Mahmood drops 15-year settlement wait for care workers already in the UK
UK Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood told MPs on Monday that care workers earning at least £25,000 who arrived before May 2025 can still settle after five years. Most other migrants earning under £50,000 will now wait 10 years.
UK Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood has scrapped plans to make foreign care workers already in the country wait 15 years for permanent settlement. She set out the revised rules in the House of Commons on Monday. The BBC reported that the change followed a backlash from several Labour MPs. The Guardian said cabinet ministers and health unions had also pushed back. Under the new rules, migrants earning less than £50,000 a year move to a 10-year path to indefinite leave to remain (ILR), unless they are exempt. That is double the current five years. Care workers who arrived before May 2025 and earn at least £25,000, the condition of their visa, keep the five-year path. According to The Guardian, an estimated 280,000 care workers and their dependants will benefit. Care workers who did not meet their visa conditions can apply for another five-year visa and seek settlement after that. The original plan would have delayed 799,000 people from gaining permanent residency, the BBC reported. Under the revised plan, that number drops to 517,000. Some groups keep their current route. They include Hong Kong British nationals overseas, armed forces members and people on legacy routes such as the Windrush scheme. ILR gives a person the right to live, work and study in the UK indefinitely. It also opens the way to British citizenship. Mahmood told MPs that settlement "should not be automatic, it should be earned". Asked…
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