Mahmood Scraps 15-Year Settlement Wait for Care Workers in Major Climbdown on Earned Settlement

Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood has scrapped the plan to make migrant care workers wait up to 15 years for permanent settlement in Britain, announcing a major revision of the government’s “earned settlement” reforms in the House of Commons on Monday afternoon.

Under the final version of the policy, care workers who came to Britain on the health and care route before May 2025, who have met the conditions of their visas and earn at least £25,000 a year, will keep the existing five-year path to indefinite leave to remain, according to the Press Association. The 15-year waiting period that had been proposed for lower-paid workers has been dropped altogether, and the longest waits will now apply to people who have broken immigration rules or arrived by illegal routes.

But the core of the reform survives intact. For most migrants, the standard wait for permanent settlement will still double from five years to ten, and more than 500,000 people are expected to settle later than they would have done under the current rules, according to the Home Office. The announcement, which came after months of internal Labour Party tension and a public revolt led by Housing Secretary Angela Rayner, was described by Sky News as “a major government U-turn”.

Mahmood told MPs that settled status was “one of the most valuable rights this country can offer” and that it had until now been given “almost automatically”. “From today, it must be earned,” she said, according to the Home Office. “Those who contribute most will settle fastest. Those who don’t play by the rules will be refused or wait much longer.”

What Mahmood announced

The Home Secretary set out the final version of the earned settlement model in a statement to Parliament on Monday 2 November, alongside the government’s formal response to a public consultation that drew more than 200,000 responses. A Home Office press release published the same afternoon said the right to live in Britain forever would “no longer be granted to migrants almost automatically after five years” and would instead depend on “contribution and character”.

The headline change is the removal of the 15-year tier. When the proposals were first published in November 2025, most migrants would have waited ten years for settlement, while some lower-paid workers, including many in social care, would have waited up to 15. That longest tier has now gone. In its place is a sliding scale running from three years to twenty, with the qualifying period set by what a person has contributed rather than simply how long they have been here.

The highest earners will be able to settle within three years. Those earning more than £50,271, along with some public service workers such as doctors, nurses and teachers, will be able to settle after five years. Everyone else will face the new default of ten years. People who have breached immigration rules will only be able to settle after at least twenty years, according to the Home Office.

Nothing in Monday’s statement is law yet. The current five-year rules stay in force until a formal statement of changes to the Immigration Rules is laid before Parliament and takes effect, and the government has not given a date for that step. Further technical guidance and a full impact assessment are promised before implementation.

The care-worker deal in detail

The concession for care workers is the most consequential part of the announcement, and the one that affects the largest number of people directly. Around 250,000 people and their dependants arrived on, or switched into, the care route between 2022 and 2025, according to figures cited by the Home Secretary. The route was opened after the pandemic to plug severe staffing shortages in social care, and it became one of the largest single channels of legal migration to Britain.

Care workers who entered or switched into the route before the Immigration White Paper was published in May 2025, and who earn £25,000 a year in sponsored care work, will keep their existing five-year path to settlement. They will still need to meet the new criminality and English-language requirements. Official estimates reported by The Sun suggest around 146,000 care workers and 136,000 dependants could benefit from the concession.

Mahmood framed the deal as recognition of a promise kept. The government would provide “a five-year path to settlement for care workers who lived up to the promise that they made on coming to this country – worked hard and answered our call when we needed them”, she told the Commons, according to the Press Association. “Those who earn £25,000 a year working in the social care sector, which was the condition of their visa, will therefore be able to settle on their existing five-year path.”

But not every care worker qualifies. Around a quarter of the cohort did not meet the conditions of their visas, according to the Home Office, and they will not get the five-year route. Instead, they are being offered what Mahmood called a second chance: a further five-year health and care visa, restricted to genuine work in the sector and with no recourse to public funds, at the end of which they can apply for settlement. The Sun reported that around 100,000 people, including dependants, fall into this group.

Mahmood was explicit that those workers would not be tied to their old employer. “They will be able to apply for another five-year care visa, and they will not be tied to their old employer, allowing those with rogue sponsors to break away from them,” she said. Workers will be helped to find new positions, she added: “Everyone will have a fair shot to make their contribution, and no-one will be punished for the sins of their employer, but we will also preserve the critical element of this reform: that settlement must be linked to contribution.”

The same transitional five-year arrangement applies to health and education workers below degree level who are on national pay scales, such as nursing auxiliaries and teaching assistants, who arrived before May 2025. Care workers whose sponsor loses its licence will also get more time than other sponsored workers. From 1 February 2027 they will have up to 120 days to secure a new job offer and a further 60 days to sort out their visa – 180 days in total – before their leave is curtailed.

A sliding scale from three years to twenty

Beyond the care-worker concession, the new system sorts almost every applicant into one of four bands, each defined by earnings, service or conduct.

The fastest route, three years, is open to people earning at least £125,141 a year in three of the last four years, and to those in the highest talent group. The five-year route covers people earning at least £50,271 in three of the last five years, eligible health and education workers on national pay scales such as doctors, nurses and teachers, and people with a recognised British connection, such as the partners and parents of British citizens.

The ten-year default applies to everyone else, provided they have earned at least £12,571 – the income-tax personal allowance – in five of the previous seven years. They can keep renewing their temporary visas until they qualify. The twenty-year band applies to anyone who has committed a qualifying immigration breach as an adult, such as overstaying a visa or using deception in an application. The salary thresholds track the income-tax bands and will move with them.

Before any of those bands can be reached, every applicant must clear four conditions that cannot be offset by higher earnings or public service. They must have a spotless criminal record – a tougher test than the current one, since any adult with a British criminal record will be refused, including cautions, fines and community sentences rather than only prison sentences. They must speak English to B2 level, the equivalent of an A level in a foreign language, up from the current B1 requirement. They must pass the Life in the UK test. And they must owe no debt to the government, including National Health Service debt and unpaid tax or National Insurance, alongside a record of sustained National Insurance contributions.

There is also a new restriction on access to public funds. Anyone who has claimed public funds in the five years before applying cannot use the three, five or ten-year routes. They must either complete five continuous years without claiming public funds or wait twenty years.

The long residence route, which allowed people to settle after ten years of lawful residence regardless of their visa type, will close. Time spent on temporary routes such as student, graduate, youth mobility and global business mobility visas will no longer count towards settlement at all.

One proposal that has been dropped entirely is the idea of rewarding migrants with faster settlement for volunteering in their communities. The Home Office confirmed on Monday that the volunteering incentive will not go ahead.

Refugees face waits of up to thirty years

The statement also set out settlement rights for refugees, and it is here that the longest waits in the new system appear. People who arrive through designated safe and legal routes will be on a five-year path to settlement, the same as the fastest tier for workers. Mahmood told MPs: “We will place those who come to this country on one of our new safe and legal routes on a five-year path to settlement. This is as fast a path as higher earners entering Britain today.”

Refugees who claim asylum after arriving by another route will move onto what the Home Office calls Core Protection, with a twenty-year route to settlement that drops to ten years from the point they move into sustained work or study. Anyone who entered illegally, including by small boat across the Channel, faces a further ten years on top of that – meaning they could wait up to thirty years for permanent settlement.

“The standard disqualifying period for all refugees who have not come by a safe and legal route will become 20 years,” Mahmood told the Commons, according to the Press Association. “A further 10 years will be added for those who enter the country by an illegal method, such as by small boat.” She said the government had to discourage dangerous crossings, adding: “As we open new safe and legal routes for genuine refugees, we must also discourage dangerous, unsafe and illegal crossings and settlement plays a key part in this.”

Settled status will never be removed from anyone who already holds it, the Home Office said. Family members of British citizens, Hong Kong British Nationals (Overseas) and members of the armed forces will keep their current pathways.

Families, dependants and transitional protection

The government has also dropped one of the more contentious ideas in the original consultation: that the partners and children of migrants should have to earn settlement in their own right. A partner who arrives with the main applicant will be able to settle at the same time. A partner who joins later must complete the same qualifying period from the date they arrive. Couples can combine their earnings to meet the minimum income test, with a household threshold of £25,142.

Children under 18 will settle with their parents and are exempt from the income, debt, English-language and Life in the UK requirements. Young adults aged 18 to 24 who still hold dependant status can settle with their family; from the age of 25 they are expected to qualify independently.

Transitional protection, however, is narrowly drawn. It applies only to people who were on the care and public-service routes before May 2025. Anyone who arrived after that date is on the new rules. The Home Office estimates that more than 500,000 people will now settle later than they would have done under the current rules, and the press release said the change would take “billions off the welfare bill”. No one will be forced to leave, the Home Office said, and everyone will have a fair chance to apply for new visas that would allow them to settle after ten years.

One further transitional measure will help skilled workers who arrived before the salary threshold was raised in April 2024. They will be able to keep extending their visas on the old thresholds until 2035, rather than 2030 as previously planned.

Mahmood was also clear on a point that matters for every applicant: the rules that apply are the rules in force when the settlement decision is made, not the rules that applied when the person arrived. She said that position was long established and had been tested in the courts – a statement that is likely to be scrutinised closely by immigration lawyers, since it is precisely the retrospective feel of the original proposals that drew the fiercest criticism.

A consultation that pushed back

The scale of the opposition to the original proposals is now a matter of public record. The Home Office published the findings of its consultation on Monday afternoon alongside the government’s response. The report, by the research firm IFF, draws on 204,667 online responses and 904 submitted by email. Almost three quarters of individual respondents were current visa holders.

The headline numbers help to explain Monday’s decisions. Eighty-four per cent of individuals and 79 per cent of organisations disagreed with the proposals as drafted. Sixty-eight per cent of individuals and 73 per cent of organisations wanted transitional arrangements for people already on a settlement path. Seventy-two per cent of individuals and 78 per cent of organisations opposed the 15-year period for work below degree level. Among employers, 62 per cent said the changes would make them less likely to sponsor workers in future, and 70 per cent expected it to become harder to keep their migrant staff.

The 15-year tier has gone, transitional cover has been given to the care and public-service groups that respondents raised most often, and the plan to make dependants qualify separately has been dropped. The ten-year default for most workers, which respondents also opposed, stays.

The revolt that forced the retreat

The political story behind Monday’s announcement is almost as significant as the policy itself. Tensions inside the government over the settlement plans surfaced publicly months ago, when Housing Secretary Angela Rayner attacked the prospect of applying the longer waits to workers already in Britain. The Sun reported that she had branded the proposals “un-British”, and more than 100 Labour MPs were reported to have pressed for changes.

Energy Secretary Miatta Fahnbulleh repeatedly refused to say publicly that she backed the proposals to prolong the qualifying period, according to the Press Association. The pressure built through the autumn, with unions, care providers and Labour backbenchers warning that the plans would punish the very workers who had kept the care system running during the pandemic, and would make it harder to recruit the staff the sector still needs.

Prime Minister Andy Burnham, who flew to Antigua on Monday for the Commonwealth summit, gave Mahmood his full support in a statement issued by the Home Office. “People want to see an immigration system based on control, contribution, and which rewards those who play by the rules,” he said. “Following Brexit, the previous government lost control of immigration, with an unprecedented spike in numbers. This Home Secretary is gripping this problem, and she has my full support in doing so.” He added that it was “only fair that those who are making the most valuable contribution to our communities are given the opportunity to settle earlier”.

The opposition was less forgiving. Shadow Home Secretary Chris Philp said Mahmood had been “forced to surrender to Angela Rayner and the open-borders Labour left”, and that her position was “looking increasingly untenable”. Reform UK, which has made immigration its defining issue, also attacked the changes, with its shadow home secretary Zia Yusuf among those who had already promised to abolish indefinite leave to remain altogether. The Sun described the day as a “humiliating climbdown” on Mahmood’s flagship reforms.

The government’s own framing was very different. Mahmood told MPs the policy created “a migration system that is fair: fair to those who come here and play their part, and fair to British citizens already here, who must not be asked to bear a greater burden”. The Home Office insisted the wider crackdown remained intact, with ten years replacing five as the standard wait for permanent settlement.

The road to earned settlement

To understand why the settlement question became so combustible, it helps to go back to the numbers that drove it. After Britain left the European Union, the previous Conservative government replaced free movement with a points-based system, and then, during and after the pandemic, relaxed the rules sharply to fill vacancies in health and social care. The care-worker visa route, opened in February 2022, allowed overseas workers to come to Britain for jobs that had previously been filled largely by European Union citizens.

The result was a surge that the government itself has described as unprecedented. The Home Office has said net migration added 2.6 million people to the British population between 2021 and 2024. More than 616,000 visas were issued through the wider health and care route between 2022 and 2024, including those granted to dependants, according to The Sun. The flow became known in Westminster shorthand as the “Boriswave”, after the prime minister under whom it happened.

The route was also abused. Rogue and exploitative companies sponsored workers for jobs that did not exist, charged them large fees, or left them without work on arrival. The Home Office said on Monday that 1,800 exploitative employers have already been stripped of their right to sponsor foreign workers under this government, and Mahmood accused the previous government of losing control of migration with “significant abuse of the care route”.

The cost argument was central to the original proposals. The Home Office had warned that settling 117,000 low-paid care workers and 79,000 dependants would cost £9.5 billion over five years, according to the BBC. In March, Mahmood said settling around 350,000 low-skilled workers and their dependants would cost taxpayers £10 billion over their lifetimes, and called the prospect “an affront”. Those figures were contested by care providers and economists, who argued that the workers in question pay tax, fill vacancies that would otherwise go unfilled, and keep a sector afloat that the state would otherwise have to fund directly.

The original earned-settlement proposals, published for consultation in November 2025, were the government’s answer: settlement would no longer be a near-automatic reward for five years of residence, but something to be earned through contribution. The consultation that followed became one of the largest the Home Office has ever run on immigration, and its results – overwhelming opposition to the plans as drafted – set the stage for Monday’s retreat.

The announcement also lands in a crowded week for the government. The Chancellor delivered the Budget last week, in which the graduate visa was cut to two years and the period for curtailing a visa after a job loss was shortened to six months. The Bank of England is expected to raise interest rates on Thursday, its first increase since 2023, in response to inflation driven in part by soaring energy costs. And the Prime Minister is spending the week in the Caribbean, where the Commonwealth summit opens on Tuesday and the question of a formal apology for Britain’s role in the slave trade is dominating the agenda.

Analysis: Why It Matters

1. A climbdown that keeps the core

The most important thing about Monday’s announcement is what did not change. The 15-year tier is gone, and with it the single most unpopular element of the original plan. But the ten-year default for most migrants survives, and with it the central principle that settlement must be earned through contribution. More than half a million people will still wait longer than they expected. For the government, that is the point: it can present the day as a climbdown forced by its own backbenchers, while still delivering the toughest tightening of settlement rules in a generation. The question is whether either side of the argument will accept that framing. Supporters of the original plan will see a concession; its critics will see a policy that is still, in substance, a doubling of the wait for most people.

2. The care-worker problem was always the weakest flank

The care route was the part of the original plan that was hardest to defend, and the government plainly knew it. Around a quarter of a million people came to Britain on the understanding that five years of lawful work would bring permanent settlement. Many of them worked through the pandemic in a sector that was, by the government’s own admission, “reeling”. To tell those workers, years into their stay, that the bargain had changed and that they would now wait up to fifteen years was always going to look retrospective, however carefully the Home Office dressed it up as a new system rather than a broken promise. The consultation results made the politics impossible: when 84 per cent of individual respondents oppose a plan, and the Housing Secretary is publicly calling it un-British, the plan cannot survive in its original form. The concession is, in that sense, less a change of heart than a recognition of reality.

3. Squeezed from both sides

Mahmood’s problem is that the retreat satisfies almost no one completely. From the left of her own party, the complaint will be that the ten-year default remains, that the refugee waits of twenty and thirty years are punitive, and that the “rules at the point of decision” doctrine still leaves people exposed to future changes. From the right, the charge – already made by the Conservatives and Reform UK – is that she has surrendered to her own backbenchers and watered down a flagship reform. The Prime Minister’s public backing matters here, and it was conspicuous: Burnham’s statement was issued in full, with his name attached, on the day he left for the Caribbean. But prime-ministerial support is not the same as political safety. A home secretary who has been forced into a public U-turn by her own cabinet colleagues is a home secretary whose authority has been dented, whatever the substance of the policy.

4. The economics are still unproven

The government’s case rests on a fiscal claim: that settling large numbers of low-paid workers costs the taxpayer billions, and that longer waits will take “billions off the welfare bill”. The £9.5 billion and £10 billion figures have been quoted repeatedly, but the full impact assessment that would allow those numbers to be tested has not yet been published. It is promised before implementation, and it will matter. Care providers argue that the workers in question are net contributors while they are working, that the sector cannot recruit enough domestic staff, and that making settlement harder will make recruitment harder still – a point the consultation appears to support, with 62 per cent of employers saying they would be less likely to sponsor in future. If the care sector’s staffing crisis deepens, the fiscal savings the government claims could be offset by higher agency costs and unfilled vacancies. The economics of earned settlement will be judged not on the day of the announcement, but on the recruitment figures that follow it.

5. The thirty-year wait is the real test of the new system

The longest waits in the new system do not apply to workers at all. They apply to refugees who arrived by small boat or another illegal route, who could now wait up to thirty years for permanent settlement. That is a deliberate piece of deterrence: the government is betting that the prospect of three decades without settled status will discourage dangerous crossings. But it is also the part of the policy most likely to end up in court, and the part most likely to create a large population of people living in Britain for decades without the security of permanent status. The Home Office says those on Core Protection can cut their wait to ten years by moving into sustained work or study, which softens the headline figure considerably. Even so, a system that keeps people in limbo for a generation carries its own costs – in integration, in mental health, in the administrative burden of repeated visa renewals – and those costs will fall on the state as surely as the welfare bill the policy is meant to reduce.

What to Watch Next

1. The statement of changes. Nothing announced on Monday is law until the Home Office lays a statement of changes to the Immigration Rules before Parliament. The date, the transitional provisions and the fine print will determine who is actually affected – and immigration lawyers will be reading it line by line.
2. The impact assessment. The government has promised a full assessment of the costs and benefits before implementation. Its numbers on welfare savings, care-sector recruitment and the 500,000 people who will wait longer will be the first real test of the policy’s fiscal case.
3. The care sector’s response. Providers, unions and the workers themselves will now work out who qualifies for the five-year route, who needs the second-chance visa, and whether the 180-day protection for workers whose sponsors lose their licences is enough. Recruitment figures over the next year will show whether the sector can still attract the staff it needs.
4. Legal challenges. The doctrine that the rules in force at the point of decision apply, rather than the rules in force on arrival, has been tested in the courts before – but a system that can extend a person’s wait from five years to thirty is likely to be challenged again, particularly on the refugee provisions.
5. The political fallout. Watch whether the concessions calm the Labour backbenches or embolden them, how Reform UK and the Conservatives frame the U-turn in the coming days, and whether the Prime Minister’s public backing of his Home Secretary holds as the detail emerges.

Sources

Home Office / GOV.UK – Home Secretary unveils new rules for migrants settling in the UK

Press Association via Bury Times – Mahmood waters down plans to make foreign carers wait 15 years for settlement

The Times – Shabana Mahmood sets out new immigration rules

Reuters – UK to unveil migrant settlement overhaul after months of debate

The Sun – Shabana Mahmood forced into humiliating climbdown on her flagship immigration reforms