On Monday, 2 November, Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood set out the Labour Government’s revised proposals for its perniciously named Earned Settlement policy. Following a consultation that received more than 200,000 responses, 84% of which disagreed with the proposals, the Government’s revised policy remains largely unchanged, claiming to offer A Fairer Pathway to Settlement.

It is, however, difficult to see what is ‘fair’ or ‘earned’ about a policy that explicitly penalises people for being poor, working in low-paid jobs or having skills that are not recognised through formal qualifications.

As the Labour Government continues to proclaim its commitment to employment rights and labour protections for working-class people, it is worth thinking about how these proposals sit alongside that commitment.

Settlement in the UK

In the foreword to the Earned Settlement consultation, the Home Secretary claimed that settlement under the current system is granted ‘automatically’. This claim, however, bears almost no resemblance to the reality of living in the UK with temporary immigration status.

Under the current system, the standard qualifying period for settlement on many visa routes is five years, although some routes require considerably longer. For many people, these years are characterised by significant financial costs, uncertainty and hardship.

For instance, one of the UK’s main routes for recruiting migrant workers is the Skilled Worker visa, which provides a five-year route to settlement. For the duration of the visa, an individual’s immigration status is tied to their employment with an approved sponsor. This creates a high level dependency that can leave workers reluctant to challenge exploitative employers, report abuse or leave unsafe workplaces for fear of jeopardising their right to remain in the UK and their longer-term prospects of settlement.

Other visa routes carry their own eligibility requirements, which mean that changes in employment, relationships or personal circumstances can similarly put someone’s immigration status at risk during their wait for settlement.

Most visas are granted for limited periods and often need to be extended before a person can qualify for settlement. Renewal applications can cost thousands of pounds. For example, a three-year Skilled Worker visa extension currently costs an adult over £4,000 in application fees and the Immigration Health Surcharge alone. For families with dependents, these costs multiply, potentially reaching tens of thousands of pounds over the course of their route to settlement.

Furthermore, periods of undocumented status or failure to meet the requirements for a visa extension can interrupt someone’s qualifying residence or mean that time spent in the UK does not count towards settlement. For some, this can significantly delay their ability to secure permanent status and incur enormous additional costs.

These conditions create significant financial insecurity and dependency among migrants without settled status, and vastly increase their vulnerability to labour exploitation and other forms of abuse. Despite these challenges, the Government has chosen to extend this period of uncertainty for the majority of migrants living in the UK.

What is changing?

The Earned Settlement proposals effectively introduce a tiered system for determining how long an individual must reside in the UK before qualifying for settlement, with qualifying periods varying considerably according to their income and financial circumstances.

High earners, for example, will benefit from shorter qualifying periods. Those earning over £50,271 will retain a five-year route to settlement, while those earning over £125,140 will be eligible after just three years. By contrast, people on average or low incomes, particularly those experiencing financial hardship, will face punitive extensions.

The standard qualifying period will double from five to ten years, with further extensions imposed on those who access public funds.

Specifically, people who access public funds for less than 12 months will have to complete an additional five years of residence before qualifying for settlement, while those who access public funds for more than 12 months will face an additional ten years. This means that someone on the standard ten-year route could wait up to 20 years for settlement simply because they have needed financial support.

These penalties are particularly troubling when we consider who is most likely to need this support. Local authority data shows that 74.5% of families receiving support because of their No Recourse to Public Funds (NRPF) status in 2024–25 were female-led single-parent households. In other words, the people most likely to be affected by the new policy are often mothers struggling to support their children, many of whom are British citizens.

The implications for labour exploitation are equally concerning. If accessing public funds means facing additional years of immigration insecurity, alongside the costs of further visa applications and renewals, workers may feel they have little choice but to endure exploitative working conditions rather than seek support. This is precisely the kind of insecurity that exploitative employers can use to their advantage. Workers who cannot afford to leave their jobs, fear the consequences of reporting abuse or are deterred from seeking support are far easier to exploit. The policy risks pushing people further into poverty and trapping them in abusive working conditions, while also undermining labour standards for workers across the UK.

The proposals also introduce a separate and significantly longer settlement framework for refugees. Those arriving through Home Office-approved safe and legal routes will retain a five-year path to settlement. However, for refugees who arrive through other routes, the standard qualifying period will increase to 20 years. Additionally, people who entered the UK by small boat or another clandestine route will face a further ten-year extension, potentially bringing the wait to 30 years. Refugees who do not arrive by small boat can reduce the 20-year period to ten years by entering work or study.

The price of being working class

There is no escaping the class politics underpinning these proposals, which treat working-class people, and the work they do, as less valuable and less deserving of recognition.

The Government’s attempt to present financial earnings as a neutral measure of social contribution is a weak attempt to disguise the structural inequalities that have for decades, even centuries, undervalued and underpaid work that is undertaken by working-class people, women, migrants and people of colour.

These groups do not earn less because they work less or contribute less to society. They often earn less because they work in sectors and occupations that have been systematically undervalued, despite providing services essential to the functioning of society, including cleaning, construction, agriculture, and care work. The care sector offers a particularly pertinent example. The exploitation of migrant care workers exposed in 2025 brought renewed attention to the poor working conditions, recruitment abuses and power imbalances faced by workers in a sector on which so much of society depends.

In the revised settlement proposals, the Government has since made some concessions for care workers, following the sustained campaigning of several trade unions. However, these are limited transitional arrangements. Only care workers who entered or switched into the social care route before May 2025, complied with their visa conditions and earned at least £25,000 a year in sponsored care work will retain their existing five-year route to settlement. Thus, while welcome, these provisions do little to address the wider inequalities underpinning the new settlement policy. Instead, they offer protection to a narrowly defined group of existing workers, while leaving the broader system of valuing people’s contribution according to their earnings largely intact.

The consequences of the earned settlement policy will also be felt far beyond those directly subject to immigration control. Hundreds of thousands of British citizens have partners, parents, children or other close family members living in the UK on temporary visas. Extending the route to settlement means prolonging the uncertainty, financial costs and insecurity experienced by these families, often for many years. This can affect family stability, the working conditions of British family members, as well as British children’s access to public funds, educational outcomes and much more. In this sense, the proposals do not simply determine how long migrants must wait for security, they will fundamentally shape the lives of so many families, homes and communities across the UK.

Immigration Policy is Labour Policy

As the Labour Government continues to strengthen employment rights and labour protections, it must confront questions about what value those rights have if workers are not able to exercise them. A labour market in which people are forced into unsafe working conditions and scared to report crimes is not a fair labour market. It is one in which exploitative employers are given greater power. Instead of addressing these inequalities, the government is choosing to further entrench them, making the punishment of working people a central feature of its immigration policy.

If the Government wants to talk about earned contribution, it should recognise the lives that working-class people have built, the families they have raised and the communities they help sustain across the UK. There is little that is earned about this settlement system, which is now even more reserved for the rich and privileged. The right to settle, to fair work and to a dignified life should not be privileges reserved for the wealthy. They should be available to everyone.