The Home Office's strategy involves doubling the qualifying period for indefinite leave to remain from five to ten years for most overseas workers. While the initial scheme threatened care staff with a 15-year wait, officials are now expected to implement a partial climbdown for the health sector. The policy affects hundreds of thousands of individuals and is proceeding despite unease from more than 100 Labour MPs. Meanwhile, recent Office for Budget Responsibility figures reveal net migration is already declining rapidly.
Key points
The Home Secretary is bypassing parliamentary amendment processes to enact stricter resid…: The Home Secretary is bypassing parliamentary amendment processes to enact stricter residency timelines for overseas workers.
Falling net migration figures from the Office for Budget Responsibility are undermining t…: Falling net migration figures from the Office for Budget Responsibility are undermining the primary justification for harsher settlement restrictions.
Senior figures like Andy Burnham are breaking rank by arguing that legal migration has al…: Senior figures like Andy Burnham are breaking rank by arguing that legal migration has already fallen and fills crucial economic gaps.
Sources checked by our analysis pipeline: 1
Good morning. Often these days, when the government has a big announcement and just before the relevant minister starts to give the details in a statement to MPs, Lindsay Hoyle, the Commons speaker, erupts with fury and rants and raves at the Treasury bench about how all the main points have already been leaked to the media, in contravention of the ministerial code.
Not today. Shabana Mahmood, the home secretary, will this afternoon unveil the final version of her plans to make foreign workers wait longer before they can apply for indefinite leave to remain, and we know relatively little about what she will say. The original plans were unveiled last November and they would require most workers to wait 10 years, not five, for ILR, with care workers having to wait 15 years. They would also apply to foreign workers already here, not just new arrivals. These proposals were hugely controversial, and Andy Burnham himself was among the ministers arguing that care workers should be treated more kindly.
As Jessica Elgot and Chris Osuh report in our overnight story,…
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