Mahmood won't put a price on her care worker settlement U-turn

Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood is refusing to put a number on her revised settlement plans. Asked Tuesday how much the softened rules would cost, she told BBC Radio 4's Today programme the detailed figures would land when her department brings the changes before Parliament.

The original plan was blunter. Mahmood wanted most migrants to wait a decade instead of five years for indefinite leave to remain, with some facing up to 15 years — a move the Home Office estimated could save £10bn. In March, the department said the net lifetime cost of care workers and their adult dependants expected to settle between 2026 and 2030 sat at about £10 billion.

Then Labour MPs pushed back, hard. On Monday Mahmood shifted: care workers who arrived in the UK before May 2025 and earn at least £25,000 a year will still qualify after five years, along with some other groups. Others can seek a five-year extension. The Conservatives branded the reversal a 'U-turn'.

Mahmood insists the maths still works. She claims the state saves 'billions' because workers in other sectors now face longer waits, and because care workers who would have settled at five years and drifted onto benefits will instead get 'a second chance to make that contribution that they originally came to make'.

The backstory is the post-Brexit migration surge under the previous Tory government, which critics nicknamed the 'Boriswave'. Mahmood announced the delay last November to slow the number of people hitting settlement eligibility. Her critics say the climbdown leaves a hole in the public finances — the Conservatives reckon it will cost the state billions, not save them.

Indefinite leave to remain grants the right to live, work and study in the UK indefinitely, plus access to benefits for those eligible — and a path to British citizenship. The exact price tag of the revised plan stays under wraps until the legislation drops.