More than 300,000 children already living in the UK could be forced to wait 10 years for settled status under proposed changes to the Home Office’s “earned settlement” policy, according to an analysis by the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR).
The thinktank found that nearly a quarter (23 per cent) of the 1.35 million people already on routes to settlement are children, most as dependants on family work visas. Ministers want to double the qualifying period from five to ten years for most migrant workers, and extend it to 15 years for those in below-graduate level jobs, including many care workers.
About 40 Labour MPs have raised concerns, describing the retrospective approach as “un-British” and “moving the goalposts”. Settlement, or indefinite leave to remain, grants the right to live, work and study in the UK, and access benefits. Applying changes retrospectively could penalise those who arrived under different rules.
The IPPR warns that hundreds of thousands of children could grow up without secure status, limiting access to higher education, student finance and stable employment. Marley Morris, associate director at IPPR, said: “Families who were welcomed under one set of rules should not have the goalposts moved.” Zayne, 18, whose father is an NHS doctor, said his family’s future feels “pulled away overnight” because he cannot access student finance for medical school.
At a Westminster Hall debate, Labour MP Tony Vaughan called the retrospectivity “un-British” and urged for it to be abandoned. Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood defended the plans, saying settlement is a “privilege not a right” and that five years is “quite a short period”. The IPPR is calling for a clause to protect those already on routes to settlement.
