UK Softens Settlement Rules: Care Workers Qualify in Five Years

Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood has abandoned plans to make low-paid workers wait 15 years for settlement, allowing up to 300,000 people to apply for indefinite leave to remain after just five years. The climbdown follows a backlash from cabinet ministers and backbench Labour MPs, according to a Home Office response to the consultation published Monday.

Under the revised proposals, care workers earning more than £25,000 can apply for indefinite leave to remain after five years — a third of the wait floated last year. A five-year pathway now covers "an estimated 146,000 care workers and 136,000 dependants," the document said.

What changed from the original plan?

Last year, Mahmood's office drew up proposals that would have forced workers in occupations below degree level (RQF Level 6) into an extended 15-year wait before becoming eligible for permanent settlement. Those earlier plans would have meant 117,000 low-paid care workers and their 79,000 dependants waiting up to 15 years for indefinite leave to remain.

The standard qualifying period was also supposed to double from five to 10 years, subject to exemptions and reductions.

The Home Office response published Monday stated: "Workers in occupations below the RQF6 will no longer face the 15-year pathway proposed in the consultation. They will instead qualify through the ten year pathway where they meet strengthened minimum requirements, with opportunities to qualify sooner where they demonstrate the contribution required for an accelerated pathway."

Officials said about 100,000 skilled workers, including butchers and chefs, would still have to wait 10 years before applying.

The core of the hardline package survives.

Who waits longest under the new rules?

The tiered system now works like this:

• Highest earners — those earning more than £125,000 — can settle within three years.
• Those earning more than £50,271, plus some public service workers such as doctors, nurses and teachers, can settle after five years.
• Anyone arriving in breach of immigration rules faces a minimum of 20 years before applying.
• Refugees arriving by small boats and reliant on public funds face a minimum of 30 years for permanent settlement — the longest wait in the system.

A small exception applies to refugees entering through designated safe and legal routes, such as the reopened scheme for Afghan women and girls and Palestinians. No other refugees qualify for settlement if they have accessed any public funds.

Refugees claiming asylum after entering the UK legally will wait up to 20 years, reducible to 10 if they move into sustained work or study and earn enough to make a sustained contribution. For illegal entrants, a 10-year penalty applies: 20 years for those working or studying, 30 years for those not. Most refugees will also have to meet language requirements and owe no debts.

Why did Mahmood back down?

Pressure came from trade unions, care providers and senior Labour figures, including housing secretary Angela Rayner and London mayor Sadiq Khan. In June, Rayner called making care workers already in Britain wait up to 15 years for permanent residence "un-British". In September, energy secretary Miatta Fahnbulleh said the plans would have been "tough" for her family, who came to Britain as refugees.

Mahmood met union general secretaries on Monday — some of whom had raised alarm at the changes — to map out final details.

The Guardian first reported in July that the prime minister, Andy Burnham, was considering exempting hundreds of thousands of care workers to relieve pressure on the social care sector. The Home Office has granted about 200,000 health and care worker visas in the last five years, with many more people arriving as dependants.

What do the numbers say about cost?

The stakes are substantial. Home Office projections last year estimated that granting permanent residency to care sector staff and their adult family members from 2026 through 2030 could represent a lifetime public expenditure of roughly £10bn.

But analysis published Monday found skilled migrants settling in Britain were expected to contribute billions more to public finances than they cost over their lifetimes. The Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) said skilled migrants and their adult dependants due to settle under current rules would make a net lifetime contribution of about £115bn through the taxes they pay.

Pressure to tighten the rules has intensified as the so-called "Boris wave" of migrants who came during Boris Johnson's administration begins reaching the current five-year threshold for indefinite leave to remain.

When she launched the consultation on earned settlement last year, Mahmood described Britain as a "multi-faith, multi-ethnic democracy" that demanded "contribution and integration". She added: "To become a part of this country, permanently, is therefore not a right but a privilege – and one that must be earned."

The IPPR's £115bn net contribution figure gives ministers arguing for the softer pathway a fiscal argument — and the final rules will show whether it outweighed the £10bn cost projection.