James Bowes

Yes. Retrospectively changing the ILR rules on people is off the scale far-right even compared to the Conservatives. As is announcing a 10 year ILR pathway then deciding last minute they don’t think it’s harsh enough and making it 15 years. Plus the asylum changes.

Yes. Only 10 sponsored for entry from April-June 2025. (People switching from a student visa or the graduate visa of course have the new entrant rate). It was only about 40 a quarter before the salary threshold rise but this has cut it further.

Ah yes. They’ll probably exempt time on maternity leave from the baseline requirement to earn £12,570 but not sure they will for the earnings thresholds to qualify faster for ILR.

Yes that’s right. Although the current going rate is £47,600 so it‘ll soon be above £50,270. You’d need to be earning that within 4 years of graduation to be able to stay in the country so ILR after 7-9 years is more likely (depending on if you use the graduate visa).

It’s page 23 here based on the numbers at the bottom of the page (or page 27 of 60) assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/691edd...

Yes that time won’t be included. My reading of it is that time on settlement path work visas and family visas can be combined to make up the total. But the 3 years to ILR for the global talent visa now has to be on that visa. Unsure if 5 years for family visa has to be 5 years on that visa.

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m.youtube.com/watch?v=hPDs...

I can see students from Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal and possibly Nigeria getting disproportionately impacted by the new compliance rules for student visa sponsors.

Also:

How exactly does it work for people on the 10 year path to settlement for right to family and private life?

Do family visa holders sponsored by someone with ILR now have to wait 10 years?

Yes a few more questions I have about the ILR changes:

Can someone on the 10 year path just renew their visa before the lower going rates expire in April 2030 or will they also have to meet them at settlement?

If someone‘s job is downgraded from NQF6 to NQF3-5 will they have to wait 5 more years?

I can’t work out what their proposed work routes are. Is it just for people who’d get a skilled worker visa/health and care visa anyway? Would they just claim the Sudanese doctors that we’re already recruiting are the quota met?

The scary thing is Priti Patel is actually the most moderate of the five, and she was hardline enough already.

At least 16 years. Longer for many as time on the student visa or graduate visa doesn’t count. And that’s assuming the government don’t change citizenship rules (which they are thinking of doing).

Labour have actually gone much further than Johnson as well in how much they’ve changed.

Yes though the government have only predicted a 7,000 fall from this. It’s quite plausible that this, tougher sponsorship rules, shorter duration of the graduate visa, new ILR rules and stricter work visa rules together will cause a disproportionate fall though.

There’s a triple hit with this, the new sponsor compliance rules and the graduate visa being shortened to 18 months. Though I suspect the tougher work visa and ILR rules will put a lot of people off too.

Yes. I put 7,000 fall based on this, 12,000 fall based on the graduate visa shortening to 18 months and 12,000 fall based on tougher rules for sponsors. I got these figures from the White Paper though so didn’t create them myself.

Yes. With the news about emigration of British people being higher than expected and most work visa holders actually being on a 15 year path to ILR, not 10, I honestly think we’ll have net emigration.

Just from the top 20 I listed here (probably mostly data analysts). There are some others lower down the list like ship and hovercraft officers. But it’s not huge numbers.

We wouldn't even be able to benefit from the trade deals that the EU sign. Turkey don't and there's no reason to think the EU would offer the UK a better deal than Turkey. We'd have to go around saying to countries 'if we offer you nothing as tariffs are fixed, will you lower tariffs on our goods?'

Family reunification rules are usually more liberal if the sponsor is an EU national living in a country other than their own, than if the sponsor is living in their own country. There have been cases of Dutch people of Turkish origin moving to Belgium to sponsor their spouse etc.

The part people miss is that most of the care workers wouldn't have stayed care workers when they got ILR and their pay would have rapidly increased. A lot have master’s degrees.

None. They’re ineligible for benefits.

Even without the ILR changes, the government were on track to meet David Cameron’s net migration target of below 100,000 (once you factor in higher than expected emigration of British nationals). It’s not even about controlling immigration, it’s about cruelty to immigrants already here.

The top companies sponsoring work visas for people earning over £50,000 in 2024 (excluding health and care). Green is mostly skilled worker visa, blue mostly global business mobility visa and purple mostly temporary workers. Lots of finance, consulting and tech multinationals.

Ah yes of course. The ISC in particular will be a big problem.

Yes this is right. It may be possible for people to renew their visa after that if it’s with the same employer. But that’s very obviously going to lead to worse exploitation and people who lose their job or whose employer loses their sponsor license will have no options to stay.

The new ILR changes mean people on work visas doing jobs at a graduate level qualify for ILR in 3-10 years (depending on salary), but the vast majority of people in jobs below graduate level have to wait 15 years. This is the region of origin of people by skill level for visa grants Oct 24-Jun 25.

Do you know how this will work with people on the Right to Family Life of Private Life 10 year route? Presumably it’s 30 years for people who arrived here irregularly, overstayed a visa or arrived on a visitor visa.

But is it still 10 years if someone comes on a family visa and falls below the MIR?

With Labour, I’m not even sure about that. The Conservatives would care about big business more I think.