Angela Rayner has launched an attack on plans to tighten the rules governing permanent settlement in Britain, putting herself at odds with Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood as Labour heads into its party conference.
The Communities Secretary has criticised proposals which could force some migrant care workers to wait as long as 15 years before qualifying for indefinite leave to remain, rather than the five-year route under which many originally entered Britain.
Speaking to The Times, Rayner argued that changing the rules for people already living and working in Britain would be unfair.
“Especially in regards to the carers, who were asked to come to this country to care for some of our most vulnerable and then we changed the goalposts years down the line, I think that’s very disruptive,” she said.
“I do have concerns about that… when you ask someone to come here and look after your most vulnerable and they spend years dedicating themselves, moving their lives here to look after our loved ones.”
Rayner also confirmed that she had not changed the position she took before returning to government, when she described retrospectively extending settlement requirements as “un-British”, according to The Telegraph.
But her intervention comes at a time when public concern about immigration remains exceptionally high.
YouGov polling published in August found that 69 per cent of Britons believe immigration over the previous decade has been too high, including 47 per cent who said it had been “much too high”. Even among people who voted Labour in 2024, 53 per cent said immigration had been too high.
The latest YouGov issues tracker, conducted between September 19 and 21, found immigration was named as one of the country’s most important issues by 51 per cent of respondents, ahead of the economy on 48 per cent. Ipsos has also consistently found immigration at or near the top of the public’s concerns during 2026.
Against that backdrop, Rayner’s intervention risks reopening Labour’s internal argument over whether the Government should press ahead with tougher immigration rules or make concessions to MPs and trade unions demanding exemptions.
The dispute centres on the Government’s proposed “earned settlement” system.
Under proposals published by the Home Office, the standard qualifying period for permanent settlement would increase from five years to ten. Ministers also consulted on a 15-year baseline for people working in jobs below degree level under the Skilled Worker and Health and Care routes, a category which includes many care workers.
Crucially, the consultation proposed applying the new system to people already in Britain who had not yet obtained indefinite leave to remain, the retrospective element which has attracted the strongest criticism from Rayner and others. The final model has yet to be confirmed.
Mahmood has argued that settlement should be something migrants earn through contribution, integration and good conduct, rather than an automatic consequence of spending a set number of years in Britain.
The Government’s own consultation also argues that lower-paid migrants who bring non-working dependants and children can impose significant long-term fiscal costs, and specifically asks whether a 15-year settlement period should apply to this group.
Rayner, however, is not alone in opposing the proposal.
Unison has campaigned heavily against the change, arguing that migrant care workers who came to Britain expecting to qualify for settlement after five years would be unfairly penalised and that the policy could worsen recruitment and retention problems in social care.
The Government has already taken action to restrict migration through the care sector.
Overseas recruitment for new care workers and senior care workers through the Health and Care Worker route ended on July 22, 2025. A transitional arrangement allows some people already in Britain and working in adult social care to switch into the route until 2028.
The enormous expansion of the care visa route formed part of the post-Brexit surge in migration.
Official figures show UK long-term net migration eventually reached a record 944,000 in the year ending March 2023. It has since fallen sharply, with the Office for National Statistics estimating net migration at 171,000 in the year ending December 2025. Immigration itself remained considerably higher, at an estimated 813,000, but was offset by 642,000 people emigrating.
That distinction matters, but so does the scale of public concern generated by the migration surge.
For Rayner, the political danger is that arguing against tighter settlement rules may reinforce the impression among voters demanding lower immigration that parts of Labour remain reluctant to impose tougher controls.
Her argument is that Britain should honour the expectations of care workers who arrived legally, filled genuine vacancies and built their lives here.
Mahmood’s competing argument is that permanent settlement is a privilege rather than an automatic entitlement, and that the immigration system must take account of migrants’ economic contribution and the wider costs to taxpayers.
That is now shaping up to be a significant fault line inside Labour.
With immigration once again sitting at the top of voters’ concerns, the row leaves the Government facing an awkward question at its conference, whether it will stand by its proposed crackdown, or dilute it in the face of opposition from Rayner, Labour MPs and the trade unions.
