Briefing for local authorities on the government’s Earned Settlement consultation

January 2026

The government is currently consulting on their plans for “earned settlement”, a major overhaul of the rules governing when people can apply for indefinite leave to remain (a term used interchangeably with “settlement”).

This briefing is to support local authorities to respond to the consultation, highlighting the likely impact on their local area.

What is happening? In May 2025 the government announced they would make routes to settlement longer for most people in the UK on a visa and introduce an “earned settlement” system, and that their plans would be subject to consultation. In November they published a statement giving more detail on their plans and opened up an online consultation form, which is open until the 12th February 2026. What does it mean? If these proposals are implemented, they will mean that it is far harder and takes far longer for people to settle in the UK, meaning more people on insecure short-term grants of legal status, paying expensive visa fees, and subject to No Recourse to Public Funds (NRPF). This will have a knock-on impact on local authorities due to many more people needing their support, and because of the harm caused to the local community. Why you need to respond We are asking local authorities to respond to the government’s online consultation because we believe that the proposed changes will have a significant impact on our local places and on local authority resources. If local authorities think the proposals will have an effect on their work, this is their opportunity to influence the government’s implementation of their plans. How you can respond The consultation is an online form found here. We recommend filling it out in a separate document before completing the form, to make sure work isn’t lost. You can download a blank Word document with all of the consultation questions here. There are a mixture of multiple choice and free text questions, with a limit of 200 words on the free text questions. All questions need to be answered in order to move through the form and submit a response. The consultation takes about 30 minutes for an individual to complete.

What is settlement?

Settlement, or indefinite leave to remain, is permission to remain in the UK for good, without having to make any further immigration applications and with no restriction on how long you stay in the UK or the type of work you do. For people who have had to make several applications before reaching that point, including people on immigration routes where high fees and the Immigration Health Surcharge are attached to applications for limited leave to remain, it represents an end to years of insecurity. It lifts families out of poverty and opens up opportunities. In practical terms:

• It means no longer having to save up and pay significant fees to the Home Office.
• It means being able to access welfare benefits, usually with the same entitlements as British citizens.
• It means being eligible to study in the UK with home fees and student loans.
• It opens up career and training opportunities – which many people find are closed off to them when they only have short grants of leave with an expiry date.
• It opens up a path to British citizenship, which can usually be applied for after having indefinite leave to remain for one year.

People having secure and permanent status with access to public funds is good for local authorities and local communities. Leaving people in a decades-long, expensive limbo harms them immeasurably. It works against everything we are trying to achieve together in our local places, as well as local and national government ambitions on child poverty, homelessness and community safety.

Breakdown of proposed changes to settlement

• The government’s proposed changes increase the standard length of routes to settlement for people on visas in the UK from 5 to 10 years. Separately it has been announced that refugees will have a new route to settlement of 20 years and will also be subject to the “earned settlement” proposals.
• New mandatory requirements will set a minimum income for settlement and bar some people from ever settling in the UK based on previous criminal convictions or debt to the government.
• New measures will allow people to reduce their route by up to 7 years if they can prove certain “contributions” to the UK, mainly based around income. But there are also measures to increase the route, by up to 20 added years, as punishment for mode of arrival, previous overstaying and claiming benefits.
• The government have said they want to apply these changes to people who are already in the UK.

These changes to settlement rules are likely to impact over a million people in the UK, from a wide range of groups. The impact will be greatest in cities like Greater Manchester and Liverpool where many non-British people have made their homes. While people on the EU Settlement Scheme and people getting settlement through the Windrush route are not included in the consultation and will keep separate rules, almost everyone else in the UK on a visa may be affected. This includes refugees, people on resettlement routes, people in the UK to work on health and care visas, and people already on a longer route to settlement based on their human rights in the UK. People who have previously had immigration issues or been pushed out of legal immigration status, and who have previously been destitute or homeless, are more likely to be penalised due to previous overstaying or access to public funds. This means people your local authority is currently supporting who have immigration issues are likely to be in the cohort targeted by the most punishing of these proposals and will need more local authority support.

Impacts

Destitution

• With more people on temporary immigration status, a greater proportion of people will be denied access to public funds for longer. Given proposals to penalise people for accessing benefits, people who need them may also be too frightened to access public funds for fear of adding 10 years onto their settlement route. We have already started to hear from people in Greater Manchester who are frightened to apply for benefits for this reason.
• We know that insecurity is baked into long routes to settlement and they carry a high risk of losing legal status altogether due to Home Office errors, mistakes in applications, and not being able to afford fees. (Please see our 2023 research with IPPR and Praxis on experiences of people on the 10-year route to settlement, A Punishing Process.)
• Leaving people on these routes for longer will mean more people are pushed out of immigration status – losing their right to be in the UK, along with rights to work, rent and claim benefits. They will therefore have no way to support themselves. There is a high risk of exploitation for people in this situation. Families who lose status may likely require section 17 support.

Homelessness

• People on long routes to settlement often face insecurity in housing and employment due to their short-term immigration status, with particular crisis points often coming when waiting in a backlog for the Home Office to decide their immigration application. The government is proposing each person on a route to settlement has to make far more immigration applications, which we think is likely to put pressure on Home Office resources and create more delay for people waiting for decisions.
• More people being left outside of the welfare safety net and, as above, at higher risk of losing their legal status altogether, will lead to an increase in homelessness.
• Families will be in need of Section 17 support for longer as there is no alternative for them, while single adults will much more likely be homeless and won’t be able to access local authority housing.

Increased community tensions

• Part of the consultation is the government’s intention for these changes to be retrospective, meaning that adults, families and children who are already resident in your area – and may have been for many years – will suddenly see the rules change and settlement become much harder to achieve.
• Many people will be restricted from applying for settlement, either indefinitely or long-term. We know from our research this leads to people feeling less at home and secure in the UK, and feeling like they don’t belong here. This cuts against local and national goals for cohesive and safe communities.
• Even though the changes to settlement have not yet been implemented, based on the proposed policies announced and the intention for them to be retrospective, people in Greater Manchester are already telling us they feel a deep sense of betrayal. People who have already spent years contributing to the UK will lose trust in the system when they see their settlement delayed by five years or much more, for reasons including having a low salary, being in a “low skilled” job, or having previously accessed benefits they are entitled to.
• The rhetoric surrounding announcements of new immigration policies, and the implication that migrant communities are not “integrating” or “contributing” sufficiently, fuels racism, which is leading to violence and unrest in our communities.
• Being legally settled in the UK is a protective factor for people against the far right, and builds community safety and resilience. Having more people on longer routes to settlement makes communities more vulnerable.

Impact on children

• These proposals will have a wide-ranging impact on children, including British citizen children whose parents are not yet settled, and children who are born in the UK and who are growing up here, but whose status is not secure.
• Part of the consultation is about what happens to people who are dependent on another person’s visa. The government have not been clear about their plans for this group but they suggest they may have to “earn settlement” in their own right rather than receiving it in line with the main applicant. For children this could mean they have to “earn” settlement separately from their parents.
• The introduction of far longer and more punishing routes will lead to children growing up and becoming adults in families where their parents do not get settlement through their whole childhood. This will have a deep impact on their wellbeing and family relationships and may also make it harder for the child to secure their own status.

Answering the consultation

Some of the questions in the consultation are difficult to answer and don’t give the option of a full range of answers. But it is possible to register disagreement with the core proposals through the multiple choice questions and to describe concerns and likely impact in a number of free text questions. We do not address every question in the consultation below, just the ones which most easily let local authorities explain the impact on their residents. For example, there are a number of questions for organisations about sponsoring visas which we have not discussed below.

If local authorities want to disagree with some of the core elements of the government’s proposals, based on the effect they will have in the area, these are the multiple choice questions where they can do that.

• Overall proposals to lengthen routes (Earned settlement, Question 3: Overall, to what extent do you agree or disagree with the proposed changes to the settlement framework?)
• 15-year routes for so-called “low skilled” workers (Contribution, Question 3: To what extent do you agree or disagree that migrants who have worked in an occupation below RQF level 6 should have their standard qualifying period for settlement set at 15 years?)
• Proposals to punish people for accessing public funds(Contribution, Question 7: What do you think about the proposed penalties for applicants claiming public funds?)
• Removing the right to public funds from people who have settlement (Contribution, Question 8: To what extent do you agree or disagree that once someone has been granted settlement in the UK they should be eligible to claim public funds (e.g. benefits and housing assistance)?)
• Penalties for people who arrived via irregular routes, arrived via a visitor visa, or accessed public funds (Residence, Question 1: Which of the following penalties do you think should be applied to each of the following applicants?)
• Proposals to make this retrospective ie without transitional arrangements (Eligibility and equalities, Question 3: To what extent do you agree or disagree that there should not be transitional arrangements for those already on a pathway to settlement?)
• Proposals that dependent children and partners should have to “earn settlement” in their own right (ie creating more mixed-status families and preventing young people who are growing up in the UK from settling) (Eligibility and equalities, Question 7: To what extent do you agree or disagree that dependant partners of migrants should earn settlement in their own right?, and Question 8: To what extent do you agree or disagree that dependant children of migrants should earn settlement in their own right?)

Please note that some of these questions are worded in a confusing way so read them carefully before answering.

The free text questions allow you to highlight how these proposals will lead to many more people having temporary status for longer, and many more people not having status at all. This is bad for a local authority due to the associated financial pressures, housing and homelessness impact, impact on employment, mental health, family relationships and sense of belonging.

• In the question Do you have any comments on how ‘Character’ should be considered in relation to settlement?, you may want to highlight that the proposed mandatory requirements based on “Character” will bar some people from settling altogether, even into old age, which will make it very difficult for them to keep their legal status and will likely mean they need local authority support at some point.
• In the question Do you have any further comments on how ‘Integration’ should be considered in relation to settlement?, you may want to talk about how allowing people to settle promotes integration, while long, insecure and expensive routes to settlement make it harder for people to integrate.
• In the question Do you have any further comments on how ‘Contributions’ should be considered in relation to settlement, including any potential benefits or challenges of recognising giving back to the community as a contribution towards settlement?, you may want to highlight the likely impact on the local authority of penalising people for accessing public funds and on removing the right to public funds from people with settlement. You may also want to talk about the impact of creating a two-tier system by which people who earn higher salaries can settle sooner, and how this might play out in your area, including concerns about discrimination against women, people of colour, people with caring responsibilities, and people with disabilities.
• In the question Do you have any further comments on how ‘Residence’ should be considered in relation to settlement?, you may want to highlight the likely impacts of leaving people on very long settlement routes by adding 10-20 years to the new 10-year baseline. This includes a cycle of insecurity by which people are punished for previously falling out of legal immigration status and therefore become more likely to be pushed out of immigration status again.  
• In the question Do you have any further comments on how specific groups should be considered in relation to settlement? We particularly welcome views on how the proposed changes could affect children in the UK., you may want to think about particular groups you know will be impacted by having insecure status in your area, including children.
• In the question Do you have any further comments on the potential impacts on your organisation in relation to the proposed changes to settlement?, you can write about the likely rise in demand for local authority support under Section 17 and homelessness support, as well as the likely impact on community resilience and safety. You can highlight the local authority and central government ambitions on homelessness, child poverty and community cohesion that these proposals will make it harder to reach.

We hope this briefing is a helpful guide to the consultation. Please email rivka@gmiau.org if you have any questions.