Immigrants will face tough conditions to remain in the UK under plans announced by the Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood.
They will need to pay National Insurance, claim no benefits, learn English, have a clean criminal record, and commit to volunteering in their community. The Government will consult on these changes this year.
Ms Mahmood will say that fulfilling these conditions will be required for gaining “indefinite leave to remain” (ILR).
Labour says the new policy will create a difference between the government and Reform UK which says workers who have lived and worked in the UK for decades would be forced to leave.
Currently, “indefinite leave to remain” can be automatic at five years when basic conditions are met. In the Immigration White Paper, published in May, the Government announced this would be lifted to a baseline of ten years.
Settlement must then be earned. Some, based on their contribution or skills, could earn earlier settlement. Others, who have made a lower level contribution, will only earn leave to remain later, or not at all.
Also in today’s speech, Ms Mahmood will launch a “Winter of Action” to tackle shoplifting and anti-social behaviour, with more visible police patrols and tougher penalties.
This follows on the success of the “Summer of Action”, earlier this year, which saw a crackdown on street-level crime in 600 locations across the country.
Ms Mahmood will argue her crackdown on secure borders, fair migration and safe streets are essential components of an “open, generous, tolerant” country.
She will talk of her fear that the public feels things are “spinning out of control”. She is concerned that “patriotism, a force for good, is turning into something smaller, something more like ethno-nationalism.”
She will pitch her role as part of a fight to “keep the country together” and will warn that if the Government does not succeed, “working people will turn away from us – the party that for over a hundred years has been their party – and seek solace in the false promises of Farage.”
In a personal speech, she will touch on her parents’ experience arriving in this country, and why the acceptance of migrants depends on their contribution to local communities.
She will talk about her own experiences as the victim of shoplifting, while working behind the till of her family’s corner-shop as a child, and why that inspired her to cracking down on street-level crime.
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