Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what assessment she has made of the potential merits of introducing a concession for care workers in the qualifying time for indefinite leave to remain due to delays in UK visa and immigration processing times for skilled worker visas.

There are no delays in processing straightforward Health and Care Worker visa applications.

Section 3C leave, as defined in Section 3C of the Immigration Act 1971, automatically extends a person’s immigration permission if they have submitted an application to extend or vary their permission before the person’s existing permission expires. Time spent on the skilled worker route under section 3C can be counted towards settlement.

We will be consulting on the earned settlement scheme later this year and further details on the proposed scheme will be provided at that time.