What Changes to UK Immigration Could Impact Your Path to Settlement?

UK Government White Paper

In its 2025 White Paper “Restoring Control Over The Immigration System” the UK government set out a raft of proposals to reduce net migration to what it terms “sustainable levels”. The numbers reached record levels post-Brexit under the previous Conservative government, peaking at 906,000 in the year to June 2023, before falling sharply to 431,000 (-52%) in 2024. The Home Office estimates that the White Paper’s measures, once fully implemented, will reduce numbers by a further 100,000 in coming years. A figure close to 300,000 will take numbers back to levels last experienced in the mid-2010s (excluding the pandemic years).

Principal drivers are obvious: taking care workers out of scope of sponsorship, raising skill and salary levels generally, and prohibiting dependants of lower-skilled workers from accompanying main applicants. But what is the rationale behind the White Paper’s review of paths to settlement for economic and possibly family migrants in this context?

Changing Qualifying Periods

I write as someone who has worked their entire professional life in the field of UK-inbound immigration and citizenship law; first as a Home Office official, and since 2000 as a solicitor specialising in this area. When I started out, spouses of British and settled people were granted indefinite leave to remain immediately; that increased to 12 months, then 2 years, and now stands at 5 years. Workers could achieve settlement after 4 years, now 5. Certain wealthy or highly-skilled individuals had their paths shortened, from 5 to 2 or 3 years. An accelerated route (3 years) is currently retained only for those in the Global Talent and Innovator Founder routes.

And in her latest announcement, on the subject of refugee leave, the Home Secretary has confirmed that the qualifying period for settlement will increase from 5 years to a huge 20 years, with application intervals reducing to every 2½ years.  

I have never been aware of any impact on migration figures of these various changes. Certainly those fleeing persecution are unlikely to be put off by long-term changes such as these. An increase in settlement times has the following primary, both negative effects:

• Hugely increased costs to the applicant, and to the business that employs them, where relevant
• Far longer time spent as an outsider, without security and a lack of integration into British society

What would be crucial, were a similar model to be used, is a clear set of markers against which an individual could score themselves, so as to know if they are eligible for settlement on the date they apply.

It does not seem appropriate to make this merely a financial test; for example, payment of £X in taxes and national insurance contributions. It is difficult to understand how to set out a series of markers without there being some element of subjectivity in the process. For example, how to measure community contribution, and to set a cut-off point for winners and losers?

Introducing such tests into the decision-making process creates greater scope for uncertainty, effectively asking Home Office officials to exercise discretion. The White Paper talks of “an expansion of the principle behind the Points-Based System” – increased subjectivity moves the UK yet further away from a points-based immigration assessment; it means increased caseworker time spent considering settlement applications. Refusals would have to be justified, when assessed against a framework of rules and guidance. The higher cost of processing such applications would, inevitably, be borne by applicants via higher fees, when the UK’s visa costs are already among the highest in the world.