Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether existing Skilled Worker visa holders who are currently on a five-year pathway to indefinite leave to remain will be eligible for transitional arrangements allowing them to qualify for settlement under the rules in place when they commenced that pathway.

The consultation for the earned settlement model, as proposed in ‘A Fairer Pathway to Settlement’, was open to the public between 20 November 2025 and 12 February 2026. The consultation included questions on the treatment of public service occupations, previous residence under temporary routes and transitional arrangements under the future system.

We received over 200,000 responses and are now in the process of carefully considering the feedback received. The proposals set out fundamental reform of the settlement system and it is right that we take the time needed to consider the impacts. For this reason, I am unable to commit to when we will respond to the consultation.

The government recognises the valuable role of those who are working in vital public services. The command paper set out the proposal that there should be a shorter pathway to settlement for those who are working in vital public services. The occupations which qualify for this reduction will be determined once the analysis of the consultation responses has been completed.

There are almost 70 different routes within the Immigration Rules, approximately 40 lead to settlement. As part of these proposals, we are not changing which routes contribute to the qualifying period for settlement.

The consultation also sought views on whether there should be transitional arrangements for those already on a pathway to settlement. Transitional arrangements may be designed to ease the impact of policy change; however no final decisions have been made.

The final model will also be subject to economic and equality impact assessments, which we have committed to publish in due course.