Trade unions are putting pressure on the government to soften proposed changes to immigration rules, which would make it harder for foreign workers to secure permanent residency in the UK.
If the plans are approved, most migrants would have to wait 10 years to qualify for permanent residence, rather than five years, while foreign workers on health and social care visas would face a 15-year wait.
The proposals were announced last year by Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood, who has kept the same role under new Prime Minister Andy Burnham.
Delegates at the Trades Union Congress (TUC) backed a motion calling for any changes affecting workers already in the UK to be withdrawn.
A government spokesperson said ministers had received 200,000 responses to a consultation on the proposals, which was launched under Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer, and they were carefully considering them.
Giving evidence to MPs on the Commons Home Affairs Committee on Tuesday, Mahmood said technical details for her new migration system were now being worked on and she expected to announce policy later this year.
“We’re trying to strike the right balance between our responsibilities to people who have come here to work, our recognition of the failures we inherited as a government, and also our need to do right by the people who are already here, who pay for the systems that we all rely on,” she said.
Under the government’s proposals the standard wait to qualify for settlement, also known as indefinite leave to remain, would increase to 10 years.
People who arrived on health and social care visas would face a 15-year wait, while those who relied on benefits for more than 12 months would have to wait 20 years.
Indefinite leave to remain 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.
The changes would not apply to people who have already obtained settlement but would cover people already living in the UK, including those who had been expecting to get permanent residence in the coming months.
Some Labour MPs have also criticised plans for the changes to apply to migrants already in the UK.
Earlier this year, when she was a backbench MP and not a government minister, Angela Rayner, herself a former care worker, labelled the proposals “un-British”.
Rayner, who has since been appointed housing secretary by Burnham, warned that “moving the goalposts undermines our sense of fair play”.
At the time, Burnham, who was still Greater Manchester mayor, said he understood where Rayner was “coming from” and that Labour “would do well to listen to what Angela has to say”.
