A childhood waiting to belong: Earned Settlement

This afternoon, the Home Secretary sets out the biggest change to settlement in a generation. More than 300,000 children already growing up in the UK are on a route that could now double in length.

A child who arrived in the UK aged four, on a parent’s work visa, expected to be settled by the time she started secondary school. Under the rules being announced today, she may still be renewing her visa when she sits her GCSEs. Her family will pay for every renewal. If a parent loses a job or claims a benefit they are entitled to, the wait can get longer still.

That is what “earned settlement” means in practice. Not just a policy about new rules, but a potential change to the deal for hundreds of thousands of children and parents who are already here, already in our schools, already part of our communities. Many of the children we are talking about have never lived anywhere else.

At Together with Migrant Children we work alongside families on exactly these routes: parents on work and family visas, families with No Recourse to Public Funds (a visa condition that bars them from most benefits), and children who have grown up here without secure status. We have been following the proposals since they were first set out in November 2025. Below is what we know about today’s announcement, what it means for children and families, and what we are asking for.

What is likely to be announced today

The Home Secretary, Shabana Mahmood, is making a statement to Parliament this afternoon on the final shape of “earned settlement”. It follows a consultation that closed in February and drew more than 200,000 responses.

What we expect to stay. The core of the plan: the standard wait for settlement (indefinite leave to remain, or ILR) doubles from five years to ten. Everyone would have to meet new conditions on top of the wait: English at B2 (roughly A-level standard), a record of National Insurance contributions of around £12,570 a year for three to five years, a clean criminal record and no debt to the public purse. The B2 English requirement is already confirmed and starts on 26 March 2027.

What we expect to be softened. The original plan put people in jobs below degree level, including most care workers, on a 15-year route. Weekend reports suggest this is being watered down. One version, reported by the BBC, is that care workers already in the UK will be exempt from the longer wait. Another, reported by the Telegraph, is that care work will count as public service, so five years in the sector takes five years off the wait.

What we don’t know, and matters most to the families we work with.

1. Will the changes apply to people already here? The consultation proposed applying the new rules to everyone who has not yet been granted settlement, however long they have lived in the UK. This has been the most contested part of the plan. The Deputy Prime Minister called it “un-British”. More than 100 Labour MPs have opposed it. The Home Secretary has talked about “passporting” some groups so they keep their five-year route, and phasing others in. No decision has been published.
2. What happens to children? The consultation set out no route for children at all. The Home Secretary has said “we will have to have bespoke routes for children”, but a year on, nothing has been proposed. No Child Rights Impact Assessment has been published.
3. What happens to the penalties? As consulted on, any claim for benefits adds five years to the wait; a claim lasting more than a year adds ten. Arriving irregularly, switching from a visitor visa or overstaying by six months adds up to twenty, making a 30-year route.

The changes do not need a new Act of Parliament. They will be made through a statement of changes to the Immigration Rules, which MPs cannot amend. The first large group of people who arrived in 2022 would reach five years, and qualify under the current rules, in February 2027.

What this means for children

Ten years is a childhood. A child who arrives at five would not be settled until fifteen. A child who arrives at eight would spend the whole of secondary school with temporary status, and apply to university, if they can, as a migrant rather than a home student. IPPR estimates that more than 300,000 children already living in the UK would be moved onto a longer route. Nearly a quarter of everyone currently on a route to settlement is a child. Wider estimates put the number of children on settlement routes at between 430,000 and 590,000.

Every extra year has a price. Families on temporary visas pay to renew, usually every two and a half years. For a family on the current 10-year route that means around £2,600 per adult and £2,200 per child each time, including the health surcharge, and a settlement fee of £3,029 per person at the end. A single parent with two children is looking at well over £20,000 before anyone is settled. In a survey of people already on the 10-year route, nearly half had borrowed to pay for applications and one in six had been pushed into serious debt. Almost half had decided not to renew someone in the household’s visa because they could not afford it.

Longer routes mean longer in poverty. Most families on these routes have No Recourse to Public Funds. They cannot claim Universal Credit, child benefit or housing support, however low their income. Doubling the route doubles the time a child spends locked out of that safety net. Research for the NRPF Partnership by IPPR and Landman Economics found that under a 10-year route, half of all children whose parents are on work visas could be living in poverty by 2029. Dropping the plans could lift up to 90,000 children out of poverty. Children with parents born outside the UK are already twice as likely to be poor as other children.

Insecure childhoods. On a long route, one missed deadline, one refused application or one gap in leave can reset the clock to zero. In the same survey, a third of people had experienced a gap in their leave. Two thirds said waiting for decisions left them anxious; nearly half said their mental health had suffered. Three in five parents said their children’s health, wellbeing, education or future had been affected. Four in ten said their status stopped them ever feeling settled at home. These are not people who arrived last year. Six in ten had lived in the UK for more than a decade.

What we are asking for

Children did not choose their route to settlement. They should not pay for it with their childhood. Whatever is announced this afternoon, we are asking the Government for five things:

1. Abandon Earned Settlement Proposals. Let’s choose not to push children into poverty and insecurity.

Or

1. Keep the promise made to children already here. No child or family already on a route to settlement should have that route lengthened. The rules a family arrived under should be the rules they settle under.
2. Fees a family can actually pay. Children’s applications should cost no more than they cost to process, and no child should be priced out of settlement at the end of a ten-year wait.
3. Exemptions for children and families with children. Ensure every child can settle before adulthood.
4. Look at children’s needs before changing the rules. Publish the Child Rights Impact Assessment and respond to the Home Affairs Committee before any new rule takes effect.