Immigration: Earned Settlement

Shockat Adam Excerpts

Monday 2nd November 2026 Commons Chamber

[Shabana Mahmood]

I disagree with my hon. Friend, as she knows from my statement today, which has listened to the consultation responses in detail. As I have set out in answer to other hon. Members, the position for settlement applications is that the rules apply at the point at which the decision is made, not when someone has come into the country. That has been settled law and settled policy for a very long time, and it will not change.

[Shockat Adam (Leicester South) (Ind)]

In her statement, the Home Secretary used the word “fair”, or different iterations of it, 20 times. She said that her own parents left a place where “power was often arbitrary,” and the “dice were always loaded”, and they came here because they would be “treated fairly.” Now, a worker earning £40,000, who came here legally, paid their taxes and played their part, has been moved from five to 10 years, halfway through. Is changing the rules mid-game fair, or is that exactly what loaded dice look like?

[Shabana Mahmood]

It is absolutely fair. The hon. Gentleman will know that for people who arrived around the time my parents and grandad did, the rules often changed regularly. As I said, it has been settled policy that the rules that apply to an application are those at the point of decision, not the point when someone arrives in the country, and it is made clear to people arriving on a temporary work visa that that does not necessarily indicate that settlement rights will follow. In my statement, and in our document responding to the consultation we carried out, there is a fair resolution for all the different cohorts that are affected by earned settlement, reflecting unique circumstances where appropriate, and ensuring that the default period moves to 10 years, which has been settled policy since last summer.