Dear Editor,
The Home Office’s latest policy overhaul to Indefinite Leave to Remain (ILR), shifting the default settlement timeline from five years to a gruelling ten, is a short-sighted political stunt that threatens to inflict severe, long-term damage on Scotland and the wider UK.
Britain cannot ask overseas workers to build their lives here, pay their taxes and keep essential services running, then treat their hopes of a secure future as a political bargaining chip.
The Home Office’s settlement announcement deserves scrutiny. Its own estimate is that more than 500,000 people will wait longer than five years for indefinite leave to remain. That means years more uncertainty for families who have followed the rules.
There are important protections. Existing settled status will remain untouched, while doctors, nurses, teachers and qualifying care workers retain shorter pathways. These exceptions matter. But they do not answer the wider question: why should a worker’s salary carry such weight in deciding when their family can put down permanent roots?
A care worker’s payslip does not measure the value of helping somebody live with dignity. Nor does a hospitality worker’s wage capture their contribution to keeping a local business open.
The economic warning is clear. Skills for Care reports 96,000 vacancies in adult social care in England in 2025/26. Around 150,000 posts in independent, regulated care services were filled by workers on Health and Care Worker visas in March 2026. These are England’s figures, but the lesson reaches beyond its borders: retention matters as much as recruitment.
Scotland faces distinct demographic challenges, alongside acute sector-wide labour shortages. Our care homes struggle for staffing, our health service is under persistent pressure, and tech and hospitality businesses regularly cite workforce deficits as their primary barrier to expansion. Disincentivising global talent from settling permanently will only worsen these shortages, weaken our public services, and hamper national wealth creation.
For Scotland’s hospitals, care providers, hotels and technology businesses, prolonged uncertainty risks making recruitment and retention harder. Replacing experienced staff costs money, disrupts services and takes time. Training more domestic workers is essential; unsettling existing workers is no substitute.
Of course we must tackle immigration fraud, unlawful employment and exploitative sponsors. Enforcement should target wrongdoing, not make compliant workers, international students and their families feel permanently unwelcome.
Ministers should protect existing settlement expectations, publish a full economic assessment and work with Scotland and employers on practical workforce needs.
Britain’s reputation for fair dealing is an economic asset. Sacrificing it for a tougher headline would leave us poorer in every sense.
We need an immigration strategy rooted in economic reality, compassion, and fairness, one that respects international talent and supports the public services relying on them.
Yours faithfully,
Dhruva Kumar