Recommendations

The Committee recommends:

• Urgently re-starting publication of exit check statistics before the 2026 Parliamentary Summer recess;
• Publishing exit statistics annually going forward;
• Improving or introducing two-way data sharing between the Home Office, enforcement agencies, sector regulators and relevant government departments, to assist enforcement activity, provide an evidence base for policy development and feed into impact assessments;
• Assigning an internal, consistent individual identifier upon visa grant, to support Scandinavian-style data collection and linkage across government administrative data including HMRC payroll data, DWP Universal Credit claimant data, records of public service access and criminal justice system records;
• Routinely capturing and reporting migrant cohorts’ interaction with government departments and services; and
• Deferring the planned reduction of the sample size of the Annual Population Survey until the Transformed Labour Force Survey is fully operational, to reduce the risk of more data gaps emerging if the labour force survey is not developed on schedule.

Recommendation

In the Committee’s view, instead of extending baseline qualifying periods for settlement, the Government should explore retaining the 5‑year baseline but having a longer period during which access to public funds is prohibited, e.g. 10 years and/or until citizenship has been granted.

Recommendation

The Committee recommends that any changes to settlement Rules should not be applied retrospectively to individuals already on a qualifying route.

Although the Committee notes in its report that it received submissions from stakeholders in favour of continuing to allow individuals with 10 years’ continuous residence to settle under a ‘long residence’ route, it stops short of recommending this.

Recommendations

The Committee makes a series of wide-ranging recommendations, some focusing on the earned settlement proposals and others suggesting measures that may promote integration.

Recommendations on earned settlement are as follows:

• The Government should clarify certain points in the earned settlement consultation document, including:
  • How additions and reductions to baseline qualifying periods for settlement will be combined under an earned settlement model, and what ‘additions taking precedence’ means, ensuring that those subject to additions are still incentivised to pursue higher‑paid employment or greater language skills;
  • What the proposed ‘no current litigation’ minimum mandatory requirement is intended to mean; and
  • What evidence there is that volunteering is significantly beneficial to integration and how this contribution will be assessed, how access to volunteering will be made available and how potential exploitation will be mitigated;
• Any income thresholds that lead to a reduction in the qualifying period for settlement should be set on the advice of the Migration Advisory Committee (MAC) with reference to positive net fiscal impact, impact of migration on public finances and impact on regional labour markets, rather than at higher and additional Income Tax rate bands;
• The MAC should be consulted to reassess the income thresholds that lead to a reduction in the qualifying period for settlement, the length of those reductions, and to consider other contributing reductions;  
• The Government should explore mechanisms for dependants to qualify for settlement alongside the main applicant where the household income is high enough not to place any burden on the state;  
• The Government should follow the recommendation of the House of Commons Home Affairs Committee to ensure that children who arrive in the UK at a young age and grow up in the UK should normally achieve settlement by the age of 18, and that children who arrive later should have clear and accessible settlement routes; and
• Mandatory minimum requirements for settlement should be made more flexible than proposed in the earned settlement consultation, e.g.:
  • To consider the overall fiscal contribution of households rather than individual income;
  • To include exemptions to income threshold requirements for particularly vulnerable groups, e.g. individuals on maternity leave, those with long‑term illnesses or disabilities and unpaid carers; and
  • To include exceptions to the requirement to have no criminal convictions, e.g. for victims of trafficking and exploitation who were coerced or compelled to commit offences.

On broader integration measures, the Committee recommends that:

• The Government should seek to improve employment outcomes for refugees, including reintroducing previously discontinued targeted employment schemes;
• The Government should explore how to improve employment support for migrant women, including adopting best practice from other targeted employment schemes;
• Visas should be tied to sectors instead of sponsors, on the basis this may reduce abuse of workers and improve integration outcomes;
• Sponsors who have paid sponsorship fees should have these paid back by the migrant if the migrant moves sponsor, prorated over the year;
• Provision of English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) should be increased to meet demand using a national strategy, with steps being taken by the Government to ensure those on a path to settlement are encouraged and facilitated to access ESOL courses; and
• The Government should publish a cross-government integration strategy for England (following on from the recommendations in the 2019 Indicators of Integration framework) by the end of 2026 – this should include clear and achievable measures and targets for migrant integration and provide migrants with structures to actively integrate successfully.

Recommendations

Specific recommendations aimed at improving the operation of the settlement and citizenship systems include that:

• Immigration and nationality law should be simplified as a matter of urgency;
• The understanding of how statutory extension of immigration permission works when migrants are applying for further permission should be improved, especially for government departments and public service providers;
• Immigration fees should be capped at 150% of administrative cost;
• Profits from immigration fees should be reinvested into the immigration system to expand fee waiver availability, particularly at settlement and citizenship stage;
• The Life in the UK test should:
  • Be refocused to concentrate on British values and practical aspects of living in the UK;
  • Include open-ended questions rather than multiple choice options;
  • Be offered through taught courses as an accredited alternative to testing; and
  • Be assessed through the provider’s judgment of appropriate engagement with the course (where offered as a course);
• The Government should do more to actively promote citizenship, including improving awareness of citizenship by registration, and outlining the rights associated with being a citizen;
• Citizenship ceremonies should receive a higher profile, taking place at more significant locations and with wider community involvement;
• As recommended by the Independent Commission on UK Counter-Terrorism Law, Policy and Practice, the ‘conducive to the public good’ test for deprivation of citizenship should be replaced with a test relating directly to acts or conduct that is seriously prejudicial to the vital interests of the UK, any of the Islands or a British Overseas Territory; and
• All decisions to deprive individuals of citizenship on the grounds that this would be conducive to the public good should be reviewed by the Independent Reviewer for Terrorism Legislation (under expanded powers).

Recommendations for Home Office operations

The Committee’s recommendations include that:

• The Home Office reviews how changes to visa policy will affect the workloads of caseworkers;
• A national recruitment drive is conducted to ensure adequate capacity to deal with increased demand;
• There should be more support for existing and new caseworkers to reduce attrition rates and appeals against decisions;
• A higher proportion of immigration caseworkers should be at Higher Executive Officer level and the pay band and responsibility of this grade should be reviewed to reflect the demands and importance of the role;
• An independent, comprehensive external review of immigration and settlement operations should be commissioned (in addition to an internal review), covering staffing structures, operational processes and the strategic use of technology;
• Extension applications should be streamlined and simplified to reduce the administrative burden on caseworkers and applicants; and
• Full Impact Assessments should be published at consultation stage for all major policy proposals (including, but not limited to, White Papers), and these should be updated after consultation and before implementation.

Recommendations on cross-governmental coordination of immigration, settlement, citizenship and integration policy

These include:

• Clarifying ministerial responsibilities, especially in view of the ‘dramatic changes’ to settlement and citizenship proposed in 2025 and 2026;
• Introducing a qualitative Triennial Migration Plan, co‑owned by the Home Office and Cabinet Office, reflecting the priorities of different departments, devolved nations and local government;  
• Reintroducing the Migration Impacts Forum, which would feed into the Migration Plan and focus on the societal impacts of migration.