Mahmood to unveil UK settlement overhaul on 2 November, care workers expected to be spared

Decision due on Monday, 2 November

Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood is expected to set out her final decision on immigration restrictions for legal migrants on Monday, 2 November, in a statement to the House of Commons, a Home Office source has confirmed. The decision follows more than 200,000 responses to a consultation that ran for nearly a year. The original proposals would double the standard settlement qualifying period from five to 10 years, with some lower-paid workers, including care workers, facing 15 years. The plans could also apply retrospectively to people already living and working in Britain, which has drawn criticism from inside the Labour Party.

Economic case for skilled migration

The Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR), a think tank with influence on Labour policy, estimates that skilled migrants and their adult dependants due to settle under existing rules would make a net lifetime contribution of around £115 billion through the taxes they pay. Its figures include health and care workers as well as those on other skilled worker visas. The IPPR used the same method as the Home Office, which estimates that letting overseas care workers and their dependants settle would cost taxpayers £10 billion over their lifetimes. The think tank welcomed reports that the 15-year wait for some lower-paid workers could be scaled back, with social care workers already in the UK exempted.

“Public debate has focused heavily on the costs of recent migration, but this is not the whole story.”

Morris, associate director for migration, trade and communities at IPPR, also urged ministers to keep the terms migrants arrived under or to offer a fair compromise, such as a secure route to settlement and freedom to change jobs after five years.

IPPR net contribution, skilled migrants115

Government cost estimate, care workers10

IPPR net contribution, skilled migrants

115 £ billion

Government cost estimate, care workers

10 £ billion

Data from the article text

Cabinet tensions and the care sector

Tensions inside the Cabinet surfaced earlier this year when Housing Secretary Angela Rayner publicly attacked the idea of applying the plans retrospectively. Energy Secretary Miatta Fahnbulleh repeatedly declined to say she backed a longer qualifying period. In late October, Prime Minister Andy Burnham said he strongly supported the principle that indefinite leave to remain was a 'right to be earned', but he stopped short of committing to all of Mahmood's reforms. The care sector is already under strain. The King's Fund found that 47% of new care starters in 2025-26 were of international origin, compared with 18% in 2020-21, and projects only 10,000 overseas care workers will be recruited this financial year if current trends continue.

Separate research shared with The i Paper shows overseas care worker numbers are on track to fall by more than 90% compared with three years earlier. Between 2022 and 2024, more than 600,000 workers and dependants arrived on health and care visas, and more than half of them are expected to apply for indefinite leave to remain from next year.

2020-2118%

2025-2647%

2020-21

18 %

2025-26

47 %

Data from the article text

Opposition and Windrush warnings

Chris Philp, the shadow home secretary, wrote on X on Sunday, 1 November, that the government was set to announce a U-turn on indefinite leave to remain. He said Mahmood had been forced to give ground to Rayner, and he cited a March 2026 speech in which Mahmood called the £10 billion lifetime cost of letting low-wage care workers stay 'an affront'. Parliamentary and campaign voices have also raised the Windrush comparison. A letter to Mahmood and health secretary Yvette Cooper, which the Guardian has seen, comes from parliamentarians, migrant worker groups, racial equality campaigners and health professionals, who describe the proposals as 'an iteration of Windrush era policies'. The 2017 Windrush scandal, exposed by Guardian reporting, saw many Black Britons wrongly detained and deported.

What happens next

Mahmood's statement to the Commons will show how far the proposals have been diluted. Reports suggest care workers already in Britain will be exempt from the 15-year wait, while most other workers would still face the 10-year period first proposed. No final details had been confirmed before the statement. The Guardian first reported in July that Burnham was considering exempting care workers, a move he has not yet confirmed publicly. Whether the exemption extends beyond social care will decide how much the IPPR's figures and the government's cost estimate shape the final rules.