Housing Secretary Rayner urges Labour to drop "goalpost-shifting" visa crackdown

Housing Secretary Angela Rayner has publicly pressed Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood to rethink Labour's proposed tightening of visa rules, warning that making it harder for foreign workers to gain permanent residency would be unfair to people who have already built lives in the UK. Her intervention came in an interview with The Times published ahead of Labour's annual party conference, where internal divisions over the immigration package are expected to surface.

Under the plans being considered, most migrants would have to remain in the country for 10 years before qualifying for settlement, rather than the current five-year period. Foreign workers holding health and social care visas face a longer wait still, of 15 years. Mahmood has said the government will reach a decision on the wider immigration overhaul before the end of the year.

Rayner's objection centres on the retrospective nature of the change. Speaking to The Times, she said she was worried about moving the goalposts for people who arrived in Britain at the beginning of this decade in the reasonable expectation that they would be able to settle permanently under the rules then in force. She described the potential change as highly disruptive and said she has "not changed" her view since returning to the cabinet in July.

The housing secretary said the effect would fall hardest on foreign care workers who had relocated to Britain to look after other people's relatives. Her criticism is all the more pointed because the policy was inherited by Prime Minister Andy Burnham from his predecessor, Sir Keir Starmer, rather than being a creation of the current administration. Rayner, who served as Starmer's deputy prime minister, was brought back into cabinet by Burnham this summer.

Coming just days before the conference, the remarks are significant: a serving cabinet minister is openly challenging a live government proposal. They also reflect a widening push within Labour to strip the retrospective elements out of the plans, with the party conference likely to become a platform for further pressure on the home secretary.

Rayner has made similar criticisms before. In June, shortly after rejoining the government, she said proposals to alter retrospectively the rules applying to migrants already working in the UK would be "wrong". Asked whether the home secretary was aware of her stance, Rayner indicated that the two had discussed it and that her position remained unchanged.

Before he became prime minister, Burnham himself said he understood where Rayner was coming from, telling reporters in June that Labour "would do well to listen to what Angela has to say". That supportive tone has not prevented her from continuing to press the case in public.

Labour's York Central MP Rachael Maskell has echoed the criticism. Speaking on the BBC's Today programme, she said that technically and morally the proposal amounts to the "wrong set of values", because it would penalise people who came to Britain to serve faithfully only to be told they must wait a further decade to obtain British citizenship.

Organised Labour has joined the rebellion. Trade unions have pressed the government to soften the proposals, and a letter to Mahmood jointly signed by dozens of Labour MPs at the start of the year described the plans as "un-British" — a charge the government has rejected.

Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy, appearing on Today, disputed that characterisation. She argued there has never been an automatic right to citizenship for most people arriving from overseas, and said the home secretary is attempting to balance respect for people regardless of their background with the need for an immigration system the public can have confidence in.

Asked directly whether Labour might change its mind, Nandy gave a carefully balanced answer: the party always reserves the right to reverse course, but equally reserves the right to press ahead if ministers believe the plans are right. She said the government would not shift the rules in a way that unfairly disadvantages migrants who have contributed to the country, and that any settlement would aim to treat people "fairly and decently as human beings" while maintaining confidence in the asylum and immigration system.

Her framing nonetheless appeared pointed. Rather than offering an unequivocal defence of applying the new rules to people already living and working in Britain — something she could have done — Nandy concentrated on the principle of treating those who contribute fairly, a formulation that sits uneasily with a backdated change of this scale.

The stakes became clearer during Mahmood's appearance before the Home Affairs Committee earlier this month. She said she was "very aware" that a large group of people who arrived in 2022 would, absent any change, qualify for permanent settlement in February 2027. She added that the new settlement policy, including any transitional arrangements, would be set out later in the year.

That February 2027 cohort is the crux of the dispute. If the government decides to apply the longer waits only to those arriving after 2021, a substantial number of people already in the country would qualify much sooner, creating a sharp political dividing line with the Conservatives and Reform UK, both of which are likely to highlight any softening.

For Labour, the conference therefore presents a test of unity on one of its most politically sensitive policies. Rayner and Maskell want retrospective application abandoned; Nandy has signalled the door remains open but offered no guarantee; and Mahmood retains the final word, with a decision promised before the year is out. Burnham, for his part, faces calls elsewhere on the party's economic record and has ruled out the temptation of an early election, leaving immigration as a potential source of internal friction on the eve of the conference season.