Nocturnal 
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Angela Rayner has broken cover to criticise her own government’s plans to make foreign care workers wait up to 15 years for permanent residency, just as Labour’s conference gets under way.
The Housing Secretary told The Times she has “concerns” about the proposals, which would see most migrants wait 10 years to qualify for settlement instead of the current five. Foreign workers on health and social care visas would face an even longer 15-year wait, according to the plans put forward by Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood.
Rayner said the changes risked shifting “the goalposts years down the line” for people who came to the UK at the start of the decade expecting to secure permanent status under the rules in place at the time. She called the potential rule change “very disruptive”.
Care workers who ‘moved their lives here’
Speaking to the newspaper, Rayner singled out foreign care workers who “moved their lives here to look after our loved ones”, suggesting it would be unfair to retrospectively alter the terms they signed up for.
It’s not the first time she’s raised the alarm. Back in June, Rayner said plans to retrospectively change settlement rules for migrants already working in the UK would be “wrong”. She told The Times she has “not changed my view” since returning to cabinet, and believes Mahmood is well aware of her position.
Before he became Prime Minister, Andy Burnham said he “understood” where Rayner was coming from, telling reporters in June that Labour “would do well to listen to what Angela has to say” – notable given the policy was inherited from his predecessor, Sir Keir Starmer.
Growing pressure from within Labour
Rayner isn’t alone. York Central MP Rachael Maskell told the Today programme the proposals represented “the wrong set of values”, both “technically and morally”, arguing they would penalise “people who have come to serve faithfully” by making them wait years longer for citizenship.
The pressure isn’t confined to backbenchers, either. NHS Employers, which helps shape the health service workforce, has demanded a “fast-tracked settlement route” for NHS and care staff, warning that doubling the wait to 10 years could saddle the health service with spiralling recruitment costs and worsen staff shortages, according to the Daily Express.
The organisation told MPs that extending settlement from five to 10 years “would place a substantial financial burden on the NHS” and could make the UK a less attractive place for international recruits to work, with “knock-on effects for NHS service delivery” including the government’s pledge to cut waiting lists.
Under the wider proposals, migrants relying on benefits could face waits of 20 to 30 years for indefinite leave to remain, while those applying after 10 years would need a clean criminal record, A-level standard English and no outstanding debt.
What happens next
Mahmood has said the government will make a final decision on the immigration overhaul by the end of the year. For now, the disagreement leaves Labour heading into its Liverpool conference with a very public split between two of its most senior figures over how the party treats the migrant workers propping up Britain’s care sector.
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