Shabana Mahmood has been accused of “chickening out” of her migrant crackdown as more than 1,100 people are being granted permanent settlement in Britain every working day.
The Home Secretary unveiled plans to dramatically toughen the route to indefinite leave to remain (ILR) last November, including doubling the standard qualifying period from five to 10 years for most migrants.
But almost a year later, the reforms were absent from the Home Office’s latest update to the immigration rules published last week.
Shadow Home Secretary Chris Philp told the Daily Mail that Ms Mahmood had “chickened out” on her planned overhaul of Britain’s migration system.
The Tory frontbencher added: “She talked a tough game on ILR reform but has delivered nothing.”
The delay comes as the number of people securing permanent settlement continues to rise.
Some 73,775 applications for ILR were approved in the three months to the end of June, up 38 per cent on the previous quarter.
That is equivalent to more than 1,100 successful applications for every working day during the period.
Across the 12 months to June, 199,628 applications were approved – a 24 per cent increase compared with the previous year.
Under the reforms announced by Ms Mahmood last November, most migrants would have to spend 10 years in Britain before becoming eligible for permanent settlement, double the current standard five-year period.
Those who entered the country illegally would face a proposed 30-year wait before they could obtain settled status.
Migrants who committed criminal offences, claimed benefits or paid less tax could also face longer routes to settlement.
The changes were intended to apply retrospectively to around two million migrants who have arrived in Britain since 2021.
But the proposals triggered a backlash from within Labour.
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Thirty-five Labour MPs signed an open letter in February opposing the reforms, arguing it would be unfair to change the rules for migrants already living in Britain.
Opposition intensified in June when Angela Rayner, then a backbencher before becoming Housing and Communities Secretary, branded the proposals “un-British” and “wrong”.
The reforms were not included in Labour’s immigration Bill published in June, with officials indicating that the changes would instead be introduced through secondary legislation.
However, the latest update to the immigration rules contained no sign of the measures.
Mr Philp accused Ms Mahmood of being “terrified of her own left-wing Labour backbenchers who want to see open borders and citizenship for anyone who turns up on our shores”
The Home Office has projected that applications for settlement could reach between 359,000 and 620,000 by 2028 as the wave of migrants who arrived following the pandemic reaches eligibility.
Long-term immigration peaked at 1.47 million in 2023, when net migration reached a record 944,000.
Ms Mahmood’s consultation paper warned that the majority of the roughly two million migrants affected arrived from 2022 onwards, meaning they would begin reaching the existing five-year settlement threshold from 2027.
Asked about the timetable for implementing the reforms, a Home Office spokesman said: “Last November, we set out reforms to double the standard qualifying period to ten years for most migrants, with shorter routes for those who contribute most to the UK.
“A consultation on elements of those reforms has now closed, and we will set out our response in due course.”
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