Taunton and Wellington) (LD)
It is a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair, Sir Edward. I thank the 344 and 511 signatories from Taunton and Wellington who signed the petitions, including Adekunle, who is in the Public Gallery today.
Everyone recognises that the immigration system needs to be controlled and workable, but this debate is not about the immigration system. It is not about people who may come here or are thinking of coming here; it is about people who are here, who have answered our call to come and work in our health services and in our country. They have settled here, and they are already providing that vital work.
These changes—extending ILR requirements from five years to 10—would remove from my constituency the care workers and potentially the care services that people need and rely on. I do not know who the Government think will vote for the removal of care and care workers from their constituencies. It cannot be right to change the rules after people have made that big decision to uproot themselves and invest their lives halfway around the world to be here.
It is absolutely correct to say that we have had a period of chaos in immigration. The Conservatives lost control, post Brexit. Net migration jumped from 300,000 to 1 million in 2023. They loosened controls. They made promises about settlement, and now they—and, apparently, the Government—want to break promises made by the Government to those workers who responded to Britain’s invitation to be here, to move their lives here and to build their families and their futures in this country.
Faith must be restored to the immigration system after that period of chaos, but the Government cannot restore faith in a system by breaking the promises on which it was built. They cannot restore faith by casting people out. To do so would be a breach of promise and a breach of trust.
Patience is a care worker in my constituency. Her family of three chose to be here, and were thrilled by a new life. Since the announcement, she says their family “have turned quiet” and their two-year-old son is constantly asking what is wrong. Adekunle has two toddlers, who were born here and know no other country. They have no recourse to public funds. He now even feels unable to raise concerns about the people he cares for and the quality of care they receive, because of the risk of exacerbating the indentured servitude we have heard about.
[Emma Lewell in the Chair]
Effectively sending people away and breaking that promise would have massive impacts on older and vulnerable people in Taunton and Wellington. If 50 care workers are expected to leave, 100 people could lose vital care. The Government should instead honour the promise made, and not move the goalposts after the game has begun. They must maintain the rules, including for Hongkongers based in the UK, and build on the success the workers have brought us.
Apsana Begum (Poplar and Limehouse) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms Lewell. I stand here as a proud daughter of immigrants, proud to represent a constituency where we celebrate and cherish the contributions of migrants from all walks of life from all around the world, including many frontline workers and carers, and reject the hatred, division and intolerance of the far right who continue to target our area.
In debates and discussions about the proposed measures, the Government continue to point to the public consultation, which is closing on 12 February. However, on behalf of my constituents who have been in touch with me, I must take the opportunity today to ask the Minister the following questions. When will the impact assessments be published? Given the potentially wide-ranging impacts on all our communities and the economy, including on local authorities and voluntary service providers, how does the Home Office reconcile the potential impacts of the proposals on migrant families with the Government’s wider commitments to reduce child poverty and homelessness in particular, as laid out in their respective strategies published last year?
How can the Home Office justify retrospective applications of the changes to more than 1 million people who came to the UK on the understanding that they would be able to settle after five years? For the educators in my constituency, many of whom contacted me over the weekend, I ask: will the changes apply to all staff in the education sector? As we know, professional services staff in the education sector play an essential role, but their salaries make alternative settlement routes inaccessible.
Like many of my constituents, I am alarmed by the harm that the changes will inflict on our population. They will undermine integrity, integration, workforce stability, efforts on child poverty and our ambitions to tackle violence against women and girls. In the short time that I have today, I urge the Government to pause immediately the implementation of any changes. The number of Members in this room, the petitioners in the Gallery and the queues outside this Chamber today should send a loud and clear signal to the Government to pause and to ensure that they support transitional protections so that people in the UK are not retrospectively moved on to longer routes.
I also urge the Government to undertake an independent assessment, ideally by the Migration Advisory Committee, covering areas such as exploitation, domestic abuse, child poverty, workforce retention and local authority costs. Finally, I insist on a wider parliamentary debate and a vote, rather than major reform through immigration rules.
Jas Athwal (Ilford South) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms Lewell. I thank the Petitions Committee for securing this important debate. I speak today because Ilford South ranks second in the country in terms of the number of residents who signed the petition calling for the five-year ILR route to be maintained. In short, I say: “Don’t change the rules—don’t move the goalposts mid-game.”
When I was seven, my parents left the life they knew in the Punjab so that their children might have a better future. Life here was tough. We had to work hard. The values of sacrifice, hard work and contribution are still alive in families across Britain today: families who have come here lawfully and fill vital skills shortages, who give up stability, work hard, pay their taxes and contribute fully to British life. Let us not let them down.
I accept the Government’s diagnosis that our immigration system is no longer fit for purpose. It was allowed to fail under a Conservative Government that lost control of the system, left people waiting in limbo and offended our sense of fairness. Now, in government, we must restore order—but restoring order must never mean abandoning fairness. British fairness is clear: when people play by the rules, we honour our side of the bargain.
Changing the five-year ILR route retrospectively for those already on that pathway breaks that principle and is wrong. Since the White Paper’s publication I have had countless constituents asking for just one thing: that we do not change the rules for those who have already complied with them. That was the framework they relied on when they uprooted their lives, and changing it after the fact plunges families into uncertainty.
Naushabah Khan (Gillingham and Rainham) (Lab)
My hon. Friend makes a powerful point. Does he agree that the change to this rule could also have an impact on children? We have to make sure that, whatever the changes are, they take into account those children who are growing up in this country and could be adversely impacted if we do not look at the proposal carefully.
Jas Athwal
My hon. Friend makes a pertinent point and I absolutely agree with what she has said. We cannot overlook the fact that children will be adversely affected.
Nearly 3,000 residents in Ilford South signed the petitions. They are not asking for special treatment; many have never claimed benefits and do not intend to. They are simply asking that the rules they came under are upheld.
A constituent of mine called Amandeep, an engineer, told me that his employer will not sponsor him for 10 years. He has a young baby and—a point one of my hon. Friends made—forcing him to leave would destabilise his family. Pranav, aged 19, has an offer from the University of Oxford but, because he and his mother fall months short of the five years, they now face waiting another five years for settlement. He planned his future around the existing rules; now that future is in doubt. Those are the human consequences of shifting the goalposts mid-game. My constituents are asking not for leniency, but fairness.
Britain succeeds when it rewards contribution, values fairness and keeps its word. It is true that we must control our immigration system, but control must never come at the cost of fairness, because a country that changes the rules after people have kept to them is not restoring trust, but breaking it.
Lee Pitcher (Doncaster East and the Isle of Axholme) (Lab)
Let me start by saying something I suspect most Members across the House will agree on: our immigration system requires reforming. It needs to be fair and clear and it needs to command public confidence. That includes securing borders, proper enforcement and rules that people can understand, but we have to be honest about what today’s debate is about; it is about people who came here through legal processes that Parliament set.
These people have made life-changing decisions based on the rules as they stood at the time. They came here to work and are working, doing jobs our communities rely on every single day. They are contributing—paying taxes and raising families—and their contributions really matter.
I want to focus particularly on care workers. The care sector is under immense pressure. Many of the people affected by the change are doing demanding, often lower paid, but essential work: caring for our parents, grandparents and some of the most vulnerable people in our society. Removing certainty from that workforce risks deepening existing shortages and undermining continuity of care.
This debate has been prompted by petitions, including one started by a constituent of mine. It is, in part, because of him that this debate is happening, and I thank him for that. Laurence Bansil is a care manager with 15 years’ experience across health and social care. He came to the UK from the Philippines, with a nursing background, and later became a British citizen through the five-year route to indefinite leave to remain.
He has spoken of his deep gratitude for the opportunities that this country has given him to build a great life, to lead in care and to support vulnerable people. He is also crystal clear about what is at stake in terms of the workforce. Speaking about care workers on health and care worker visas, Laurence says,
“This is not simply an immigration issue.”
In his words, it is
“one of stability, dignity, and the ability to continue caring for people who rely on them every day”.
He told me that the workforce “remains fragile,” and he is clear about the risk of extending settlement timelines:
“losing experienced staff…disrupting continuity of care”,
and
“ultimately harming the vulnerable people the system exists to protect.”
Laurence is here today with the Hesley Group, alongside its chief executive officer Virginia Perkins. He says it is time to
“cement stability in social care”,
and urges the Government to
“ensure full impact assessments are completed”.
There is, though, a wider point here about fairness and trust in Government. My ask for the Minister today is modest and straightforward. It is about clarity and reassurance, so for the sake of those affected I ask the Minister to provide clear guidance for people with an open application pending in the very near future. People who are waiting to be told imminently about their right to remain should not be left in limbo, unsure whether they will be swept into a new regime partway through a process that they entered into in good faith.
Mary Kelly Foy (City of Durham) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms Lewell. This debate is necessary because it goes to the heart of fundamental fairness. The petitions before us reflect the deep sense of betrayal felt by the people who came to this country legally, followed the rules, contributed to their communities and are now being told that the goalposts are to be moved.
The Government’s proposal to double from five years to 10 years the qualifying period for indefinite leave to remain is not just a technical policy change. It represents a broken promise to people who did exactly what was asked of them. We are talking about people who have come here and chosen to make our country their home. Indeed, they have been asked to come here by successive Governments to support our public services. In the city of Durham, these are our neighbours, our teachers and the care workers and NHS staff who keep vital services running, day in, day out.
Last summer, I attended a Unison migrant workers event at which care workers spoke to me directly about the uncertainty caused by the proposed changes. Migrant workers, particularly in social care, are too often trapped by sponsorship rules that tie their legal status to their employer.
Ian Lavery (Blyth and Ashington) (Lab)
I was at the same conference. There is a real issue with certificates of sponsorship because of abuse and exploitation. Does my hon. Friend agree that the certificates of sponsorship should be decoupled from employers, to avoid any exploitation by bad employers?
Mary Kelly Foy
Yes. The meeting that my hon. Friend and I went to was fantastically informative, and I could not agree more with his intervention.
In practice, sponsorship rules mean that migrant workers and particularly care workers are living under conditions that resemble indentured labour. When settlement is pushed further away, that vulnerability is prolonged. By extending the route from five to 10 years, we are effectively handing a bad boss 10 years of leverage instead of five.
I heard directly from John, who is in the Public Gallery today. John is a care worker who lives in my constituency. For three years, he has cared for vulnerable residents in understaffed care homes, working long hours without complaint. Even when he was treated badly by his sponsor or placed in an emotionally demanding situation caring for people with advanced dementia, he carried on because he believed that there was a fair end point. John has described the shock that he felt when he learned that the route to settlement could be extended to 10 years. The change affects not just his immigration status, but his child’s stability, his family’s wellbeing and whether he actually feels wanted in the country he serves.
The Government argue that settlement is a privilege. I argue that it is a common-sense investment in a stable society. When people feel secure, they invest in their homes, put down roots, integrate and contribute more fully to their communities. I urge the Government to think again, protect the five-year route and ensure that the UK remains a country where, if someone works hard and follows the rules, they are met with fairness and compassion.
Rachael Maskell (York Central) (Lab/Co-op)
It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Ms Lewell. My word is my bond, and when we break our word we break our bond—not just with those people who have trusted our country, given up their lives and come to serve us, but across society as a whole. It is a particular challenge at this time, so we have to build trust. That starts with how we respond to this White Paper.
The problem at the heart of the White Paper is the wrong diagnosis and the wrong prescription. Prescribing the wrong medicine makes a patient sicker, and that is exactly what will happen. We have a serious skill shortage across our country. Our health and care systems are creaking. We cannot get the right care in the right place at the right time. For our children, we need teaching in our schools, we need a generation’s worth of houses built and we need infrastructure across the country. If we put skills at risk and create insecurity, our economy will not function, our public services will continue to crumble and our society will be worse off, causing more pain across those communities that desperately look to Labour to find solutions.
I therefore say to the Government that the only place where this policy belongs is in the bin. It has completely misread what the country is saying. Having gone through the detail—I will be putting in a submission to the consultation—around the earned settlement, I have to say that it is gendered. It is built on a premise that we know to be biased against women. It is built on the patriarchal belief that someone with higher pay or status is worth more. Instead, we should be thinking about justice and fairness for everyone, no matter how much someone earns or what language they speak—of course, the report does not once mention our second English language, British Sign Language. It should not matter what contribution someone makes. For some disabled people who come here, just being is being part of our communities. Of course, the paper then gets into the prejudicial rhetoric around recourse to public funds. We must be a country that shows our standards, compassion and morals, and this paper certainly fails on each of those criteria.
In response to this paper, I say to my constituents that my word is my bond. If these proposals progress, I will vote against the Government and ensure that many of my colleagues join me in the Lobby, because this is not a Labour policy.
Perran Moon (Camborne and Redruth) (Lab)
I thank my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Tony Vaughan) for securing this important debate.
In my Camborne, Redruth and Hayle constituency, there is profound anxiety about the changes to indefinite leave to remain. The Minister knows that, because I have written to him on the subject already. The Government’s May 2025 White Paper sets out proposals to increase the standard qualifying period for settlement from five to 10 years, with some groups potentially eligible earlier, depending on criteria that have yet to be developed.
I support a consultation on tighter restrictions on indefinite leave to remain for people who have not yet arrived in the UK, but I am deeply uncomfortable with the principle of changing the rules for people already in the UK who have so often experienced huge upheaval to settle in the UK. They described to me having made decisions about work, housing, education and family life based on the existing five-year pathway. Many have shared the emotional toll of the uncertainty that they are now experiencing. Are they working hard and paying their taxes in the UK, only for the goalposts to move and for the terms under which they came to the UK to change? I am afraid that that is not right. It is not keeping our word. It is not fair play. Dare I say it, it is not British.
Many of the people I have talked to in Camborne, Redruth and Hayle—like the people in Folkestone and Hythe and in the highlands who have been mentioned—work in the NHS, social care and hospitality. In Cornwall, we already have chronic shortages of those types of worker. As the Cornish population ages and birth rates fall, it seems counterintuitive to present barriers before the very people we need more of. What we really need is a frank, honest discussion about immigration. While Reform—and, I dare say, what is left of the Conservatives —will always use this issue to promote their dog-whistle dogma, it is simply a fact that the UK needs immigrants to fill our skills gaps and increase UK productivity and innovation, or we will not achieve our economic goals and targets.
Concerns relating to spiralling welfare costs and wage undercutting can and should be addressed directly, as separate issues. For people already in the UK, we need to honour the terms under which they came and end the pain and anxiety that they are suffering.
Patricia Ferguson (Glasgow West) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Lewell. I thank my constituent Favour Deedam and her colleagues in Unison’s migrant worker network for sharing their experiences, views and concerns about the proposed changes to indefinite leave to remain. I am grateful to the many constituents in Glasgow West who have shared their histories and their concerns, and of course I am also grateful to the petitioners.
One of the most important but too often undervalued roles in our society is that of the care workers—the people who look after our elderly family members and the most vulnerable people in our communities. Many of those carers are skilled, and they are often studying and achieving national vocational qualifications to equip them to do their job to the very best of their ability. In spite of their qualifications and dedication, they are just not well paid. As 31% of those employed in the health and care sector are now from overseas, it is clear that our NHS and the care sector could not function without them.
As we have heard, the Government’s proposals would mean that for lower-paid workers in the public sector, the waiting period for indefinite leave to remain will increase to 15 years. I suggest that a person’s value to our country should not be measured just in terms of their salary; it should reflect their value to our society. People working in the health and care sectors should be judged on their contribution to our society. Let us remember that the people we are talking about pay taxes, pay national insurance and are often very constructive members of our communities too.
Research by Unison indicates that, of the more than 3,000 people who have come to the UK recently to work in the care sector, 15% paid money to an employer for the privilege; 31% had problems with their pay not being given to them on time; and some were not paid for travel times between care visits or were penalised when they were ill. Many reported racial abuse, including verbal and physical abuse.
I suggest to the Minister that a reform that we could usefully put in place for these people would be to establish a better way of granting visas to such staff. Too many have visas linked to their employment but arrive to find that there is not actually a job for them, or else the company holding their visa fails and staff find themselves in financial hardship. Often, the threat of a visa being revoked or of a worker being returned to their home country is used to stop people speaking up about poor conditions. As Unison argues, a sector-wide sponsorship scheme, run by a public sector body, would take away those fears and reduce the costs incurred when a worker moves jobs. Looking at the Government’s proposals—
Patrick Hurley (Southport) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Lewell. I want to keep this simple: the issue today is whether or not the Government should change the settlement rules for people who are already here. I wish to add my voice to the chorus who are saying that they should not. The Government can change the system for the future—that is fine; Governments do that all the time—but they should not change the rules for people who have already come here under one set of conditions and are now being told, part way through, that the deal has changed.
A lot of the people affected are doing the jobs that this country relies on. Rhey are in hospitals. They are in care homes. They are in kitchens and warehouses. They came here legally. They were told that if they worked for five years, paid the taxes and followed the rules, they could apply to settle, so they made decisions on that basis. Now they are being told that it will not be five years after all. It might be 10; it might be 15. That is a whole extra chunk of someone’s life left in limbo.
In the interests of time, I will cut my speech short. None of this has to be this way. If the Government want a 10-year route for people coming to the UK in future, I am fine with that. That is one thing. People can make the choice to come to this country knowing that those are the rules, but the people who have already come here on a five-year deal should have that deal honoured. I am asking the Government to draw a clear line on this issue. New rules for new arrivals are fine, but do not move the goalposts for the people who are already here doing their bit for this country.
Warinder Juss (Wolverhampton West) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms Lewell. I find myself declaring an interest, because I am an immigrant myself. I was born in east Africa. My parents moved to this country with my two elder brothers: we came to Wolverhampton, and I am very proud to call myself a Wulfrunian and to have the privilege of representing the amazing people of Wolverhampton West, a community in which one in four people, like me, were born outside this country.
This debate is not just about politics; it is about humanity. It is about people who have fled persecution. It is about people we need in this country to work in our NHS, care homes, shops, universities and other places. They are not just seeking a better life for themselves; ultimately, they are contributing to our communities and our economy, just as my family have done. The changes that we are discussing today will have an impact on real lives. We must remember that throughout our discussions.
Over a thousand of my constituents have signed the petitions. They wonder why people who have made this country their home and who live as model citizens—earning a living, paying their taxes and giving a huge amount back to their communities—are now having the rug pulled out from underneath them. One of my constituents, Subhranshu Kumar, is a highly skilled worker who completed his master’s degree here in the UK. Just 14 months away from reaching his settled status, he now finds himself in limbo. He was planning to buy a house next year, but now feels he cannot do that. He is not asking for special treatment; all he wants is for the rules that existed when he decided to come here to remain in place.
Making the proposed immigration reforms retrospective not only undermines the basic premise that the law should be stable and understandable but destroys confidence in the entire system and betrays those who came to this country in good faith. To apply these rules to those who are already here and working towards their settled status is inherently unfair. The strength of feeling about the issue is obvious, as evidenced by the number of people in the Chamber today. On 17 December last year, more than 800 migrant members of the largest trade union in this country, Unison, attended one of the largest lobbying events in Parliament’s history, engaging with more than 100 MPs.
These people are here legally; we should be making it easier for them to become settled citizens, not more difficult. Our diversity and multiculturalism are what makes our country great. We should protect legal migrants, not only to enable them to better their lives but to better our lives, too, so that everyone who lives in this country and who calls her home can prosper.
Jayne Kirkham (Truro and Falmouth) (Lab/Co-op)
I spoke in a previous petition debate on this topic last year. At that point, the plans had not been published, and I asked for details of how the changes might affect my constituents, many of whom were very worried and had written to me about their concerns.
In that debate, I talked primarily about doctors and medical staff, because my constituency is home to Cornwall’s only acute hospital. However, I have also been contacted by accountants, chefs, an electrical engineer working in tidal energy and academics—people who make valuable contributions to their communities and who call Cornwall home. We now know that under the consultation proposals, the changes will be applied retrospectively. Some of those people have been living and working in the UK for three to four years, and they assumed that they would soon be eligible for indefinite leave to remain. Now, however, healthcare assistants and care workers in my constituency potentially face 15 years of uncertainty.
These people came to the UK on expensive work visas with an understanding that they could apply for settled status after five years. As other Members have already said, one of my constituents described his reaction to the proposed changes as feeling like the goalposts were constantly being moved. These people have invested their hearts and their families in this country, as well as their money.
I have encouraged my constituents to respond to the consultation and to make their voices heard. I hope that if significant concerns are raised about the proposals being applied retrospectively, the Minister will look at them again.
Pam Cox (Colchester) (Lab)
Like many colleagues, I believe we need a migration system that is robust and fair. It must be robust because, like any sovereign state, the UK needs to be able to exert control over its borders. However, it also needs to be fair, because we are a state that defends and cherishes a rights-based order.
I wanted to speak in today’s debate because I have concerns about the unfairness of some of the proposed changes to the current settlement system. I do not dispute the fact that some changes are necessary. For example, I strongly agree that we need a complete overhaul of the way in which we issue visas to those coming to the UK to work in the health and social care sector, as many colleagues have already alluded to. Unison’s proposal for a sector-wide visa system to replace the current one in which individual employers issue individual visas is a very good one, and I am pleased to welcome Unison members from Colchester to the Public Gallery this afternoon. That change would do a great deal to safeguard the rights of all those who work in that vital sector.
However, other proposed changes to settlement routes give me and others cause for concern. The extension to the settlement qualifying period and the raising of income thresholds will impact much more heavily on the vital public sector workers who we have heard about today—workers on whom we all rely—than on others. I encourage the Minister to consider extending the exemptions to the proposals, and I also add my voice to the argument that these changes should not apply retrospectively.
The Justice Committee, on which I sit, recently had a productive exchange with the Justice Secretary on the matter of exemptions. He assured us that those who have come to the UK to work as prison officers will be exempt from the proposed income thresholds. I understand that parliamentary colleagues who previously worked in the allied health professions—in physical therapy, occupational therapy, pharmacy and social work—have also made a similar case for income threshold exemptions in those vital sectors, so I encourage a very close look at that.
As well as being robust and fair, our migration system needs to be in step with other aspects of Government policy. It needs to offer migrant workers and their families the kinds of protections that we seek to offer to citizens across the country through our Employment Rights Act 2025, child poverty strategy, violence against women and girls strategy, gender equality strategy and homelessness strategy. If I may, I will write to the Minister separately to set out my concerns about what I see as a poor alignment of the current proposal with those elements of our mission as a Government.
Dr Scott Arthur (Edinburgh South West) (Lab)
You will not be surprised to hear that it is a pleasure to serve under your chairship today, Ms Lewell. I start by thanking the hon. and learned Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Tony Vaughan), who introduced this debate, the hundreds of my constituents who either emailed me or took part in my survey, and, above all else, the 350,000 immigrants who work in our NHS. I refer Members to my registered interest.
I am speaking today because I am concerned that these proposals will damage our ability as a country to attract and retain talent. I think that we can all agree that the UK must continue to attract and retain world-class talent in every sector of our economy. Although it is vital to support our British-born doctors and nurses into good jobs, we must also be aware of the reliance our health and social care system has on those from overseas. In 2015, I experienced that at first hand, when a doctor born overseas saved my life. His nationality was the last thing on my mind, but I do have to admit that I asked what his success rate was.
Through my work on my Rare Cancers Bill, I have also seen how vital the contributions of immigrant doctors, nurses and researchers are to cancer care in the UK. I met representatives of Cancer Research UK today, and they say that they spend just under £900,000 a year on visa costs. Would it not be fantastic if, on Wednesday—World Cancer Day—the Home Office waived those costs?
In my past life at Heriot-Watt University, I was lucky to work alongside fantastic academics from around the world, each of them contributing to research and teaching that enriched the academic experience of students at the university. In May, an old colleague wrote to me with concerns about the changes. He moved with his family to Edinburgh in 2006 to take up a lectureship at Heriot-Watt University. Since coming to the UK, he has graduated over 100 MSc students and 35 PhD students, sharing his experience with others who will go on to benefit our country. His wife also works on infrastructure projects for the NHS and Scottish Water. That couple could choose to live anywhere in the world, so of course they live in Edinburgh South West. I am proud that they do. It is really important that we continue to attract people like him and his wife. Although he is now a British citizen, he tells me that these changes lead him to question how valued he and his children are in the UK. Others in his network feel exactly the same.
I want the immigration system to work, but the first step in getting it to work is for the Government to listen to what people are saying today. Above all else, the Government should look at the consultation responses without any preconceived notions, and think about what is best for our country.
Tracy Gilbert (Edinburgh North and Leith) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms Lewell.
I start by thanking the hundreds of my constituents who took the time to sign the petition, and who have spoken to me about this issue. It is essential to have a serious discussion about the positive impact on society and the economic benefits that immigration brings for the prosperity of our country. In my constituency, we see those benefits every day. Whether they are a Nigerian carer, a Spanish cleaner or an Indian doctor, they play a vital role, and they are valued. Many of them are working in sectors where we have a skills shortage, so things would quite literally not move or progress without them.
Skilled people come into our country to work in the UK and make financial contributions to the state. As workers with a form of temporary leave to remain, they will have paid thousands of pounds in fees to be in the UK, and that is before taking into account any taxes they pay. Many of my constituents who have made Edinburgh their home have been in touch with me to express the uncertainty that they now face.
The situation is unfair. That is not just my view but the view expressed in court. In its 2008 judgment on R (HSMP Forum Ltd) v. Secretary of State for the Home Department, the High Court considered changes to what was then the highly skilled migrant programme. The changes would have retrospectively extended the qualifying period for any person to apply for indefinite leave to remain. In its ruling, the High Court said that applying new rules retrospectively was unfair and unlawful, and that migrants had a legitimate expectation that the rules that they were initially granted would continue to apply. If the changes proposed by the Government are enacted on a retrospective basis, it is likely that the High Court will take a similar view on applying the changes as it did in 2008.
Established practice, backed up by the High Court, has always protected those who are already in the system from the effects of any new rules. I urge the Government to uphold that principle. I therefore ask the Minister to ensure that those who entered the UK under the five-year indefinite leave to remain framework will remain eligible to apply after five years of lawful residence, in line with the visa conditions that they were originally granted, and that any new policy will not be applied retrospectively.
Josh Newbury (Cannock Chase) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms Lewell. I thank my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Tony Vaughan) for opening the debate so thoughtfully. I also thank the petitioners for enabling us to debate this issue.
Some 96% of my constituents in Cannock Chase were born in the UK, yet immigration is one of the issues most frequently raised with me. It is a topic of debate that matters to and affects people right across the country. In recent years, rhetoric around immigration has led to a fundamental misunderstanding of the motivations of many people who choose to make Britain their home. At the same time, legitimate concerns about the impact of migration on communities, particularly when that migration is rapid, have been dismissed as bigotry. That leads only to resentment, entrenchment and toxicity, so I am glad that we are having an open and respectful debate.
As always, I am keen to hear a range of views, particularly from those who will be affected by the things that we discuss in this place. Two weeks ago, I met faith leaders and members of the congregation of the Victory church in Rugeley, most of whom work in health and social care. What they shared with me was not opposition to reform but a need for clarity and reassurance. They could see why change is needed, and they support the concept of contribution—they believe that they are making a contribution in many different ways—but the proposal that people in so-called “lower-skilled roles” could face qualifying periods of up to 15 years is causing concern, particularly for those in social care.
The people I met pointed out that social care requires extensive training, safeguarding responsibilities, emotional resilience and compassion, but often is not well paid, meaning that they will not reach the income thresholds under the Government’s contribution proposals. They are not asking for special treatment. They made a constructive suggestion: could those who demonstrate a long-term commitment to care work and continued professional development have access to quicker settlement? I hope that the Minister will say something about how the contribution of social care workers, in particular, can be recognised.
The issue I heard about loudest, though, was the need for transitional arrangements. People have understandably planned their lives around the expectation of ILR after five years, so I hope that the Minister can give us some clarity on when we will know what the arrangements will be. Uncertainty is affecting families’ ability to plan. My constituent Solomon works in social care. His daughter is currently doing her GCSEs and recently won an award for academic excellence. He fears that, on the brink of getting ILR, his family could face a decade or more of uncertainty.
Josh Newbury
In the interests of time, I will not. Communities such as mine ask for a system that is fair, rewards contribution and provides a clear pathway for those who have put down roots and serve our country. I left Victory church in no doubt that the people who I met are making an immense contribution to our community; I am sure that my constituents would be proud that they want to make Rugeley their home. Although I support the Government’s objectives in reforming the settlement system, I ask the Minister to ensure that clarity, dignity and stability are baked in and spelled out as soon as possible.
Kirsteen Sullivan (Bathgate and Linlithgow) (Lab/Co-op)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms Lewell.
Although 116 people in my constituency have signed the petitions, the story of one constituent—I will call her Jill—stuck with me. It is a story of anxiety and uncertainty for Jill, who works in social care on a health and social care visa. She described the reality that many face: low pay, unsafe workloads and a fear that speaking up about conditions at work could put her visa at risk. She made the point that those pressures have been pushing people to breaking point across the country for years. She captured exactly why this issue matters.
People like Jill moved here in good faith. They brought their families. They got jobs in health and social care roles, filling the critical gaps that we have in the workforce. They are contributing to society and dutifully paying their tax. Now the goalposts are potentially being moved. Will the Minister commit to protecting those already on the five-year route to indefinite leave to remain from retrospective changes? For workers like Jill, settlement is not just a petition or debate; it is whether they can plan a future in the country for which they are helping to care, whether they will have to uproot their families and leave the homes where they have created connections and communities, whether they can speak up about unsafe conditions without fear and whether their financial and emotional sacrifices will ever lead to the security they were promised.
Many on this route organised their lives around the existing five-year pathway.
Kirsteen Sullivan
In the interests of time, I will not.
Those people budgeted for visa fees, planned family life and made long-term decisions on the understanding that after five years they could apply for settlement. Extending that to 10 years means five more years of uncertainty and thousands of pounds in additional costs. For families, it means children growing up with prolonged insecurity and uncertainty. For workers, it means remaining tied to temporary status for a decade, severely limiting their bargaining power at work. For our public services, it risks driving away exactly the people we can least afford to lose.
I am not arguing that immigration policy can never change; I think most people here agree that it can and must change. However, there is a fundamental issue of fairness when changes are applied to people who are already here, already contributing to local and national economies and our public services and already well along a pathway that was clearly set out to them. We should not and must not pull the rug from under them now.
Martin Rhodes (Glasgow North) (Lab)
It a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms Lewell.
We have a health and social care system built on the commitment and skills of workers who are too often underpaid, overstretched and undervalued, yet they contribute not only to the wellbeing of our society, but to the strength of our economy. In December, I met with one of those care sector workers, who was also a Unison representative in my constituency. We discussed their campaign for fairer visa rules for migrant care workers in the UK. For transparency, I put on record my membership of Unison.
Many of those working in social care are migrants who care for some of the most vulnerable and elderly in our society. If settlement is to be earned through contribution to the UK economy and society, few have earned it more than social care and health workers. Those who came here with hopes for a better life and have spent years supporting the health and care of the nation should have that contribution recognised and valued.
Progressive reform to the system is needed. Currently, as others have mentioned, a migrant care worker’s visa is tied to their employer, which opens up the potential for abuse. It creates a situation of dependency where a bad employer can exploit their staff knowing that those staff will not risk speaking out because their visa relies on that employer. That power dynamic strips migrant care workers of their bargaining power. We need to rebalance the power dynamic between migrant care workers and their employers. I would welcome a commitment from the Minister to look seriously at the potential of a sector-wide visa that avoids the pitfalls of employment-tied sponsorship in this sector.
In any new immigration rules, those working in the social care sector should be given due status in decisions about indefinite leave to remain and citizenship. I urge the Government to ensure that care workers are treated not as insignificant temporary labour, but as skilled and valuable contributors to society and the economy. Whatever changes we make to our immigration system, we must ensure that those contributions are recognised and respected.
Sojan Joseph (Ashford) (Lab)
As part of the armed forces parliamentary scheme, I recently visited some of our Army training centres and met with a few international recruits who are concerned about the future of their life in this country. Last week, as chair of the APPG on adult social care, I had the pleasure of hosting an event in Parliament to mark the launch of a new report by the Social Care Institute for Excellence. The report examines what national standards of care should look like in future national care surveys. Crucially, the report makes the point that national standards alone will not address some of the deeper challenges faced by adult social care.
One of those challenges is workforce shortages. Across adult social care, workforce shortages have a direct impact on the quality and continuity of the care that people receive. Consistency of staff is fundamental, and delivering high-quality, long-term care without a stable workforce cannot guarantee that consistency. I support the Government’s ambition to reduce long-term reliance on international recruitment. It is right that we focus on building a strong, sustainable domestic workforce, but as we do so, it is essential that we do not lose the skills of those who are already working in the sector.
It is equally important to acknowledge the invaluable contribution that overseas workers have made and continue to make. After the pandemic, the previous Government specifically encouraged overseas recruitment into social care. Many of those who came into the UK uprooted their lives and left their families. They made sacrifices to serve in a sector that holds the wellbeing of our most vulnerable citizens in its hands. As we look to encourage domestic workers to think about pursuing a rewarding career in social care, will my hon. Friend the Minister consider allowing those overseas care workers who are already in the country to complete the five-year route to indefinite leave to remain?
In its last annual report examining the healthcare and social care sectors, the Care Quality Commission stated:
“Vacancy and turnover rates in adult social care have continued to fall”.
While that is to be welcomed, it also pointed out that vacancy rates in the sector are still
“3 times higher than those in the wider job market.”
We should do everything we can to encourage both the recruitment and retention of workers. After all, retaining trained care workers is significantly cheaper and more reliable than replacing them. But if overseas workers who are already working in social care will have to wait 10 or 15 years to get indefinite leave to remain, they may be tempted to move to other countries such as Australia or Canada that offer quicker routes to similar settlement status.
Euan Stainbank (Falkirk) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Lewell. I will confine my remarks to the impact of the ILR proposals on social care in my constituency in Scotland.
Around 25% of social care workers come from other countries. We need social care staff who live, work and breathe care, and, with an ageing population, we need more of them. Most of those staff have diligently, and with a smile on their face, taken care of our families. None of them have received a good deal—or one that reflects their contributions—over the last few years, with inadequate pay offers often limited to the living wage.
I held a roundtable in November on that subject with Falkirk’s care sector. I thank the fantastic local social care workers who travelled down to London to speak with me before Christmas. The concern they have is simple: employers typically only sponsor when they need to, and the recent rise in those coming on social care visas is due to the pay being unattractive to domestic-born workers. Every employer at my roundtable cited immovable difficulties in recruiting locally as the reason that they were pursuing sponsorship. That is unlikely to improve radically given the setting of successive paltry living wage levels at well shy of £15 an hour, well short of a sustainable wage for attracting domestic workers en masse reliably, and morally insufficient for anyone who contributes by working in such a valuable profession. This is a push without a pull.
As MPs, we are hearing directly from providers—and workers—that a blunt transition to 10-year to 15-year ILR timescales for social workers before further work is done to recruit a sustainable workforce risks leaving one of the most important sectors in our country exposed in terms of recruiting critical workers.
Alex Sobel (Leeds Central and Headingley) (Lab/Co-op)
Many people in my constituency who are on the skilled worker visa programme have written to me. They are being told, if they are already on a five-year programme, that it will be changed retrospectively to a 10-year programme. Does my hon. Friend agree that there is an inherent issue of fairness in retrospectively making changes, and that, at the very least, the Government should have transitional arrangements?
Euan Stainbank
I agree with my hon. Friend’s point, and am glad that he managed to get it on the record. I also reflect that there will be an economic impact on social care if we are not able to attract a sufficient domestic workforce to compensate for those who would leave the country.
Those changes would risk deterring those already in the sector from staying. Failing to be able to replace them risks worsening standards for those within the industry by extending their unbreakable tie to a sole sponsoring employer or occupation. The Government are right to pursue measures that reduce net migration, and to address the lack of public consent in the immigration system due to the scattergun rise in net migration under the previous Government, who promised the exact opposite for years. But as we seek to invest in upskilling a generation, we must invest in increasing social care pay to a competitive level, so that we can deliver for that sector, and not risk the sector by trading off the short-term welfare of those who work in it as we pursue reducing net migration.
Sarah Hall (Warrington South) (Lab/Co-op)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms Lewell. I will speak for my constituents who did exactly what this country asked of them. They came here legally, they worked hard, they paid their taxes and they built lives on the clear understanding that after five years they could settle. Now, part-way through that journey, as we have heard time and again in this debate, the goalposts are being moved.
I have met and heard from NHS clinicians, care workers, engineers, researchers, academics, teachers and other skilled professionals, some only weeks away from being able to apply for settlement under the current rules. These are people who kept services running through covid and who pay thousands in tax, yet many are now living with anxiety and despair. Parents have asked me how they explain this to their children—children who feel British, because Britain is all they have ever known. These are households already paying more into the system than they take out.
I understand the Government’s desire to reward contribution and support integration, but my constituents are struggling with a system that feels increasingly detached from the reality of their lives. Government power comes with responsibility, especially when people have arranged their lives around our decisions. We cannot invite people in on one set of rules, benefit from their labour and commitment, and then rewrite the contract halfway through.
I recently attended a community meeting at the gurdwara in Warrington, with constituents who arrived in the UK from south Asia—members of the Sikh, Muslim and Hindu communities, all of whom came here in good faith. Every person in that room was at a different stage of the journey, and every single one would be affected by these changes. Some of the concerns that came up were about a single national income threshold that ignores regional pay differences. People working full time in vital jobs in Warrington cannot simply magic their wages up to a national figure. Many described normal career progression in highly skilled roles, with salaries starting lower and growing quickly, while others explained how visa restrictions limit their ability to move into higher-paid work.
I have spoken to couples where both parents work and pay tax, yet neither earns enough individually to qualify.
Sarah Hall
I am going to carry on because of time.
I have spoken to highly skilled public sector workers who are being told that their day job is somehow not contribution enough. I have heard from researchers and lecturers who are strengthening our universities and innovation base, yet are falling short of blunt thresholds.
To be clear about what fairness looks like, it means no retrospective changes for people already on the route to settlement, clear guaranteed transitional protections, and recognition of regional pay differences. We should manage and control migration, and our constituents rightly expect that, but they also expect fairness. They expect a system that recognises the contribution of hard-working, tax-paying people who now call Warrington their home. I ask the Government to match that same sense of fairness, protect those already on the five-year route, recognise real contribution and give families the certainty they deserve.
Mr Will Forster (Woking) (LD)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms Lewell.
The Liberal Democrats and I are completely opposed to these sudden and retrospective changes to entitlement to indefinite leave to remain. Families who have worked hard, paid taxes and integrated into British society should not face more years of insecurity and additional costs.
Munira Wilson
As well as the uncertainty caused by the extension from five to 10 years of the qualifying period for ILR, many families in my constituency have contacted me with another concern: where, at the moment, one parent stays at home to look after the children, if they are forced to go out to work in order to meet the £12,500 minimum threshold for permanent residence, they will face massive childcare costs. Does my hon. Friend agree that they are right to be concerned?
Mr Forster
I thank my hon. Friend for highlighting that issue. She is a strong advocate for children and families, and she is right to highlight how the Government have not thought this policy through. It has a disproportionate impact, particularly when childcare costs are so significant. I will come on to talk about the unacceptable changes to the income thresholds.
As I said, the Liberal Democrats and I oppose the changes, which move the goalposts and change the rules of the game after we have kicked off. They go against the fundamental British value of fairness. I thank the organisers of the two petitions and all those who signed them, including and especially the 218 and 444 of my constituents in Woking.
The Government’s consultation document states that from April 2026, anyone who does not have ILR status—even if their application is going through the process—will be affected. That is subject to the final outcome of the consultation, which invites views on whether there should be transitional arrangements to exempt some people already in the UK. The Government press release suggests that such arrangements might be considered for “borderline cases”. Will the Minister expand on that, and perhaps explain, without the use of euphemism or vague language, what it means in practice for our constituents? We owe it to the people of Hong Kong, Ukraine and other war-torn parts of the world who have sought refuge in Britain to respect their wish to take part in our society and allow them peace of mind to plan for the long term.
James Naish
The hon. Gentleman mentions Ukraine. Obviously, most Ukrainians will not be eligible for ILR as we are discussing it, and this may be an area where we do need rule changes. A lot of young people who have come over from Ukraine with their families will now know nothing other than our education system and our ways of life. Does he agree that it would be good if the Minister looked carefully at the approach we take with Ukrainians?
Mr Forster
I agree with the hon. Gentleman, and I will talk a bit more about Ukraine in a minute. I thought I would be generous to him, compared with some of his colleagues, who were a bit less keen to hear from him this evening—a little more cross-party working is in order.
I want particularly to talk about Hongkongers. Several elements of the earned settlement proposals are causing serious concern for the Hong Kong community in my constituency, in particular vulnerable BNO families and young Hong Kong pro-democracy activists who have been forced to seek asylum here. Many BNO arrivals are full-time students, retirees, stay-at-home parents—as my hon. Friend the Member for Twickenham (Munira Wilson) mentioned—or family carers who do not meet the conventional salary thresholds. Any new sustained or measurable economic contribution test or minimum income rule risks permanently excluding those entirely legitimate residents, who are already fully integrated into our communities and contributing to British society.
Tens of thousands of BNO visa holders will reach the five-year point and be eligible for settlement in 2026. It is appalling that that is the point that the Government have chosen for the rules to come in. A sudden increase in the language requirement to B2 level without adequate notice or transition arrangements will throw many of those vulnerable individuals off balance and deny permanent status to people who have lived, worked and put down roots here for a decade. That would be yet another betrayal of Hongkongers, after the Government’s recent approval of the Chinese mega-embassy.
The hon. Member for Rushcliffe (James Naish) mentioned Ukraine. The Liberal Democrats urge the Government to take necessary steps to provide Ukrainian refugees in the UK with the stability and security they deserve by establishing a clear pathway to ILR. Later this month, it will be four years since the appalling and unwarranted invasion of Ukraine by Russia, and many Ukrainian families have built meaningful lives here, yet their futures remain precarious because of the temporary nature of their current settled status.
Reports suggest that Ukrainians are missing out on job opportunities, loans, mortgages or lease renewals because they do not have a pathway to permanent settlement. Not only does that put them at a material disadvantage, but the pressures of securing housing or financial security under the current visa system put refugees through huge anxiety. Their country is already at war, and it is deeply unfair to put our allies through further stress. The Ukrainian scheme is the only humanitarian scheme that does not include a pathway for settlement. Ukrainians in this country should not be in that position at all. Yes, we need control, but we need to have a fair and robust system, and a frank discussion about who stays and how we support our friends and allies.
The Liberal Democrats are particularly concerned that elements of Labour’s proposed changes to ILR risk adding unworkable red tape for businesses and for people who came here legally, undermining integration and damaging our economy. Britain is already becoming a less competitive place for science and innovation. The five-year global talent visa now costs £6,000—around 20 times more than in our competitor countries. Cancer Research UK alone spends almost £1 million a year on visas. I know where I want its money being invested, and it is not in visas for the Home Office. Any changes aimed at control must go hand in hand with a serious plan to boost domestic skills and get more people into the jobs that our NHS, social care system and economy desperately need.
Before I come to my asks for the Minister and a summary, I want to mention the elephant in the room—or not in the room. Where are the Reform Members? They are missing yet another debate on immigration. The Government want to change ILR requirements to look tough on immigration because they are running scared of Reform. I urge the Minister and the Government to speak up for our immigrant communities, highlight the benefits of immigration and agree that our constituents are much more likely to be seen by an immigrant in the NHS than to be behind one in the queue.
What assessment has the Minister made of the economic costs and the social costs of these changes? Does he think they will make Britain a more competitive place when it comes to securing the workforce on which our NHS and social care system are so dependent? Has he considered how they may damage community cohesion and integration? Does he agree that retrospectively extending indefinite leave to remain, without the provision of any specific transitional arrangements, will hurt the many hard-working members of our society who have played by the rules and contributed greatly to our economy and culture?
Since taking office, this Government have performed many U-turns on high-profile issues, whether because they are financially foolish, morally wrong, or impossible to deliver because of a political rebellion. Unfairly and unreasonably changing the ILR rules retrospectively would meet all three of those reasons. I urge the Minister to announce today that the changes will not be retrospective, so that immigrant constituents of mine, his and everyone else in the room who have served our communities and fled conflict can sleep soundly at night without worrying about their future. That is what the Minister can do this evening. I urge him to do it.
Matt Vickers (Stockton West) (Con)
Thank you, Ms Lewell, for chairing the debate today.
The House has had a great many opportunities to discuss indefinite leave to remain and its impact on people, including debates in this Chamber on consequential matters such as those working in the healthcare sector and BNOs. Underpinning all these debates is the principle of what constitutes a fair migration system and what does not.
Many Members have made impassioned arguments about what they believe would make a fair system. However, Members who have participated in previous debates on this matter will be well aware that I must respectfully disagree with some of their proposals, particularly any that would create weaker criteria around indefinite leave to remain. The petitions seek either to maintain the five-year period or to provide exemptions to the rules that the Government have set out regarding potential changes to the receipt of benefits. If we were to follow the suggestions in the petitions, the Government’s proposals on settlement would be left in tatters and wholly ineffectual.
When the proposals were announced, the shadow Home Secretary, my right hon. Friend the Member for Croydon South (Chris Philp), said that there was much in them that we supported—partially because much in them was familiar from the amendments we tabled during the passage of the Government’s Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Act 2025. Having spent many hours in the Public Bill Committee discussing that legislation nearly a year ago, I can say with absolute certainty that a 10-year route to indefinite leave to remain is something that we proposed, and it is something that we continue to support.
The right to citizenship and permanent residency should go only to those who have demonstrated a real commitment to the UK, and a 10-year period is clearly more reflective of the level of commitment that many in this country would accept as a reasonable timeframe, in terms of both contribution and time to settle. The British people want and demand tougher action on immigration. We believe that this is a perfectly reasonable alteration to the existing system that puts more robust measures in place to ensure that settlement is based on the long-standing contribution that many of us would expect.
Even though we have seen reductions in net migration, with the Office for National Statistics stating that
“decreases in work-related and study-related immigration”
continue to follow policy reforms from early 2024, the immigration figures remain historically and exceptionally high, and far greater than before the pandemic. The Government must take action to reduce immigration, and they must do so imminently, recognising that the timeframe for these changes is dictated by a significant cohort.
Between 2015 and 2020, total grants of settlement were never over 100,000. In the years either side of that, with the exception of 2010—the last year of the previous Labour Government—they were never more than 200,000.
Barry Gardiner
Does the hon. Gentleman recall that between 2022 and 2024, even though the number of spaces in the care sector was deemed to be between 6,000 and 40,000, his Government made available 616,000 visas for that?
Matt Vickers
There has been a lot of passionate debate today, and well-meaning suggestions for changes or exemptions to the Government proposals were passionately advanced. Some were related to salary, to age or to people’s grasp of the English language; some referred to people’s community contributions, to the make-up of a person’s family or to people’s role in public services. Compassion is infinite, but this country’s resources are not. We need a system that is fair for UK citizens, including those who are currently struggling to get on the housing ladder.
Matt Vickers
I will carry on.
Between 2015 and 2020, total grants of resettlement were never over 100,000. In the years either side of that—except in the last year of the previous Labour Government—they were never more than 200,000. In contrast, the Government’s own settlement consultation sets out estimates showing far greater numbers of people being granted settlement between 2026 and 2030. It projects that the peak could reach as high as 620,000 in 2028, with as many as 2.2 million receiving settlement over that period. That is simply not sustainable.
Matt Vickers
No.
I think we can all understand why people want to achieve settlement more quickly, but the policies we set must be based on what is right for our country. We should maintain our resolve, and ensure that changes are enacted without creating loopholes or alternative routes beyond what the Government have set out. The approach is wholly responsive to the current situation, and reflects the fact that we need much stronger policies that deliver a fair system for British citizens and those who have already legally settled in the UK.
I want to re-emphasise the points raised when the policy was announced, which include the point that the thresholds for earnings to demonstrate net contribution set out in the consultation must be sufficiently high to ensure that those who are granted settlement contribute to this country. Furthermore, the Government’s own work has highlighted some of the mechanisms people use to take advantage of existing immigration rules, so have the Government been developing strong rules to ensure that adjustments to the baseline for behaviour, such as volunteering, represent a significant contribution? If we do not have sufficiently strong criteria for what constitutes working in the community, I fear the proposals risk being undermined.
The British people care fundamentally about fairness. The British people demand stronger borders. Immigration has been far too high for far too long. Too many people refuse to accept that simple fact. As has been said, if we fail to deal with this crisis, we will draw ever more people on to a path that starts with anger and ends with hatred. We need an immigration system that is fair and proportionate and does not take taxpayers for a ride.
For too long the right to remain in the UK has been seen as an automatic entitlement. It has become a conveyor belt to citizenship, when UK citizenship should be a privilege that is earned through commitment and contribution to our country. The Conservatives believe that the UK is not a dormitory or a hotel, but our home. We must make changes to indefinite leave to remain, both to respond to the levels of immigration and so that we can have a fairer system for the future.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mike Tapp)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Lewell. I am grateful to the petitioners in the Public Gallery, to my constituency neighbour, my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Tony Vaughan), for presenting the debate, and to every single Member who has contributed. It will be difficult to name everyone, because there have been so many speeches, but I am grateful for them.
Both petitions relate to the earned settlement proposal set out in “A Fairer Pathway to Settlement”, the Command Paper that the Home Secretary introduced to Parliament on 20 November. The proposed reforms represent the most fundamental change to the settlement system in decades and are currently subject to an ongoing public consultation that ends in 10 days, on 12 February. We recognise how important this issue is to Members—we have seen that here today—as well as to their constituents and of course to migrants across the whole country. We will listen, and are listening, to what is being said.
Kerry McCarthy
I have encouraged many of my constituents to participate in the consultation that finishes on 12 February, but I am concerned to hear that some of the changes might be introduced in April this year. I know from past experience with Government consultations that it tends to take an awful long time for the Government to consider the responses and then come up with their own response to them. How does that work in terms of the timing?
Mike Tapp
Some of the rule changes that we will introduce are firm, and that will be laid out today in my speech. Much of the proposal—for example, transitional arrangements—is very much being consulted on. Of course, that will be listened to. If there are any further questions when I finish, I ask Members to please intervene nearer the end.
Barry Gardiner
Will the Minister confirm whether the changes that are firm were also consulted on in the consultation document? If so, why were they consulted on?
Mike Tapp
I thank my hon. Friend for his considered intervention. I will go through my response to the debate, which will lay out exactly what changes are being made and what is going to consultation, and I am happy to talk again at the end.
We will provide further details on how the new settlement system will work in due course after the consultation closes, but I hope hon. Members will appreciate that, while the consultation is ongoing, I am somewhat restricted in what I can say. I will endeavour to be as helpful and fulsome as possible in my response.
Mike Tapp
I will not give way—I will make some progress, so that hon. Members can hear the meat of what I need to say. The Government recognise and value the long-term contribution of migrants to the UK. The proposal is not a deportation policy. Multiculturalism absolutely makes us great. However, settlement here is a privilege, not a right. It cannot be simply a measure of how long someone has been in the UK, but rather of the contribution they have made. If someone wants to settle in this country, they must contribute, integrate, follow our laws and learn our language. Those are the principles that underpin a fair immigration system that the British public could have confidence in.
Net migration ballooned under the previous Government, and we are now faced with the prospect of 2.2 million people being eligible to settle between 2026 and 2030. Around one in every 30 people in this country arrived between 2021 and 2024. Those numbers are staggering. That is not what people voted for. I am surprised that this has not been raised during the debate today.
Such numbers jeopardise our public services, our economy, the whole housing market and cohesion in local communities. Doing nothing is simply unacceptable. Around 1.34 million people are currently on our social housing waiting list—
Pete Wishart
Will the Minister confirm, very clearly, from the Dispatch Box that any changes to ILR will be voted on by the whole House, giving all his colleagues in the Chamber tonight the opportunity to express their genuine hostility to these proposals?
Mike Tapp
I thank the hon. Member for his question. They are likely to be, in the case of rule changes; that decision has not been completely made, but Members can of course express their frustration at me here in this Chamber today.
As I was saying, around 1.34 million people are currently on our social housing waiting list, which has increased by 200,000 since 2020. Combining that with a potential 2.2 million people becoming eligible for settled status between 2026 and 2030 would put a massive strain on our public services. We have already set out plans to increase the standard qualifying period towards settlement from five to 10 years.
The earned settlement model will allow people to earn reductions for positive behaviour, such as working in a public service role and volunteering. We want to encourage that behaviour, which underlines the substantial contributions that many migrants make to our country.
People have spoken very well in this debate about stability within the country and the prospect of “moving the goalposts”, as some have framed it, taking that stability away, but I want to stress that people who are here waiting to settle have access to education, healthcare and rent. They can buy a house, work and travel in and out of the country, and have access to financial products.
As I said at the beginning of my remarks, this process is not about deporting people; it is about creating a system that is based on contribution and integration, and people who are not committing crime. That is what the public expect. However, the new model will also impose penalties on people who claim public funds or who have breached immigration laws. Those are not punitive measures; they are deterrents for those who are thinking about choosing a life of benefits when they can work, or who fund criminal gangs in order to cross the channel on small boats, endangering their own lives in the process.
This Government will not continue with the status quo, considering the huge numbers that we face. It is right that we implement a system that is fair and that rewards people who work to make this country a better place to live.
As I am sure hon. Members are aware, the proposals that are not subject to consultation are five-year discounts for two groups of people. The first group is partners, parents and children of British citizens, reflecting our commitment to treating our citizens fairly and their right to be in a relationship with whoever they choose, regardless of nationality.
The second group that will receive the discount is British national overseas visa holders. We remain committed to the people of Hong Kong and the hundreds of thousands of people who have uprooted themselves and rebuilt their lives in the UK. Prior to this debate, I was at the APPG on Hong Kong discussing exactly that. There are complex questions around income, family income, and assets over income; we are currently consulting on those and, when a decision is made about them, it will be announced.
It is vital that migration enriches our economy, but it is most vital that it enriches our local communities. The measures set out in the earned settlement model promote integration by raising the level of English required and by demanding strict adherence to our laws. We will encourage integration and strengthen communities.
Barry Gardiner
One of the four pillars that the Minister has set out in the consultation document in relation to integration is volunteering. A number of hon. Members have already mentioned that there is an arbitrariness—a subjective nature—to that. Who will certify the volunteer work that is done? One can imagine a plethora of organisations being set up that will then happily sign a chit saying, “So-and-so has volunteered for so many hours a week.” How will the whole process actually operate? It seems arbitrary and subjective. What will the volunteering entail? Will it have to be for the home community or for the wider community?
Mike Tapp
I thank my hon. Friend for making that good point, which we in the Home Office have discussed in detail many times. Indeed, that is why the issue is under consultation. It is subjective, it is complex and right now I cannot give him a definitive answer. However, we will reach one, and announce it in due course.
Mr Adnan Hussain (Blackburn) (Ind)
I must disagree with much of what the Minister has said. Most immigrants in our country are not benefit scroungers and are not criminals; in fact, most of the immigrants who I have met in my constituency surgeries are hard-working people. Just last week, a woman, her husband and their children were at my constituency surgery in tears because of the proposed policies that the Government have put forward. They told me that both of them work full time and, when one of them is working, the other is caring. They pay into our tax system, they work most weekends, and yet they still struggle to pay their rent and to buy food. I ask the Minister: at what point will they be able to volunteer?
Mike Tapp
I thank the hon. Member for his intervention. He is right that most migrants are not criminals. Most migrants are thoroughly decent people, and that is recognised by this Government and, of course, by the Home Office.
On the volunteering side of things, I will say again that this process is still a consultation and that we will set out more detail in due course. It pains me not to give more detail now, but that is where we are at.
Anneliese Dodds (Oxford East) (Lab/Co-op)
Can the Minister clarify a previous point on which there was perhaps some confusion? It is most definitely not the case that all migrants go into social housing; in fact, it is pretty much the opposite a lot of the time, and none of those who have contacted me about this issue are living in social housing—not that anyone should have any shame about living in social housing in the first place. Secondly, the Minister talked about firm elements of the Government’s proposals. Were they the exemptions that he mentioned before, or will he be covering other firm elements in the rest of his speech?
Mike Tapp
I have not in any way implied that all migrants go into social housing. My point was the increase of 2.2 million people who would have access to it, with 1.34 million already on the waiting list and our ambition to build just 1.5 million homes in that picture. That simply is not enough, and that is just on social housing.
Tony Vaughan
Does the Minister have evidence about how many people you think are going to switch from not claiming benefits to claiming benefits, or from not being in social housing to being in social housing, or is this just a political judgment?
Emma Lewell (in the Chair)
Order. I remind Members that when they say “you”, the convention is the same as in the main Chamber: they are referring to me.
Mike Tapp
What I am not going to do is make up facts and figures on the spot, but I do not have an absolute fact to give my hon. and learned Friend. What I can say is that around 15% of people on universal credit are not British nationals. That is a reflection on the demand that this can put on our welfare system and, of course, on housing.
Mike Tapp
I am going to make some progress.
Turning to the subject of the first petition, people who come to the UK to take up a job make an important contribution to our economy and our public services, filling essential skills and labour market gaps, but for too long sectors have become reliant on them to fill those gaps and have not invested enough in our domestic workforce. The reforms we set out in the immigration White Paper last year redress that balance. We are reversing the long-term trend of an over-reliance on recruitment from abroad, and instead increasing investment in skills and training for those in the UK.
We implemented the first of those reforms in July last year, raising the skills threshold back to RQF—regulated qualifications framework—level 6, or roughly degree-level occupations, leaving a shortlist of medium-skilled occupations deemed critical to our industrial strategy and critical infrastructure. That restored the purpose of the skilled worker route and meant a reduction of more than 100 occupations. In December, we then raised the immigration skills charge by 32%. We are currently considering the Migration Advisory Committee’s review of salary requirements before making further changes, and will consider its upcoming review of the medium-skilled temporary shortage list in the summer.
Patricia Ferguson
I am grateful to the Minister for taking an intervention. Given that we reckon that some 30% of posts in the NHS and care sector are taken up by people who have come from overseas, at what point will the reforms that he referred to just now get us to the point where we can do without that 30% of people? It strikes me that, before we do anything along these lines, he needs to do an awful lot of work with the Department of Health and Social Care to make sure that the balance can be had.
Mike Tapp
My hon. Friend’s point is well made. I can assure her that that work is going on, and I will come to it shortly.
Let me address some of the questions raised by hon. Members. One was on an impact assessment. It is important that one is produced and made public, and that will come once the consultation ends and we have made all the final decisions. It is important that we match the migration market with the skills market and the jobs market. We are working hard across the Home Office to ensure that we are attracting the right workers to fill the jobs we need them to work.
Let me turn to care workers. This Government are immensely grateful to those who come to the UK with good intentions and continue to play a vital role in the adult social care sector. However, it is clear that international recruitment went too far, and the route admitted unprecedented numbers of migrants and their families. As my hon. Friend the Member for Brent West (Barry Gardiner) said, around 600,000 migrants came to the country to fill just 40,000 roles in that sector.
Barry Gardiner
Does the Minister share with me a sense of irony that the former Home Secretary and the former Immigration Minister who were responsible for giving out those 616,000 have now joined Reform?
Mike Tapp
I thank my hon. Friend for a point well made. This place never ceases to amaze me—but that is politics.
Some Members have raised Unison’s campaign on sector-wide visas. There is a commitment in the immigration White Paper to look at how we make it easier for those workers to change employer—that is being looked at seriously within the consultation. However, we want to retain the ability to punish those dodgy employers who are dishing out visas when they clearly should not be.
The Government are committed to providing opportunities for British workers. It is only right that we reduce reliance on international workers, and last year the Health Secretary announced a £500 million investment in a fair pay agreement for adult care workers, boosting their wages across England. But we still need to act to ensure that those who arrived while the requirements were relaxed earn their settlement and demonstrate that their integration and economic contribution to the UK meets the standards that we are setting.
The petition also touches on transitional arrangements, and whether the proposals will apply to those already halfway to settlement. As we have seen in this debate, this is a hugely important issue. We have asked for views on that in the consultation, and I hope Members will understand that while I acknowledge their keen interest and the concerns of many individuals, I cannot say anything that could prejudge the outcome of the consultation. The consultation will be published when it closes.
Some strong points were made around family income, the gender pay gap, those who are more vulnerable, those who are disabled, those who have university fees, and of course those on armed forces concessions. All of that is being considered within the consultation, and there will be more detail to come. I can only apologise that I cannot give more detail on that today. I assure Members that we will listen to what people tell us in the consultation before deciding how earned settlement will work.
Turning to the second petition, we are considering whether benefits should only be available to British citizens and not, as is the case now, to those with settled status. I know Members have concerns about this issue. The Government have a responsibility to British taxpayers to ensure their money is spent in a fair and equitable way. It is therefore right that we reassess the point at which migrants can access public funds.
We know the challenges that the country faces, and that this Government have inherited. One of the most significant challenges is a serious lack of social housing. We are taking steps to tackle the challenge, but we must be realistic. I have already set out the number of people who are expected to apply to settle over the next five years under our current system. All of those people could be eligible for benefits and social housing. I am sure that many of us in the Chamber will have constituents who have spent years on the waiting list for social housing. Continuing to add to that list will not solve the problem.
Ayoub Khan
The Minister talks about what potentially might happen, but, with respect, that is almost scaremongering. Most of those people are hard-working citizens. Does the Minister not believe that that kind of language raises this spectre, which is precisely why we are having the debate? That kind of language does no justice to what is really happening in our migrant communities.
Mike Tapp
I disagree. There is nothing in my language that is raising the temperature. The hon. Member would do well to listen to my praise of migrants in my contribution. I have made it clear that I do not think that all those who seek to settle would seek to access the welfare system and housing system, but it is quite clear that some would, and we are already at capacity, with 1.3 million of our constituents on the social housing waiting list.
We would like to hear people’s views on the measure, so I encourage anyone who is interested in providing those views to do so before the consultation ends. I am conscious of time, so before I finish, I want to again express my thanks to my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Folkestone and Hythe and to all Members who have contributed today. These are sweeping reforms, and I understand the strength of feeling toward them. I have heard the points that have been raised here, which will all feed into the important consultation. It is important that everyone who may be affected by the proposals has a fair and equal opportunity to make their voice heard.
As I have set out, the consultation is currently open to all until 12 February, and further information on how to respond and provide views can be found on the Government website. We want to ensure that any decision taken has a robust evidence base and a clear understanding of how people may be affected, and that is why this may be unclear to some of our constituents at this point.
Clearly, these are issues of great significance, not only in the context of the immigration system, but for our nation itself. I say to colleagues here and across the House that we understand the importance of our task, we are determined to get this right and, as I have set out, we are proceeding with the seriousness and care that the public and Parliament rightly expect.
Tony Vaughan
I thank the petitioners, the 330,000 signatories and all hon. Members who have attended to speak in this debate over the last three hours. I have been struck by the fact that every single Back-Bencher who has spoken opposes the retrospectivity of the measures for those who are already here, on the basis that they undermine basic British fairness. There is no basis at all to apply these rules, even to those who have pending applications, given that they are even closer to the point where they would otherwise benefit.
The differing impacts of different ILR qualification rules on members of the same family was mentioned by various Members, such as my hon. Friends the Members for Sheffield Central (Abtisam Mohamed) and for Leeds South West and Morley (Mark Sewards), and the hon. Member for Tunbridge Wells (Mike Martin). It was also said that the changes could lock victims into situations of domestic violence. That is absolutely right. I have worked on such situations in the past, and have seen that that is a very real threat.
Many hon. Members talked about the increasing settlement period, which would entrench exploitation by being tied to a single employer, including my hon. Friends the Members for Glasgow West (Patricia Ferguson), for Glasgow North (Martin Rhodes), for Montgomeryshire and Glyndŵr (Steve Witherden), for Poplar and Limehouse (Apsana Begum), for City of Durham (Mary Kelly Foy) and for Blyth and Ashington (Ian Lavery) and the hon. Members for Witney (Charlie Maynard) and for Leicester South (Shockat Adam).
Members were also concerned that the proposals will damage our ability to attract and retain the skills our country needs in a whole range of sectors. They included my hon. Friends the Members for Edinburgh South West (Dr Arthur), for Harrow West (Gareth Thomas), for Colchester (Pam Cox), for Ashford (Sojan Joseph), for Falkirk (Euan Stainbank), for Stourbridge (Cat Eccles) and the hon. Member for St Neots and Mid Cambridgeshire (Ian Sollom). Those concerns came especially from Members from the more remote parts of the country, such as my constituency of Folkestone and Hythe; the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael), the hon. Member for Perth and Kinross-shire (Pete Wishart), my hon. Friend the Member for Camborne and Redruth (Perran Moon) and others.
The Minister cited the additional numbers who could qualify for ILR, but the view that that is a burden that we need to relieve ourselves of is too short term and narrow. It assumes that migrants will switch to benefits or reliance on local authority housing, and I cannot see any evidential basis for that assertion. The Minister said that 15% of those on universal credit are non-nationals, but looking at the UK population, around 20% are foreign-born, so it seems that group is less reliant on benefits than the population as a whole.
Across the Chamber today we have heard about the damage to community cohesion and integration—those are real points that must be very seriously taken into account. It is not about reducing immigration—I think it was only the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Stockton West (Matt Vickers), who wrongly suggested that it is. It is about settlement and who gets to belong here after they have contributed for so long.
I want to end on a point that was raised by other hon. Members. It is really important, given the strength of feeling that we have heard today, that there is an opportunity for MPs to express their views about these measures if they are to proceed in any form. I suggest that a motion passed by negative resolution is not an apt way to do that. It is important that everybody who has spoken today feeds into the consultation so the views that the Government have reflect the views of the country as a whole.
Question put and agreed to.
Resolved,
That this House has considered e-petitions 727372 and 746363 relating to indefinite leave to remain.