Shabana Mahmood’s migrant settlement consultation gives almost 300,000 care workers a five-year route to indefinite leave to remain. The same plans keep tougher rules for other migrants, including a far longer wait for some small boats arrivals.
People making a strong contribution to the UK will also be able to settle after five years. The Home Office first drew up the most rigorous of the new rules a year ago, and Mahmood’s latest plans now set out who keeps the faster path.
Home Office changes
The carve-out means care workers are not swept into the same timetable as everyone facing the stricter settlement regime. Under the new rules, some migrants will have to wait up to 30 years before applying for settlement, while the care worker route stays at five years for almost 300,000 people.
The policy shift matters because it splits the system into two tracks. One track still rewards what Mahmood’s plan treats as a strong contribution to the UK; the other imposes much longer waits on migrants who do not fit that definition, including people arriving by small boats.
Andy Burnham in Makerfield
Andy Burnham backed attempts by Mahmood to limit legal and illegal migration, while also arguing that migrants help plug gaps in the economy. Speaking while out knocking on doors in Makerfield, Burnham said, “I think there’s a different way of thinking about it that might in the end get you to a better position, and one that restores public confidence,” and added, “When you have planned migration, it’s difficult to say if it’s too high or too low,” in an interview with ITV.
Burnham also rejected Reform’s attack on “open borders Andy” as “ridiculous”. He said, “I’m not like that. You know me. I was in the Home Office under Tony Blair, and actually, it was my job to return people.”
Tony Blair and settlement rules
Burnham said he used to travel to governments around the world to persuade them to take back planes of people who had come here with no basis to stay. That is the friction inside Mahmood’s wider approach: a harder border message paired with a settlement carve-out for a large group of care workers and others seen as contributing strongly to the UK.
The practical result for affected migrants is simple. Care workers near the new rulebook keep a five-year route to ILR, while others face the tougher timetable already drawn up at the Home Office a year ago. The unresolved issue is how many other migrants will be pulled into the retrospective changes and the 30-year wait before they can even apply.
