‘Time to stop demonising migrant workers’

Unions cautiously welcome Home Secretary’s watered-down permanent settlement plans for foreign carers

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Foreign workers who meet their health and social care visa conditions and earn at least £25,000 a year will have to wait five years instead, Ms Mahmood told the Commons.

She claimed her plans would cut welfare spending by billions and that those who don’t qualify will be able to apply for a new five-year visa, and then apply for indefinite leave to remain (ILR) once it has been completed.

The five-year ILR option for care workers won’t apply to people who arrived after May 2025 but they will be helped to find work and won’t be tied to their “old employer, allowing those with rogue sponsors to break away from them.”

Migrants who arrive by crossing the Channel in small boats would have to wait 30 years for ILR under new rules.

Unison general secretary Andrea Egan said that “we are glad she has finally listened to us and not implemented the worst aspects.

“These plans were morally bankrupt and a threat to public services — they should be dropped altogether.

“The government has spent a year attacking workers who are the backbone of our health and social care system, in a futile attempt to appease the far right. It’s time to stop demonising migrant workers and start celebrating their contribution.”

On the changes to indefinite leave to remain plans, she added: “Care workers will only qualify for the exemption if they can prove continuous employment and meet salary thresholds. 

“The government must make sure it isn’t unjustly denied to them. Thousands of migrant care workers have had their employment patterns and pay disrupted by rogue employers. Penalising workers for that would be completely unfair and risk another Home Office scandal.  

“We urgently need a sector-wide visa for social care, ending a system that ties migrant care workers to a single employer and leaves them vulnerable to exploitation, extortion and abuse.

“The power of employers to threaten workers with deportation or disrupt their route to settlement must end. Unison’s Fair Visas Campaign will continue until it does and there is justice for migrant workers.”

Unite also highlighted double standards that require doctors to work for five years to receive ILR but those working in finance or technology could be eligible in just three.

Unite general secretary Sharon Graham said: “For some time Unite has been calling for care workers, NHS workers and teaching assistants not to have retrospective detriment as far as indefinite leave to remain is concerned.

“Today’s announcement, although still short of some necessary detail, is a welcome victory for those workers and their families.

“There are still some inconsistencies yet be explained. For example, why it is deemed acceptable for an NHS doctor to wait five years, while a city ‘finance bro’ paying additional tax is able to go through the system in three.

“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.

“Unite will continue to fight for workers and hold Labour’s feet to the fire.”

Tensions in the Cabinet over the policy surfaced when Housing Secretary Angela Rayner earlier this year publicly attacked the prospect of backdating the plans.

Then Energy Secretary Miatta Fahnbulleh repeatedly refused to say she backed proposals to prolong the qualifying period for settlement.

Prime Minister Andy Burnham said that it was “only fair that those who are making the most valuable contribution to our communities are given the opportunity to settle earlier.”

He added in a statement: “Following Brexit, the previous government lost control of immigration, with an unprecedented spike in numbers.

“This Home Secretary is gripping this problem, and she has my full support in doing so.”

Indefinite leave to remain (ILR), also known as settlement, is an immigration status that allows a person to live, work and study in Britain indefinitely and apply for benefits if they are eligible.

More than 200,000 responses were submitted to the consultation on Ms Mahmood’s initial proposals.

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