Home secretary to make some migrants wait 10 years or more for right to settle in UK

Shabana Mahmood wants to extend the length of time many overseas workers must live in the UK before qualifying for indefinite leave to remain. Photograph: Jordan Pettitt/PA View image in fullscreen Shabana Mahmood wants to extend the length of time many overseas workers must live in the UK before qualifying for indefinite leave to remain. Photograph: Jordan Pettitt/PA Home secretary to make some migrants wait 10 years or more for right to settle in UK MPs say Shabana Mahmood’s new rules risk staff shortages in health and social care and second Windrush scandal Shabana Mahmood will announce sweeping new rules on Monday on how long legal migrants must wait for settlement in the UK, with most likely to wait a decade and some up to 15 years. Ministers – including the housing secretary, Angela Rayner – had raised concerns about the effect the rules would have on care workers already in the UK who would be likely to face a 15-year wait for settlement, also known as indefinite leave to remain (ILR). The government’s response to the consultation on the reforms, which will be put before MPs on Monday, is expected give some exemption to care workers already in the UK, though most other professions will face the lengthy waits for settlement. Mahmood, the home secretary, has proposed that the settlement wait could be reduced if legal migrants showed they had contributed to their local communities via a “points based system” or if they were earning higher incomes. She is expected to meet union general secretaries on Monday – some of whom have raised alarm at the changes – to map out the final details. The Guardian first reported in July that the prime minister, Andy Burnham, was considering exempting hundreds of thousands of care workers from the reforms 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 coming as their dependants. Under the plans published for consultation, the standard qualifying period for settlement would double from five to 10 years, while some workers in occupations below graduate level, including care workers, could face a 15-year qualifying period, subject to proposed exemptions and reductions. In June, Rayner described making care workers already in Britain wait up to 15 years for permanent residence as “un-British”. In September, the energy secretary, Miatta Fahnbulleh, said the plans would have been “tough” for her family, who came to Britain as refugees.