MPs Back 10-Year Earned Settlement Baseline but Urge Protections for Existing Migrants

09 Apr 2026

ILR settlement earned settlement skilled worker BNO policy

Parliament's Home Affairs Committee published its report on the Government's earned settlement proposals on 20 March 2026, broadly backing a 10-year qualifying period for new migrants while raising significant concerns about the risks of moving too quickly and the need to protect people already in the UK under existing rules.

The committee's core message for existing migrants is that the new system should not be applied retrospectively to people who planned their lives around the current five-year route. The report specifically recommended that the new rules should not apply to people who arrived before 2021 and who are currently building towards settlement through a 10-year long-residence track. In plain terms: if you have been accumulating qualifying residence under the rules that applied when you arrived, the committee does not want the goalposts moved. The report also called for children who grow up in the UK to automatically receive settled status by the age of 18, without having to "earn" it. It recommended income threshold exemptions for disabled people, full-time students, carers, and those over pension age who cannot reasonably meet the £12,570 annual earnings requirement. On income assessment more broadly, the committee said earnings should be measured at household level rather than per individual, recognising that family financial decisions are made together.

If you are on a BNO visa, the committee's report reinforces what the Home Office has already confirmed: Hong Kong BNO holders are explicitly excluded from the new framework. Your five-year route to ILR is not subject to the consultation changes and remains protected. If you are on a Skilled Worker visa, the picture is less settled. The committee warned the Government that it is "more important to get changes right than to implement them quickly" and said the Home Office would be unlikely to be operationally ready to roll out reforms of this scale by April 2026 — a concern that has since proved accurate.

The Government received approximately 130,000 responses to the consultation, which closed on 12 February 2026, and is still reviewing them. No formal government response has been published and no new immigration rules implementing earned settlement have been laid before Parliament. The five-year ILR route remains fully in force. The Home Secretary has indicated that substantive implementation is expected in the autumn at the earliest.

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