Mahmood refuses to put cost on care worker settlement climbdown

The home secretary has declined to specify how much scrapping her plan to make foreign care workers already in the UK wait longer to qualify for permanent settlement will cost.

Shabana Mahmood had originally proposed doubling the wait from five years to 10 for most migrants, with some facing a 15-year wait, which the Home Office suggested could save £10bn.

But under revised plans described by the Tories as a "U-turn", some foreign care workers will continue to wait five years, and others will be able to seek a five-year extension.

While not detailing the cost of the revised plans, Mahmood told the BBC they would still save "billions" because workers in other sectors would have to wait longer.

In March, the Home Office said the net lifetime cost of care workers and their adult dependants expected to settle between 2026 and 2030 was estimated at £10bn under existing rules.

Mahmood was proposing to delay settlement for this cohort in response to concerns over record post-Brexit net migration figures under the previous Tory government - dubbed the "Boriswave" by critics.

She had previously argued that not delaying settlement for migrant care workers already in the UK would lead to a "£10bn drain on our public finances".

Following a backlash, Mahmood announced on Monday that care workers who arrived in the UK before May 2025 and earned at least £25,000 a year would continue to qualify after five years, alongside some other groups.

Foreign care workers who do not qualify for the five-year settlement will be able to apply for a new five-year visa, and then seek settlement.

Just over 500,000 people will now be delayed from gaining permanent residency, down from almost 800,000 before Monday's changes. Some 1.9m people will settle in the UK between 2026 and 2030, according to the Home Office.

Indefinite leave to remain (ILR), also known as settlement, gives a person the right to live, work and study in the UK for as long as they like and apply for benefits if they are eligible. They can also use it to apply for British citizenship.

Asked about the cost of her revised plans, the home secretary told BBC Radio 4's Today programme the detailed costs would be published when her department puts the changes before Parliament.

In an interview recorded on Monday evening, she said the changes overall represented "savings in the billions" to the Department of Work and Pensions in people not claiming benefits.

"The reason for that is the cohort that was most likely to fall upon the state is that cohort of care workers not doing care work at the moment - if they'd settled at five years, many more of those would have gone on to claim benefits.

"That will now not happen because they will not be settling at five years - those individuals get a second chance to make that contribution that they originally came to make," she told Today.

The Home Office's £10bn figure was based on an estimate by the Migration Advisory Committee of how much an average migrant care worker would cost the UK in benefits and public services throughout their lifetime.

While Mahmood would not give a new savings figure, Home Office minister Anna Turley told BBC Breakfast it would be "at least £1bn over the next couple of years in terms of welfare savings" but "we'll be doing more calculations" on the total.

The Conservatives said the "U-turn" would cost the UK billions of pounds.

The £10bn figure has been criticised by the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR), which found a £115bn addition to UK public finances under current settlement rules.

"Public debate has focused heavily on the costs of recent migration, but this is not the whole story," IPPR associate director Marley Morris said.

Mahmood also declined to say whether Prime Minister Andy Burnham had told her to change tack on her proposals, which she had put forward in November under his predecessor Sir Keir Starmer.

She told Today a public consultation had resulted in a "transformative package" that "strikes the right balance".

She has denied Monday's move was a U-turn, and said the revised plans meant some 500,000 people already in the UK would now have to wait longer than five years to qualify for settlement.

The exact wait will vary based on income and whether people arrived in the UK legally or illegally.

Mahmood had faced criticism within the Labour Party for proposing to retrospectively change the rules for migrant workers already in the UK.

Housing Secretary Angela Rayner had said it amounted to "chang[ing] the goalposts" , while several MPs described the retrospective approach as "un-British" and warned it could worsen the UK's skills shortage, particularly in the care sector.

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Mahmood scraps settlement plans for migrant care workers