Background

In October 2025 the House of Commons Home Affairs Select Committee launched an inquiry into the Government’s earned settlement proposals.

The inquiry sought to understand the potential impact of the proposals as set out in the Government’s earned settlement consultation (which closed on 12 February 2026). The Committee invited evidence from stakeholders including legal experts, representatives from charities, employers and trade unions, and migrants currently living in the UK.

On 13 March 2026, the Committee published its report on the inquiry, which examines key aspects of the earned settlement proposals in detail and provides recommendations to government.

For commentary about the earned settlement proposals, see our article series here.

What does the report focus on?

The report highlights the following areas:

• The proposed method of assessing contribution (i.e. predominantly income);
• The impact of the proposals on medium skilled workers, particularly in the care sector;
• The impact of the proposals on children and young people;
• Transitional protections for people who arrived in the UK before the changes were announced; and
• Implementation of the changes.

What does the report recommend?

The Committee notes that it’s not possible to be certain of the impacts of earned settlement at proposal stage and that some of the proposals are unclear or not fully developed. It therefore urges the Home Office to thoroughly assess the impacts of its final policy before implementation.

Key recommendations spanning the proposals are summarised below:

• Mandatory minimum income requirement: There should be reasonable and clear exceptions to the mandatory minimum income requirement to have taxable earnings of at least £12,570 for a minimum of 3 to 5 years, e.g. exceptions could be made for disabled people, people over pension age, full-time students and those with full-time caring responsibilities.
• Income-related reductions to the baseline qualifying period for settlement: Rather than using current tax thresholds to set reductions to the baseline, the Home Office should set out clear objectives for the basis on which fiscal contributions should qualify for reductions and then commission the Migration Advisory Committee (MAC) to advise on appropriate thresholds. Administrative complexity in assessing fiscal contributions should be minimised. Further, contribution should be assessed at a household level, not an individual level, recognising that households generally make financial decisions as a unit.
• Impact on workers – classifying medium skilled workers: If the justification for having differing settlement baseline periods for workers is fiscal (i.e. baseline of 15 years for those in jobs skilled below degree level, and 10 years for those at or above degree level), the Home Office should consider setting these in line with earnings rather than the skill level of a person’s occupation on the Regulated Qualifications Framework. Alternatively, the policy reasons for the proposed differing baselines would need to be more clearly explained.
• Impact on workers – pay, progression and exploitation of workers on long routes to settlement: The Home Office should recognise that sponsorship involves a power imbalance, as well as placing limits on workers’ ability to progress and increase their earning potential. It also carries a risk of exploitation of sponsored workers, especially those who may be sponsored for up to 15 years. The Home Office should explore more flexible visa arrangements for workers on long routes to settlement so that they are not reliant on a particular employer for their immigration status. Workers could transition to a more flexible visa after a set period, potentially still subject to No Recourse to Public Funds. The Government should also consider what role the Fair Work Agency should have in tackling exploitation for this group.
• Impact on workers – Health and Social Care: Implementing a 15-year baseline qualifying period for some workers could have unintended consequences such as care workers leaving the sector (increasing vacancies and costs) or being subject to prolonged risk of poverty and exploitation. It may also result in workers moving to more skilled roles in the NHS, leading to inadequate coverage of social care and harming the whole system. If pursuing the 15-year policy, the Home Office should conduct a full assessment of the potential impacts on the adult social care workforce and the stability of the sector. It should also take urgent steps to improve pay and conditions for care workers, consider more flexible visa arrangements for them and otherwise outline what other steps will be taken to support them.
• Impact on children and young people – general: To enable children to forge independent lives, children who arrive at a young age and grow up in the UK should be granted settlement by the age of 18 without needing to fulfil the earned settlement requirements. The 5-year private life route should be retained as a backstop and for use where a child could achieve settlement under that route before they turn 18. Children who arrive at a later stage should have clear, fair and accessible pathways to settlement. Fees should be set no higher than cost recovery to aid accessibility. Also, young adults should not be subject to the same economic requirements as their parents. Where parents are placed on different routes to settlement, children should achieve settlement with whichever parent settles first.
• Impact on children and young people – access to university: Currently settlement is required to access home fee status at university. Since access to education promotes integration and contribution by improving employment prospects, if the earned settlement policy would restrict access, the Government should consider reviewing home fee status eligibility across all UK nations, e.g. based on a minimum period of UK residence such as 5 years.
• Impact on children and young people – child poverty: The Government should conduct and publish an assessment of the impact on child poverty before implementing any changes. The Home Office should make it easier for parents subject to No Recourse to Public Funds to access financial support where it is essential for a child’s welfare and should adequately fund local authorities to cover associated costs. No penalties for accessing public funds should be applied based on benefit claims that preceded the new policies, and there should be discretion for fair exemptions where applicants have faced especially challenging circumstances.
• The 10-year family or private life route: People who would currently be on a 10-year family or private life route should be given a route under the earned settlement model that is reasonable and achievable. Nobody should be placed on a 30-year route to settlement. To reduce financial pressures, the duration of permission granted on this route should be increased from 2.5 years to 5 years, and visa fees should be no higher than the costs of administration.
• Children born in the UK – citizenship: A consequence of longer paths to settlement will be that more children born in the UK may not be British by birth (e.g. if they don’t have at least one parent who is settled). The Home Office should review barriers to citizenship registration and take steps to improve access to it for children and young adults. This could include charging for applications at cost recovery and running a campaign to make children aware of their registration entitlements.
• Divergent family routes: The earned settlement model (including the arrangements suggested by the Committee to enable children and young people to settle) could lead to a situation where some family members have secure status while the status of others is still precarious. The Home Office should address this with a view to minimising precarity within family units and the potential additional administrative pressures on the immigration system associated with it.
• Transitional protections: The Government should consider transitional arrangements for people already in the UK. There should also be specific protections for vulnerable people who may struggle to meet the new criteria under earned settlement. People who arrived before 2021 (i.e. before the post-Brexit immigration system was implemented) who are on track to settle through a 10-year route should not have the earned settlement model applied to them.
• Implementation: The Home Office should prioritise getting the changes right rather than implementing them quickly. The impact of the final policy should be carefully assessed and mitigations should be put in place to avoid unintended consequences. Capacity to administer what may be a much more complex system should be planned for. A clear and realistic implementation timeline should be communicated to stakeholders so they can make informed decisions.

What are the next steps?

The Government must respond to the Home Affairs Committee report by 13 May 2026.

It will also need to respond to a separate inquiry launched by the House of Lords Justice and Home Affairs Committee into settlement, citizenship and integration. The report for that inquiry is currently pending.

Additionally, the Home Office is still in the process of evaluating the results of its public consultation, which received over 200,000 responses.  

Once the Home Office has considered all these findings, we expect they will announce the next steps. This may potentially include a commission to the MAC.

We anticipate the Government won’t be able to announce the final policy before Autumn 2026 (and potentially much later if there is a MAC commission); however, the Government has not confirmed timelines. Meanwhile, the proposals continue to generate controversy within Parliament and some campaign groups are advocating for the proposals to be dropped altogether. 

We will keep you updated as further details come to light. 

Need more information in the meantime?

If you’d like to understand more about the government’s earned settlement proposals, take a look at our earned settlement series. For more specific assistance, please get in touch with a member of our Immigration Team.