Immigration

United Kingdom | Home Secretary’s announcement on ILR

Summary

The United Kingdom Home Secretary, Shabana Mahmood, has announced some further policy insights into a number of key policy areas that will impact your population.

The detail

Most of the policy announcements were outlined in the Immigration White Paper published earlier this year, but the Home Secretary has provided some more detail and stronger indication of the direction of travel.

1. Continuous residence – Increase the standard United Kingdom residence time required for Indefinite Leave to Remain (“ILR” or “Settlement”) from 5 years to 10 years. Note, the consultation is still open to applying this policy to those already in the United Kingdom and it could affect current employees.
2. Employment status – Individuals applying for ILR must be in employment. For Skilled Worker Visa holders this is not a new requirement and at present your sponsored employees need to show they are in continuing employment by providing a letter from their sponsor.
3. Evidence of National Insurance (“NINO”) contributions – it was emphasised that contributions via National Insurance will count as part of the “contribution test” for settlement. Settlement will thus require not just paying taxes but a clean, verifiable NINO record. While many sponsored workers are on United Kingdom payroll and will pay NINO and other United Kingdom tax, it is not currently a requirement in the United Kingdom Immigration Rules. It is not clear how those that are covered by a Certificate of Coverage or an A1 will be dealt with.
4. Contributing to the community and economy – this is wide open to interpretation but the Home Secretary framed volunteering in local communities as a litmus test of civic commitment. She proposed that settlement applicants demonstrate a record of volunteering or community service. We will need to await the outcome of the public consultation to understand how this will be assessed.
5. English language requirement – as outlined in the White Paper this will be increased from the current B1 (lower intermediate) to B2 (high intermediate).
6. Criminal convictions – applicants for ILR would be expected to have no criminal convictions and, if an individual had convictions, this could increase the continuous residence requirement.
7. Individuals can not claim benefits – the Home Secretary made it clear that anyone seeking settlement must demonstrate they have not relied on means-tested benefits. The sense was that benefit dependency will become a disqualifier.
8. Disbarred from ILR – Under specific circumstances individuals will be prevented from applying for ILR. The consultation will go into further detail regarding this.

As you will have heard from us before, placing your employees wellbeing at the heart of how you incorporate these announcements will be key. As the policy develops, being able to provide clear messaging on these topics will enable you to cut through the noise for your employees.

Focus on immigration compliance for employers:

• Cracking down on illegal working
• Review of hiring practices
• Demonstrating how you train existing resident workers

It will be important for employers to evidence the above and ensure that they are meeting existing immigration compliance requirements so that their existing program can be quickly flexed to withstand any upcoming changes.

Contact us

For a deeper discussion on the above, please reach out to your Vialto Partners point of contact, or alternatively:

Lyudmyla Davies
Partner

Ian Robinson
Partner

Andrea Als
Director

Tom Marsom
Director

Awale Olad
Senior Manager

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