Rayner presses Labour to drop "unfair" visa settlement changes ahead of party conference

Housing Secretary Angela Rayner has opened a divide inside the Labour government over plans to make it harder for foreign workers to gain permanent residency in the UK, warning that retrospective changes to the settlement rules would be unfair to people who arrived in Britain expecting to settle under the current system.

Speaking to The Times in an interview published ahead of Labour's annual conference, Rayner questioned proposals being pursued by Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood, arguing they amount to moving "the goalposts" for a group of people who have already built their lives in the UK. Her intervention is notable because it comes from a serving cabinet minister, days before the party's gathering, and directly challenges a policy that her own leadership inherited rather than created.

Under the plans, most migrants would have to wait 10 years before qualifying for permanent residency, double the current five-year requirement. Foreign workers holding health and social care visas would face an even longer wait of 15 years. Mahmood has said a decision on the wider immigration overhaul will be taken by the end of the year.

Rayner said she was worried about the retrospective reach of the measures — their application to people who arrived at the start of the 2020s, at a time when the rules they were admitted under promised a five-year route to settlement. She described the potential change as "very disruptive", adding: "I do have concerns about that."

Particular concern, she said, rests on foreign care workers who "moved their lives here to look after our loved ones". Health and social care has been one of the most heavily used routes for overseas recruitment, and the proposed 15-year wait falls hardest on a workforce that the government has repeatedly relied on to plug staffing gaps in the care sector.

The policy was inherited by Prime Minister Andy Burnham from his predecessor, Sir Keir Starmer. Rayner previously served as deputy prime minister under Sir Keir before being brought back into the cabinet by Burnham in July, meaning her objections carry unusual weight inside a government that has never formally tested these proposals through a party conference or an election platform.

Her concerns are not new. In June, Rayner said proposals to change the rules retrospectively for migrants already working in the UK would be "wrong". Asked whether the home secretary was aware of her position, Rayner told The Times she had "not changed [her] view" since returning to the cabinet, signalling that she is prepared to campaign inside the party against the policy.

Before he became prime minister, Burnham said he "understood" where Rayner was coming from and that Labour "would do well to listen to what Angela has to say". That support has not translated into a visible U-turn, with Mahmood pressing on towards a decision before the year is out.

The pressure has widened. York Central Labour MP Rachael Maskell has also called for a rethink, telling BBC Radio 4's Today programme that "technically and morally" the proposals represent "the wrong set of values". She said the changes would penalise "people who have come [to Britain] to serve faithfully and are then told that they have to wait another 10 years" to become British citizens.

Trade unions have piled on in recent weeks, and a letter to Mahmood at the start of the year, jointly signed by dozens of Labour MPs, described the plans as "un-British". That charge was rejected by Culture, Media and Sport Secretary Lisa Nandy, who told Today: "I don't think they are un-British because I don't think that we have ever had an automatic right to citizenship for most people who come to the UK from overseas."

Nandy attempted a careful balance, arguing that the home secretary is trying to treat people with respect "regardless of who they or where they stand" while delivering "an immigration system that people can have confidence in". Asked whether Labour could change its mind, she said: "We always reserve the right to change our minds but we also will reserve the right to stick to our plans if we think we are getting them right."

Her framing nonetheless suggests internal uncertainty. Nandy could have mounted a full-throated defence of applying the longer waits retrospectively, but chose instead to stress the contribution of migrants already in the UK and the government's determination not to "change the rules of the game" in a way that unfairly disadvantages them. That language leaves room for transitional carve-outs, even as it stops short of promising them.

The stakes are clearest for the cohort identified by Mahmood herself. Appearing before the Home Affairs Committee earlier this month, she said she was "very aware that a large group of people who arrived in 2022, absent any change, would qualify in February 2027" for permanent settlement. She added: "Later this year we will set out the new policy on settlement... as well as any transitional arrangements we might decide to implement."

If the government limits the change to arrivals after 2021, a large group of people already in the country would retain a quicker and easier path to settlement. That would create an obvious dividing line with the Conservatives and Reform UK, both of which campaigned on tighter settlement rules and would be keen to highlight any softening.

Rayner's comments therefore amount to more than a single minister's dissent. They give Burnham's conference an open question on the agenda just as his party weighs a policy that pits its traditional stance on fairness to migrants against its own pledge to regain public confidence in the immigration system. Expect the leadership to leave the door ajar at the conference, but the decision itself remains in Mahmood's hands before the end of the year.