Mahmood softens settlement plans with care worker carve-out, but retrospective rule changes stand

On Monday, Shabana Mahmood stood in the Commons and told MPs that settlement in the UK would no longer be handed out almost automatically. "From today it must be earned," the home secretary said. But she had come to the chamber having already given ground on the most contested part of her plan: care workers, who had been told to expect a 15-year wait, would now be able to apply for indefinite leave to remain after five.

The concession followed a cabinet backlash and pressure from health unions. The housing secretary, Angela Rayner, had explicitly criticised the care worker proposal, and the energy secretary, Miatta Fahnbulleh, repeatedly declined to say she backed lengthening the qualifying period. Mahmood met union general secretaries on Monday morning to walk them through the revisions before presenting them to MPs. Under the new terms, care workers earning more than £25,000 qualify for the five-year route, a third of the time announced last year. About 280,000 care workers and their dependants are expected to benefit.

Much else stands. Anyone earning under £50,000 will see the wait double to 10 years, and the changes apply retrospectively, so people who arrived expecting one timetable now face another. Refugees will wait 10 years, with a further 10-year penalty for those who did not enter legally, and those who do not find work could wait up to 30 years. People who arrived by irregular means such as small boats also face up to 30 years. The exception is the small number of refugees arriving through designated safe and legal routes, such as the reopened scheme for Afghan women and girls and Palestinians, though no refugee who has accessed public funds will be eligible for settlement.

At the top of the scale, those earning more than £125,000 can settle within three years. People earning more than £50,271, and some public service workers including doctors, nurses and teachers, can settle after five. Home Office officials calculate that about 500,000 migrants will wait longer than the current five years. Critics counter that 1.4 million of the 1.9 million who came during the so-called "Boriswave" surge in legal migration will still be eligible after five years.

Reaction split in several directions. Nigel Farage called the changes "the beginning of the capitulation", and the Conservatives cried betrayal. The shadow home secretary, Chris Philp, said the care worker carve-out for those who arrived on the visa before May 2025 would cost up to £10bn, a figure Mahmood herself has cited in support of her original plans. She replied that the longer wait for more than half a million people would reduce the projected benefits bill. Edward Leigh, a Conservative backbencher, told Philp that anyone who had been a Home Office minister when numbers rose so sharply should "wear sackcloth and ashes".

Labour MPs focused on the retrospection. Some said research scientists and chefs would be caught by the £50,000 threshold. Abtisam Mohamed, MP for Sheffield Central, called it unfair to uproot plans "sometimes made at the most vulnerable time in their lives" and said she would press for those already here to be protected. Diane Abbott warned of another potential Windrush scandal, noting that people can enter and work legally and then see their residency rights turned upside down. Stella Creasy described a "partial recognition" of migrants' contribution but said thousands face "10 years of limbo", arguing that the economic cost of their leaving would outweigh any savings in benefits, given that many do not claim them.

Outside parliament, the Law Society said the changes retrospectively undermine the legal certainty that individuals, families and employers rely on, and could threaten the rule of law. Amnesty International accused the government of "moving the goalposts". The CBI argued the policy risked higher costs for the relatively small number of businesses using skilled worker visas without solving the problem it was designed for, while Make UK said industries would lose talent to countries that welcome skilled workers. Unison's Andrea Egan welcomed the dropping of the original plans, which she called "morally bankrupt", but said the conditions on care workers remain onerous and that employers' power to threaten workers with deportation must end.

Andy Burnham, who promised voters in the Makerfield byelection that he would back Mahmood's migration agenda, endorsed the plans, saying she was "gripping this problem". The prime minister said those making the most valuable contributions should settle earlier. Because the policies need no vote in parliament, MPs have limited means to block them, so the pressure on retrospection will likely continue through lobbying and the details of implementation.