Migrants will have to spend decade in UK before applying to stay

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for free

Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.

Migrants to the UK will need to spend a decade in the country before applying to settle unless they can show “a real and lasting contribution to the economy and society”, ministers are set to announce on Monday.

The proposal to end automatic settlement after five years is part of a sweeping set of changes to the immigration system that will also heavily restrict employers’ ability to hire overseas workers for low-skilled roles.

Yvette Cooper, home secretary, said on Sunday that overseas recruitment of care workers would end within months as a result of the changes, which will be set out in a white paper aiming to slash inward migration to Britain.

Other changes will limit skilled worker visas to graduate level jobs, with employers only given temporary access to visas for lower skilled roles where there are staff shortages and plans in place to train and recruit UK workers.

Cooper said the changes to low skilled work visas would cut arrivals by 50,000 a year and her broader plans would lead to a “substantial reduction” in net migration, but she did not set a numerical target.

The latest data, for the year to mid-2024, showed net migration of 728,000 but the Office for Budget Responsibility expects inflows to fall to less than half that level in the medium term as a result of visa restrictions already implemented by the previous Conservative government.

The clampdown comes after the anti-immigration Reform UK party made widespread gains in local elections in England earlier this month, and pulled ahead of Sir Keir Starmer’s governing Labour party in opinion polls.

The Home Office is expected to publish a technical assessment of how much it believes each measure will reduce migration by, but not any analysis of the potential economic cost.

Cooper argued on Sunday that record high migration had contributed to anaemic growth, because it had allowed a lack of investment in UK workers, which she said had undermined productivity.

The government is presenting the changes — which include tougher English language requirements across all work, family and study visa routes — as a means to ensure that people who come to Britain “commit to integration” and “earn the right to stay”.

Starmer will argue that the new settlement rules leave open a fast track for “high-skilled, high-contributing individuals who play by the rules . . . such as nurses, doctors, engineers and AI leaders”.

But other new migrants would need to stay a decade in the UK before applying for indefinite leave to remain — opening up eligibility for benefits and a path to citizenship.

Until then, they could be liable to pay visa fees and charges to use the NHS running into tens of thousands of pounds for a family. Those coming on employer-sponsored visas could also face barriers to building a career.

Researchers and campaigners on migration said the longer route to settlement — first reported by the FT last week — would backfire, as it was unlikely to change levels of migration but would make it harder for people who came to the UK to integrate.

Marley Morris, an associate director at the think-tank IPPR, said: “The end result would be a larger cohort of people living and working irregularly, undermining their integration and fuelling exploitation, while doing little to bring down migration levels.”

The government is also under fire from anti-immigration campaigners.

Richard Tice, Reform UK’s deputy leader, said the public were “raging, furious” about the level of both legal and illegal migration, which he argued accounted for his party coming first in the local elections.

Chris Philp, shadow home secretary, branded the changes to work visas a “little 50,000 tweak” that was “not enough”. He acknowledged that the Conservative party had taken action “too late” to tackle migration, which peaked above 900,000 in mid 2023 under the previous Tory government. 

Cooper said international students would still be allowed to stay and work in the UK after finishing their courses, but universities — who rely on their fees — would be expected to do more to ensure compliance with visa rules.

The closure of the care visa route will alarm providers of adult social care, who face chronic staff shortages because the funding pressures on local authorities leave them unable to raise wages.

There were 131,000 vacancies — accounting for more than 8 per cent of all roles — in 2023-24, according to Skills for Care, the industry’s development and planning body in England.

Cooper told the BBC that extensions to existing care worker visas would be permitted and the sector would continue to be able to recruit from the pool of around 10,000 migrants already in the UK “who came on a care worker visa . . . to jobs that weren’t actually here or that were not of the proper standard”.