Join us for our next Radical Solidarity Hub meeting online on 19 November 2026, 10am – 11.30am in response to Earned Settlement. Register at the bottom of this page.

In November 2025, the government launched its consultation on ‘Earned Settlement’. At Right to Remain, we were clear that regardless of our responses, we could already see the direction of travel: more conditions and more insecurity for our communities.

On 2 November 2026, the Home Office announced its new Earned Settlement plans and published its response to the consultation which you can read here.

Despite overwhelming opposition to the proposals during the consultation, with 84% of individual respondents and 79% of organisations disagreeing with the proposed changes, the government has largely maintained its original plans, with some changes, particularly for care workers. 

In short, the changes include:

• Increasing the time before someone can apply for Indefinite Leave to Remain (Settlement) from 5 to 10 years with shorter or longer waits depending on people’s circumstances, including their income and immigration history.
• Introducing stricter requirements around English language ability, criminal records, debt and National Insurance contributions.
• Much longer waits for many refugees, potentially up to 20 or 30 years.
• Some protections for care workers and certain health and education workers who came to the UK before May 2025.

These changes are not yet in force. The detailed Immigration Rules have not yet been published, and there are still important questions about transitional arrangements, particularly what will happen to people who are already living in the UK and working towards settlement.

We will be sharing a more detailed update soon. In the meantime, EIN has already published a helpful short explainer of the announcement here.

In her announcement, the Home Secretary declared that “solidarity is the precondition for social justice”, while describing plans that will make people’s rights to settle and their sense of safety and security in the UK dependent on what they “contribute”. 

At Right to Remain, solidarity isn’t a transaction. Solidarity is recognising our shared humanity not deciding who has earned the right to belong. 

In response to the Home Secretary’s speech yesterday, we are hosting a Radical Solidarity Hub meeting online on Thursday 19 November. We will share what we understand about the new rules but importantly, it is a space for us to share our anger, fears, frustration, to support one another and think collectively about how we respond. We wrote previously about how we can prepare here, we hope to build on this. 

The meeting is free for all. Please share widely.