Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood has hinted at a willingness to review measures to restrict foreign workers’ access to permanent residence in the UK.
Housing Secretary Angela Rayner and a large number of Labour MPs and trade unions have been pressing the home secretary to pare down the ideas.
Mahmood told the Labour Party’s annual conference: “Some say portions of these measures are not fair.
And she claimed the government will “come to a position that balances fairness for those who came here legally and fairness to British citizens across this country”.
Permanent residency or indefinite permission to remain means you have the right to live, work and study in the UK whenever you want and to claim benefits if you are eligible.
Mahmood proposed extending the period most migrants would have to wait to qualify for the right — from five to 10 years. Some who come to the UK on health and social care visas could wait up to 15 years under the plans.
Earlier this year, a backbencher, Rayner accused the government of ‘shifting the goalposts’ and called Mahmood’s ideas ‘un-British’ – sticking with her criticism when she re-joined the cabinet.
Unison general secretary Andrea Egan argued the proposed amendments will unfairly penalise foreign care workers.
Home Office sources stress no final decision has been made on revisions to the immigration laws and Mahmood was outlining the ideas that would guide her in her conference speech.
The home secretary told delegates: “As we restore control and fairness to our asylum system, we have to restore control and fairness to legal migration.Fair to those who want a new and better life here, as my parents did, and fair to those who are already here, including British workers, particularly young people.“That same principle underlies my reforms to the indefinite right to live here, so that settled status is earned by those who have demonstrated a sustained commitment to this country.”
She pledged to devise a strategy that was fair to people who “came here legally” and to British citizens.
A Conservative spokesperson said: “Shabana Mahmood has caved in to pressure from Angela Rayner and her open borders MPs and will tear up her own plans to reform indefinite leave to remain.”It is a smack in the face to British taxpayers who are going to have to fund low trained, low salary migrants.
Earlier, Prime Minister Andy Burnham denied Mahmood was forced to drop the measures because Rayner thought they were “un-British” and that the revisions would need to “strike the right balance”.
When asked if he was ‘Team Shabana’ or ‘Team Angela’ he told LBC: ‘I’m both of them, I’m Team Angela and Shabana.”But it just goes to show that there’s a consultation, there’s not only thoughts from politicians, but obviously there’s a spectrum of perspectives that have gone into that survey, so we’re now working on looking at that.
What the latest position means
The government’s original earned-settlement proposals included increasing the standard settlement period from five years to 10 years, with a proposed 15-year baseline for some lower-skilled Health and Care visa workers. The government consultation stated that the proposals would be subject to further consideration before the preferred approach was confirmed.
The Home Office has also confirmed that the government is considering responses to the consultation before bringing forward further reforms.
This means migrants and employers should distinguish between proposed settlement reforms and rules that are already legally in force. Existing government guidance continues to provide routes for eligible people to apply for indefinite leave to remain under current requirements.