Five-year route preserved for eligible workers
Mahmood told the House of Commons that she was dropping a proposed 15-year wait for foreign care workers already in the UK to qualify for indefinite leave to remain (ILR), BBC News reported. Care workers who arrived before May 2025 will retain the five-year route if they met their visa conditions and earned at least £25,000 a year.
The changes do not give every care worker access to settlement on that timetable. Around 100,000 workers who did not meet their visa conditions—about a quarter of those who arrived before May 2025—can apply for a new five-year Health and Care visa, then seek settlement after completing it.
NHS Employers chief executive Ben Morrin said the announcement puts more than 10,000 current NHS healthcare support workers on the same footing under immigration rules as colleagues including nurses, midwives, physiotherapists and doctors. Those who arrived before May 2025 will now have the right to remain after five years, he said.
The original reforms were detailed in November 2025, when Mahmood was home secretary under Sir Keir Starmer. They proposed extending the usual settlement wait from five to 10 years, with a possible 15-year wait for care workers. They would also have covered migrants who had already relocated to the UK expecting to qualify after five years.
Union questions unequal waiting periods
Unite, Britain's largest union, described the reversal as a vindication of its campaign against retrospective changes affecting workers already in the UK. Its demands included protection for care workers, NHS workers and teaching assistants.
General secretary Sharon Graham called the announcement "a welcome victory for those workers and their families", while warning that necessary details were still missing. She questioned why an NHS doctor should wait five years when a city "finance bro" paying additional tax could qualify in three.
The proposed routes allow skilled public service workers, including doctors, nurses and teachers, and people earning above £50,271 to qualify after five years. A three-year route is available to those earning more than £125,141 or holding Global Talent or Innovator Founder visas, according to BBC News.
Graham said: "The question is, is it fair to bring workers to Britain and change the goalposts mid-stream. We need to be vigilant. Let us not forget the original plan was full steam ahead until there was a backlash." She pledged that Unite would continue fighting for workers and "hold Labour's feet to the fire". The union also challenged the fairness of offering faster settlement on the basis of additional tax payments.
Longer waits remain for most migrants
Despite the exemptions, the revised policy still doubles the standard settlement period from five to 10 years for most migrants. BBC News reported that people earning less than £50,000 annually will face the 10-year wait unless they qualify for an exemption.
The number of people whose permanent residency would be delayed falls from 799,000 under the original proposals to 517,000 under the November 2 revisions. That leaves about 282,000 people spared the longer wait.
Separate provisions require refugees who reached the UK by small boat or another illegal route to wait 20 years for settlement if they work or study. Those who do neither face a 30-year wait.
Dispute over the fiscal cost
The Telegraph reported that the Home Office had previously estimated a lifetime cost to taxpayers of nearly £10 billion from granting low-paid care workers ILR after five years. That estimate covered additional benefits, lower tax receipts, healthcare and other state spending.
Shadow Home Secretary Chris Philp cited a £9.5 billion lifetime cost estimate from March as the cost of the policy reversal.
