Indefinite Leave to Remain

Andy McDonald Excerpts

Monday 8th September 2025 Westminster Hall

[Andy McDonald (Middlesbrough and Thornaby East) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Pritchard, and I welcome the Minister to his place. I refer the House to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests relating to support from trade unions.

I welcome the expression of concerns by the Trades Union Congress this week, as well as migrant rights campaigners. I add my support to what they have said about the Government’s plan to double the qualifying period for indefinite leave to remain for work visas, as well as to end to overseas recruitment in the NHS and social care for any role below degree level. I raise that matter because I have been made aware that health staff in my constituency at the James Cook University hospital have faced acts of racist abuse in recent weeks. I offer them my support, and I am reaching out to the hospital CEO, Stacey Hunter, and staff unions.

Unison has documented case after case of exploitation of migrant workers. Over 320,000 NHS staff are overseas workers—20% of the workforce. In adult social care, around 20% of workers nationwide, and up to 50% in London, are migrants. There are care workers, tied to exploitative contracts, trapped in overcrowded housing and threatened with deportation if they dare to speak out. Some have even been forced to pay huge sums to take up jobs in this country, only to be told that they must repay those fees if they challenge poor conditions. By binding visas to a single employer, the system hands unscrupulous bosses extraordinary power. Doubling the settlement period will only extend that power.

On migration we have been following a dangerous script, rather than setting out our own agenda. That is a mistake. It concedes the terrain of debate to malign political actors and their ilk, and distracts from the real crises shaping people’s lives.

[Pete Wishart (Perth and Kinross-shire) (SNP)]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely spot on. We are entering dangerous territory with some of this debate, but I am immensely encouraged that so many Labour MPs have turned up today to say something positive about immigration and the positive impacts and effects it has on our society. Will he join me in encouraging them to go further? Say good things about asylum seekers. Stop stripping people of their human rights. Let us make sure that a positive case for immigration and asylum is given in this House.

[Andy McDonald]

I am grateful to the hon. Member for his contribution. We have heard speaker after speaker extolling the virtues of and making a positive case for immigration. Of course it is not the immigrant minority who hold our social care services together who are the problem; it is the minority of those with extreme wealth who go to huge lengths to avoid paying their proper taxes. They attend overseas conferences addressed by the leader of the Reform party, the hon. Member for Clacton (Nigel Farage), to learn how to collect multiple citizenships and avoid taxes through webs of multinational corporate arrangements. The question is: who are the patriots? The tax avoiders or the health workers?

Being thousands of workers short, the care sector is unable to provide care packages for all those who need support, as the hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross (Jamie Stone) mentioned a few moments ago. The Government must get on with making their fair pay agreement in the health sector a reality, and ensure that social care is funded properly. That element of the Employment Rights Bill will be a great boon, fillip, support and protection for those workers.

I urge retention of the five-year route to ILR, a commitment not to apply any change retrospectively, and a sector-wide visa scheme in social care that enables migrant workers to challenge bad employers without the threat of dismissal and removal. I am particularly concerned about reports that the Government intend to apply the new policy on settlement retroactively to those already in the UK who applied and continue to reside under old settlement rules. I hope that the Minister will clarify the Government’s position, because behind these rules are human lives. We owe these workers a debt of gratitude, not new barriers, insecurity and betrayal.

--- Later in debate ---

[Andy McDonald]

Will the Minister give way?

[Alex Norris]

I will in a second. I appreciate the strength of feeling that colleagues have expressed today. I would caution them about defending a status quo that does not work. I ask them to engage in the spirit of how we might improve that status quo.

[Andy McDonald]

On the reasonable point about English language, the bar has been raised, as the Minister has set out. Is the Minister content that there are sufficient resources devoted to the teaching of the English language? That will be a charge that is put to us if we make that demand but do not put in the resources to match.

[Alex Norris]

My hon. Friend makes an excellent point. I will turn to the BNO status shortly, but I think of all the work that goes on in my community around English language. Similarly, with those who have come from Ukraine in the past few years it has been transformative. As we make the proposals in the White Paper law, we will consider those important accompanying conversations.

It is a long-standing point of consensus across this place that settlement is a privilege and not a right. We know that settlement in the UK brings significant benefits, so the proposals that we have set out in the immigration White Paper reflect our view that people who benefit from settling in the UK should at first make a proportionate contribution. We have heard much about the valuable contributions that hon. Members’ constituents are making. That is why, although we are setting a baseline qualifying period for settlement at 10 years, we will allow those who make meaningful contributions to reduce that period, as my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh East and Musselburgh (Chris Murray) referred to.

I turn to skilled work, the subject of the first petition. Skilled worker visa holders make an important contribution to our economy and 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 sought to invest in our domestic workforce. The reforms that we have set out in the immigration White Paper are addressing the balance and reversing the long-term trends of overseas recruitment increasing, at the same time as reducing investment in skills and training and increasing levels of unemployment and economic inactivity in the UK, which I know we are all concerned about in our communities.

We implemented the first of the reforms in late July, lifting the threshold for skilled workers to RQF level 6, and we have commissioned the Migration Advisory Committee to advise on future changes to salary requirements and a temporary shortage list. We have established a new labour market evidence group, which met at the end of July and will continue to meet quarterly, to support our aim of tackling the underlying causes of workforce shortages and ensuring that growth-driving sectors have access to the skilled workers that they need now and into the future. I speak as someone who, until a couple of days ago, was the local growth Minister: we must support our children and schools with the same vigour, so that they get brilliant opportunities and the training that they need first.

Colleagues have talked with great passion about the Hong Kong British national overseas visa route. I want to take a moment to reflect on what the BNO route means, not just for those who have made use of it but for this country more generally. Our country has a long-standing and unique connection to the people of Hong Kong. As Hong Kong is a former British territory, many Hongkongers hold BNO status, which is a recognition of that shared history, as my hon. Friend the Member for Milton Keynes Central (Emily Darlington) said. I commend the previous Government for launching the BNO route in January 2021—I supported it in this place—as a direct response to the imposition of the national security law in Hong Kong. Through that, the UK honoured its historic and moral commitments to the people of Hong Kong by creating a bespoke immigration route for those seeking safety, stability and a future rooted in those shared values.

Since it launched, close to 225,000 people have been granted a BNO visa, and over 160,000 have arrived in the UK. Like many of the migrants across the immigration system, Hongkongers have quickly become an integral part of both our economy and local communities, with high levels of employment, education participation and community engagement. They have made their homes in key cities and regions across the UK.

In Nottingham, Hongkongers have made an extraordinary contribution, whether it is in our public services, the private sector or the community and voluntary sector. My hon. Friend the Member for Rushcliffe (James Naish) takes a great interest in this area, and a year ago we met organisations representative of the extraordinary contribution Hongkongers are making. I will stop short of saying whether I consider them to be from Nottingham now; due to local government reorganisation, that is a very sticky point, as it is for my hon. Friend the Member for Broxtowe (Juliet Campbell) and possibly for my hon. Friend the Member for Erewash (Adam Thompson), who mentioned Long Eaton. I am not going to go anywhere near that question.

The presence of those people is not just valued; they are making a huge positive and lasting contribution to our national life. As a Government, we recognise the significance of that community, not just for what they have done so far but for the role that they will play in the years ahead. I assure Members that this Government remain steadfast in supporting members of the Hong Kong community in the UK and all those who will arrive in the future. We remain fully committed to the BNO route, through which we will continue to welcome Hongkongers, but I do know how important the ability to obtain settled status is to the Hong Kong community. That is why I can assure them that we are listening to their views about the route to settlement, and we will continue to do so. In the meantime, the current rules for settlement under the BNO route will continue to apply.