The Home Office has found a novel way to deal with a deadline: ignore it. The Critic reports that the internal 14 October date for announcing Indefinite Leave to Remain (ILR) reforms has disappeared, with no replacement. While ministers um and ah, and fail to reform Britain’s broken ILR system, the so-called “Boriswave” of post-2021 migrants moves closer to permanent settlement and, with it, full access to Britain’s generous welfare state.
This is delay with dire consequences. The Home Office’s central forecast under existing policy is for 1.6 million people to settle between 2026 and 2030, with around 450,000 in 2028 alone. Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood herself told the House of Commons last November that the lifetime net cost to the taxpayer of just low skilled migrant workers expect to settle in Britain by 2030 would be almost £10 billion. Every month squandered allows more people to qualify under rules the government admits need changing.
The central proposal is perfectly reasonable: raise the standard qualifying period from five years to ten, and require settlement to be earned through contribution and integration. Given the scale of the migration surge, this is basic prudence and a nod to fairness for the British taxpayer. Yet even this sensible measure, it seems, goes too far for Andy Burnham’s administration, which faces resistance from some cabinet ministers and, perhaps, from Mr Burnham himself.
In July we warned: “Whatever Ms Mahmood’s intentions may be, it is obvious that Labour’s far-left backbenchers will have none of it.” That warning looks painfully prescient. Communities Secretary Angela Rayner has publicly attacked applying the changes to those already here, while Energy Secretary Miatta Fahnbulleh repeatedly declined, in an interview on Sky News, to back the proposed extension of the qualifying period for care workers. Labour looks hostage to its own open-borders zealots.
Nor can ministers hide behind a need for primary legislation. All that is necessary is a change to the immigration rules, as this House of Commons Library note explains that: the immigration rules can be changed without a new Act of Parliament.
The issue also goes beyond the Treasury’s cautious cost estimates. Permanent settlement creates additional demand for housing and public services, hinders integration and threatens cohesion. The British public deserves better. We expect our government to put the national interest ahead of internal party squabbles.
Ms Mahmood must commit to a firm timetable for the necessary rule changes and, once they are in place, apply them to those already here who have yet to be granted ILR. Exempting the Boriswave would gut the reform exactly where it matters most.
Her dithering risks turning Boris Johnson’s immigration failure into a lasting burden, one that will surely be worsened by mass immigration and chain migration from the new routes she is proposing.
The public aren’t fools, Home Secretary. A consultation is no excuse for procrastination. It is time to get your act together, deliver on your promises and face down your recalcitrant, out-of-touch colleagues in Cabinet and on the backbenches.
