I write this not only as a Liberal Democrat, but as a frontline care provider responsible for multiple members of staff across Stockton and Hartlepool. Among them are seven remarkable care assistants from Zimbabwe, Nigeria, and Pakistan. They came here legally, at Britain’s request, to fill the gaping holes in our NHS and social care system. Today, they keep the elderly and vulnerable safe, fed, clean, and dignified.
They are the reason thousands of families sleep at night knowing their loved ones are cared for.
And now, the Government is telling them they must wait 15 years, or even 20, before they are allowed to call Britain home.
The human price behind the policy
Let me tell you what this looks like in real life.
One of my care assistants from Zimbabwe works six days a week. She sends money home to her children because she cannot afford to bring them here yet. When she heard the new rules, she asked quietly, “Will I still be waiting when they are grown?” She will be 57 by the time she reaches settlement under the 20-year rule.
A Nigerian carer on my team works double shifts. She has held the hands of dementia patients through the night, comforted people in their final hours, and supported families who were breaking under pressure. Her client told me recently, “She is like a daughter to me.” Yet the country she serves now says: You are welcome to care for our elderly, but not welcome to belong for two decades.
A young woman from Pakistan, who works nights and studies during the day, looked completely defeated when she realised she will spend her entire youth waiting for settlement. “Fifteen years… I’ll be in my forties by then,” she said. “I just wanted a stable life.”
These are not isolated stories. There are thousands like them across the UK.
A policy that punishes the very workers Britain relies on
Under the Home Secretary’s proposals:
- Care workers must wait 15 years to apply for settlement.
- If they ever claim benefits due to illness, job loss, or crisis, the wait becomes 20 years—the longest in Europe.
- Even after settlement, they will not have access to public funds until they become citizens, adding years more waiting.
- They must meet strict income, debt, and English language requirements despite being on the lowest-paid visas in the UK.
Meanwhile, top-rate taxpayers can reach settlement in three years.
- Bankers: 3 years.
- Doctors: 5 years.
- Scientists: 3 years.
- Care workers: 15–20 years.
This is not fairness. This is a hierarchy of human worth tied to salary.
The impact on social care will be catastrophic
We already face chronic staff shortages, collapsing care homes, spiralling agency costs and exhausted frontline teams.
These rules will drive away the very people the system depends on. Recruitment will plummet. Vulnerable people will suffer. And councils already drowning under demand will face total collapse.
How can any government justify strengthening borders while weakening social care?
Liberal Democrat values demand better
Our party has always stood for fairness, compassion, evidence-based policy, respect for human dignity and valuing contribution, not just income.
A 20-year wait for settlement is morally indefensible and economically incoherent. It punishes legal migrants we invited here. It destabilises the workforce we depend on. And it divides communities for political theatre.
The Liberal Democrats should lead the argument for a humane, balanced alternative, one that recognises contribution in all forms, including low-paid but socially essential work.
Care workers do not ask for special treatment. They ask for fairness. They ask for dignity. They ask for what they give to others every single day.
A final personal note
Last week, after I spoke to my team about these proposals, a carer said to me, “Mo, we give so much to this country. Does it really see us as people?”
I had no answer. But I know this: Britain is better than this. And our party must help remind the country of that fact. Because a nation that does not value its carers is a nation that has lost its way
* Mo Waqas is a vice chair of the Liberal Democrats' Racial Diversity Campaign and was the PPC for Middlesbrough and Thornaby East.
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25 Comments
Well said, Mo. Great article. Let’s hope the Lib Dem MPs take up these points in the debate.
Makes you wonder whibwere doing these jobs before we had this record inward migration.
We have an explosion in youth unemployment & young people on sickness benefits – as Schools Colleges Universities continue to turn out far too many youngsters totally unfit for the world of work. Pandering to emotive needs of teenage angst is doing irreparable harm.
Thank god there’s just about enough of Generation X still in the workforce holding things together.
Greg, I wonder if you have ever talked with young 20-year-olds.
My 24-year-old granddaughter made a 40-minute film which passed three stages in its attempted entry into June’s biggest UK film festival but failed at the last hurdle. She is now working in a care home for 20- to 30-year-olds, where there is only one other carer born in the UK. There are few film opportunities around.
My grandson got his degree during COVID and went abroad to be a football coach. He is now back in England. With AI now taking over many new jobs, he has spent hours every day applying online without success. He at last got a job as a delivery driver.
Mo, thank you so much for spelling out the real problems in care. A fantastic article.
With three friends across the country in end-of-life care, I don’t think Labour understands the danger of their policy to the care sector. I founded HELP, Help for the Elderly Liberally Provided in Richmond. Could we campaign on TIC-TOC, Thank Immigrant Carers, Thank Older Carers? Let’s survey our community care facilities and define the problems and solutions.
I speak to plenty John. Many don’t seem to have the work ethic of the older generation sadly. The figures are not a good look – 950k plus are economically inactive & there’s been a huge rise in young people on sickness benefits – many claiming mental illness. Really shocking figures. It’s a poor reflection of the education system.
Greg Hyde 21st Nov ’25 – 12:10pm….Makes you wonder whibwere doing these jobs before we had this record inward migration…
OMG! I’m pushing 82yo and, in 1953 I had a burst appendix.. I remember that many, if not most, of the nurses were Irish or West Indian.. On the 21st of last month I suffered a heart attack and the nurses, doctors and consultants were mainly what Reform would call ‘foreign’ and the patients were mainly what Reform would call elderly ‘British’..
Immigration Has ALWAYS been with us but, sadly, The ‘No dogs no……etc. attitude has returned with a vengeance; the hate is still there only the ‘targets’ have changed….
I note that a recent survey shows that increasing numbers of these vital medical staff are leaving due to feeling less and less welcome in this country..
Since I’ve posted – I’ve had two replies each detailing anecdotal evidence that ultimately is meaningless. The stats on youth unemployment & young people claiming sickness benefits are staggering – given the number of vacancies that are out there and especially in the care sector and NHS.
It’s Generation x that are holding the fort in the UK.
Spot on article. We are very reliant on care workers from 3rd world countries. Their job requires great patience and maturity. Which young people just don’t have. Even in the unlikely event that they take the job. Making it more difficult for immigrants to get secure residence status just makes it 10 times more difficult. Which forces care homes to pay a fortune for contract workers. PS I was unpaid Chairman of a charity care home for 10 years.
Ah Greg, the youth of today eh?
What isn’t anecdotal is that youth unemployment was significantly higher during the 80s and early 90s, again following the 2007 financial crisis and following years of austerity, and once again during the pandemic.
Almost as if it’s down to macroeconomic factors rather than the fecklessness of the young.
Well said, Mo. The attack on legal immigrants who are doing necessary jobs is alarming and disheartening. I thought we got rid of the Tories? And I thought Labour stood for solidarity with workers no matter where they are from? Apparently not.
Those of us who chose (legally) to make the UK our home are now an easy scapegoat for a floundering government that seems to have no good ideas for either increasing the skill levels of the British-born or tackling the small boat crisis. Instead it is conflating desperate asylum seekers with people applying for visas, and accepting the far-right framing that immigrants are inherently undesirable and trying to scrounge off the British taxpayer. In reality people on visas are already not eligible for public funds and must pay substantial fees for visas, the NHS, etc. Labour’s proposals are unfair and dehumanising, and would undermine efforts to improve the NHS and social care.
@Greg It might be true that decades ago British-born people were more likely to do these jobs; however, I don’t think you can draw a straight line between “pandering…to teenagers” and the current demand for skilled workers from other countries. For years there has been a lack of investment in education and effective mental health care. And more to your point, there have been many times when people were invited to the UK (or otherwise brought in to the former Empire) to do the jobs that Britain needed. This is not a new phenomenon.
It astounds me that liberals are celebrating that skilled medical staff being recruited from many third world countries in desperate need of decent health care & health care professionals. Nobody above has addressed to huge rise in sickness benefit claims amongst the young & the near on 1 million economically inactive 18/24 year olds. That’s the real tragedy , not the plight of foreign workers.
@ Amanda W
” I thought Labour stood for solidarity with workers no matter where they are from? Apparently not.”
The Labour Party has been hijacked by right wing elements by a process of deception.
Paul Holden tells the full story in his book: The Fraud.
https://orbooks.com/catalog/the-fraud/
@Greg Hyde 21st Nov ’25 – 7:47pm.. Nobody above has addressed to huge rise in sickness benefit claims amongst the young & the near on 1 million economically inactive 18/24 year olds. That’s the real tragedy , not the plight of foreign workers…
Might that be because this article is ABOUT the plight of ‘foreign workers’
@Greg If health professionals decide to leave their country to find work, Britain has neither the right nor the ability to stop them. What we can do is train as many as we use even if they not British. Education is one of our major export industries and one that has been severely hampered by governments that conflate overseas students and illegal imigrants.
Peter – it’s a poor reflection on our education system with so many economically inactive young people. Couple that with the ballooning sickness claims from so many youngsters one wonders if that education system is as good as it’s made out to be. Ultimately no foreign national should have the right to remain in a country they’ve chosen to work in. Demographic changes across already struggling towns has been significant & hasn’t brought any economic uplift in those areas – none whatsoever – opposite of what we were told. Now the argument has shifted to – our care services would collapse etc …It’s right to point out that who were doing these jobs previously & why we’ve so many inactive young people & a huge rise in sickness benefit claims amongst the young. McFadden & Mahmood are right it unsustainable.
I am of Gen X. I find the Gen Zed people I have mentored to be just as clever, polite, ambitious as we were at the same age. The difference is that the Bargain Between Generations has been broken. My younger colleagues started at lower staff grades and wages than we did. Their pension arrangements are poorer. Their hope of owning their own homes, and even having a family is poorer. Their terms and conditions are poorer, ad-hoc sacking is easier now than in c20. Big business sees them on a par with “agentic AI” and machine plant. They tend to be herded into open plan area like Victorian mills. They have less autonomy in their work. Why should they have the same ethic?
@Greg
You’ve mixed up NEET with economically inactive. They’re not the same thing.
It’s funny to see Generation X aka the “slacker generation” now held up as exemplars of work ethic. Of course, when we Gen Xers were in our twenties, we faced precisely the same criticisms about laziness and entitlement that you’re now directing at young people. The old have been complaining about the work ethic of the young since at least the time of the ancient Greeks. On the whole I find young people smarter, better-educated , and harder working than we were at their age.
Boomers are living much longer than any previous generation and they had relatively few kids. In all your posts about immigration, you never address this basic reality. How exactly do you think we could support a growing elderly population with a shrinking workforce, without immigration? Even if you could force all young people with a mental health condition into the workforce (and is that really who you want working in care homes? – a 20 year old with anxiety and depression?) this would not go anywhere near meeting the needs of the economy.
Andrew….We’ve had year on year record immigration – where are those economic benefits we were routinely told about whenever anyone questioned the validity of those eye watering figures. Now it’s been deftly moved to – our care sector would collapse. There’s been no economic uplift in this record immigration – I’ve had record council tax rise, record water rates rise, umpteenth rises in my energy bills , train fares inflation busting rise, bus fare cap up 50 per cent , soaring private rents, social rents inflation plus 1 per cent year on year for five years courtesy of Reeves last budget, inflation nearly doubled….And Reeves is having to plug huge gaps in funding – just how big we will find out next week. Immigration hasn’t brought any economic uplift in communities it’s just compounded issues ….
@Greg Hyde 22nd Nov ’25 – 4:55pm In your previous posts it was the younger generation who were to blame for the economic problems; now it seems it’s immigration..
Ah, well!
Expats …When comments on here outlining the necessity of record immigration. It’s right to point out and question twhy are there so many economically inactive young people + the explosion in sickness claims – many with mental health issues amongst the young.
Mahmood and McFadden understand the issue sadly too many on the progressive left do not …It’s not sustainable in the long term
As Care England and other organisations have pointed out, and Mo points out here, the differential treatment/new 15 year rule for care staff is wrong. It is cruel to change the goalposts for people who are already in the UK.
But it was depressing on Thursday to hear a Lib Dem MP claiming that “no” UK worker will do care work. The pay and status deters UK workers.
Much of Mo’s article is touching but he should also justify the rates of pay for his workforce.
@Greg Hyde 23rd Nov ’25 – 6:51am….Expats …When comments on here outlining the necessity of record immigration. It’s right to point out and question twhy are there so many economically inactive young people + the explosion in sickness claims – many with mental health issues amongst the young….
I’m sorry but I don’t see the link between the two.. Are you saying that if there were less immigration there would be fewer ‘economically inactive young people’?
That idea sounds worryingly identical to Reform’s narrative that, “They are coming here to take OUR jobs”
@ expats,
“Are you saying that if there were less immigration there would be fewer ‘economically inactive young people’? ”
This isn’t an argument against immigration, but the answer is that there would have to be!
And not just for younger people. There would have to be fewer inactive numbers of everyone. We’d still need someone to do the work. Look after the elderly, pick the crops etc. The retirement age would have to be raised at an even faster rate. Benefit levels for the unemployed would have to be reduced to force them into doing jobs they might not want to do – even if they are genuinely too sick to do that.
Wages would probably have to rise meaning that prices would rise too.
We’d have similar problems to Japan which is moving in the opposite direction.
https://japan-forward.com/japan-rethinks-immigration-amid-labor-shortage-and-foreign-population-rise/
The real question is why are we relying on overseas workers when people in this country would rather live on benefits than get a job?
@ambighter. Evidence please. Many if the jobs done by immigrants are very low paid. Most people I know – and in 26 years as a councillor I met an awful lot- want to work, but if taking a job means ending up worse off than on benefits (due to loss of other benefits not unemployment pay or similar) then that’s hardly an incentive. And please don’t tell me that benefits are too high, they’re some of the worst in Europe. Low pay is the issue and exploitation by (a few) greedy employers. We are lucky that people come here to take these poorly paid jobs, mainly in the health and care sectors, because who would care for our loved ones if they didn’t. And now our hapless government wants to make them wait 20 years before they can settle here!
@ Mick,
I don’t quite follow your “evidence please” comment. You’ve then followed it up by giving your own evidence! You’ve explained why domestic workers “would rather live on benefits than get a job.”
You’re quite right, IMO, that low pay is the reason rather than high benefits.
Lib Dems are pretty good at making the case for benefits to be higher but not so good when it comes to making sure that wages are adequate too.