Unison urges Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood to scrap ‘cruel’ immigration reforms
The UK's largest trade union has said the plans are "morally wrong" and will only worsen the social care staffing crisis
Unison has written to the Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood calling for her to scrap “cruel” plans to make international health and care staff wait 15 years to settle in the UK.
The UK’s largest union has warned that tripling the wait time for permanent settlement from five years to 15, will cause “irreparable damage” in the care sector and deepen the staffing crisis.
The union has also said it is “morally wrong to apply new rules after workers have moved here”.
Mahmood’s “earned settlement” reforms will increase the standard qualifying time for indefinite leave to remain (ILR) from five to ten years in most cases.
However, those in ‘higher skilled jobs’ or earning over £50,270 in healthcare roles could still qualify for ILR within five years. By the government’s definition, care work is not considered ‘higher skilled’.
In the letter to Mahmood, the union said: “Poor pay in social care is not evidence of the workers’ low skill or contribution. It is the result of longstanding policy failure. The prime minister has acknowledged this and stated his ambition to increase the wages of care staff.
“It would be deeply unfair and contradictory for immigration policy to treat care workers as low value simply because they’re in a poorly-paid sector, while the government tries to improve the status, respect and reward for care work.”
The union also argued that continuing to restrict international recruitment will only worsen the staffing crisis in a care sector already struggling with 96,000 vacancies.
In July last year, Keir Starmer’s government stopped issuing new social care visas to applicants from overseas.
According to the union’s analysis of new employment data, the number of international workers recruited into UK care jobs plummeted from 105,000 in 2023/24 to 30,000 in 2025/26.
Over the same period, the number of social care jobs filled by British workers has dropped by 70,000.
Unison says the figures show that the government is wrong to claim that slowing the flow of staff from overseas will increase domestic uptake.
Unison general secretary Andrea Egan said: “If the government’s serious about fixing social care, it should immediately scrap these cruel plans that will make it harder to recruit staff.
“Terrible pay and working conditions are creating shortages in the social care sector. These figures make that crystal clear. A massive drop in overseas workers has not led to rising domestic recruitment or higher wages.
“Attempts to force existing staff out of the country are wrong by every measure. If the government doesn’t drop these plans, the prime minister’s hope of transforming the lives of millions through a national care service will never happen.”
Olivia Barber is a reporter at Left Foot Forward
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