Indefinite Leave to Remain

Carla Denyer Excerpts

Monday 2nd February 2026 Westminster Hall

[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.

[Carla Denyer (Bristol Central) (Green)]

Will the hon. Member give way?

[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.