Indefinite Leave to Remain

Ben Coleman Excerpts

Monday 8th September 2025 Westminster Hall

[Ben Coleman (Chelsea and Fulham) (Lab)]

I welcome the Minister to his position. I hope that he is enjoying the debate.

I understand why the Government are proposing to extend the qualifying period for indefinite leave to remain. I think we all recognise that the immigration numbers are high. This is a complex challenge, not least, let us remember, because of Boris Johnson’s failed Brexit deal—a deal for which the leader of the Reform party, the hon. Member for Clacton (Nigel Farage), also bears great responsibility: it opened the door to historically high levels of unskilled net migration. In my view, the leader of the Reform party is as much to blame as the former Prime Minister Boris Johnson.

[Sojan Joseph (Ashford) (Lab)]

The leader of Kent county council has asked the Government to increase the number of visas for healthcare workers, but does my hon. Friend agree that there is a double standard? One minute they are asking to stop the immigration, and the next one they are asking for more health workers to be brought from abroad?

[Ben Coleman]

It will come as no surprise to anybody who has ever dealt with any member of the Reform political party for more than five minutes that double standards are involved. We only have to read what its leader says from one week to the next to realise that its association and commitment to maintaining a close relationship with the truth is very weak.

I go back to what I was saying. When we talk about the high levels of net immigration, we must not lose sight of the human impact of the proposals that the Government have brought forward, especially—as many people have recognised—on those who have already built their lives here and are net contributors to our economy and communities.

Since the publication of the White Paper in May, many residents in my constituency of Chelsea and Fulham have got in touch with me. These are skilled workers, and their overwhelming feeling is simply of being blindsided. They came to the UK in good faith and followed the rules, and now they are being told that these rules might change just before they become eligible to settle. They also find it destabilising that, almost four months since the publication of the White Paper, the Government have still not given clear guidance on when the rules will come into effect, who will be affected and how it will work.

One couple told me how they moved from the United States in 2020. They both work for global firms and pay the top rate of tax, and they rightly believed that in April 2026—just down the road—they could apply for settlement. Now they write to me:

“The rug has been pulled from beneath us.”

Their plans are suddenly on indefinite pause. Similarly, I have a young scientist in my constituency who studied in the UK and works in clinical research. She has paid her international student fees and taxes, and she has invested her savings here, but now she still has no certainty about her future. In my constituency there is also a local NHS speech therapist and her husband, who is a data scientist, and they are expecting their first child. They told me that even if they are not caught out by the changes now, they have no faith that, given the way in which this has been handled, the system will not be changed again in the future.

People cannot plan their lives without basic certainty. I am hoping that the Minister today will be able to provide my residents with the clarity they need and tell us when the Government plan to launch the consultation they promised. The previous Home Secretary, my right hon. Friend the Member for Pontefract, Castleford and Knottingley (Yvette Cooper), said:

“There will be plenty of opportunity for people to comment on and consider the detail”—[Official Report, 12 May 2025; Vol. 767, c. 53]

of the proposals. I hope that that will still be the case, and perhaps the Minister can reassure us of that. I would also like to understand whether the consultation will contain a clear and detailed definition of what the White Paper refers to as

“Points-Based contributions to the UK economy and society”.

Who exactly will be eligible for a shorter pathway to indefinite leave to remain?

So many of my residents are literally counting the days until they become eligible for settlement. They deserve decent treatment, not five more years of waiting. I look forward to the Minister’s responses, and to being able to offer my residents the much-needed reassurance to which I think we all agree they are entitled.