Shabana Mahmood, the United Kingdom’s (UK) Home Secretary, has confirmed that the path to Indefinite Leave to Remain (ILR) will soon be doubled to a ten-year qualifying period and subject to new ‘contribution-based’ requirements.
In her inaugural conference speech as home secretary, the Labour MP confirmed the significant policy shift, arguing that the public’s loss of faith in the immigration system was creating an environment where Britain could no longer afford to be ‘open, tolerant and generous’. End of automatic settlement
Mahmood further outlined plans to introduce a series of new, stringent ‘good citizen’ tests which migrants must pass to earn permanent residency.
‘We will soon increase the time in which someone must have lived in this country to earn indefinite leave to remain from five years to ten,’ she said.
‘And as part of that consultation, I will be proposing a series of new tests.’
These new conditions will reportedly include:
Being at work and making National Insurance contributions.
Not claiming a penny in benefits.
Attaining a high standard of English.
Having no criminal record. Demonstrating that they have truly given back to their community, such as through volunteering. Mahmood stated that those who fail to meet these new conditions should not be automatically granted ILR. The new system will allow high contributors to qualify for settlement in less than ten years, but others could face a longer wait or be barred from ILR entirely.
‘Time spent in this country alone is not enough,’ she asserted. ‘Just like my parents, you must earn the right to live in this country for good.’
The announcement was immediately followed by confusion over whether the stricter rules would apply to migrants who have recently arrived in the UK.
While sources initially indicate that the policy would not apply retrospectively to those already in the country, reports later suggested the government is wrestling with how to prevent a large cohort of recent arrivals from securing automatic ILR under current rules.
Mahmod is considering an emergency retrospective law, changes that could affect around one million migrants, including Nigerians who entered the UK after 2021 under the post-Brexit immigration system.
Insiders suggested the government was prepared to defend the expected legal challenges
However, it has been confirmed that the new ‘good citizen’ tests themselves would be too complex to impose on those already here.
Instead, ministers will seek a separate, faster mechanism to prevent migrants who arrived after 2021 from securing settlement after five years, though this mechanism is expected to be less demanding than the planned new ILR system.
‘Across this country, people feel like things are spinning out of control,’ she said, pointing to the arrivals of small boats and widespread illegal working as key drivers of this distrust.
The proposed changes are subject to a public consultation, following which the government is expected to make its final legislative decisions.