A UK government proposal that would double the wait for permanent residency from five to ten years — and impose a 15-year wait on health and social care visa holders — has triggered open cabinet dissent just days before Labour's annual conference.

Housing Secretary Angela Rayner told The Times she is concerned the plans are unfair because they "change the goalposts". Her target is a set of proposals from Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood that would also apply retrospectively to foreign workers who arrived in the UK expecting to settle under the current five-year rule.

Under the proposals, most migrants would wait 10 years to qualify for residency instead of the current five. Foreign workers on health and social care visas would face a 15-year wait. Mahmood told the Home Affairs Committee earlier this month she was "very aware that a large group of people who arrived in 2022, absent any change, would qualify in February 2027" for permanent settlement.

The home secretary said the government would decide on the immigration overhaul by the end of the year. "Later this year we will set out the new policy on settlement... as well as any transitional arrangements we might decide to implement," she told the committee.

Who the change would hit

The retrospective element is the flashpoint. Migrants who moved to the UK at the start of this decade — including care workers on health and social care visas — arrived expecting permanent residence after five years. Rayner said shifting "the goalposts years down the line" for those people would be "very disruptive". She added: "I do have concerns about that."

She singled out foreign care workers who "moved their lives here to look after our loved ones". Rayner has not shifted position since re-entering cabinet in July under Prime Minister Andy Burnham, saying Mahmood is aware of her view. In June she called retrospective changes for migrants already working in the UK "wrong".

Burnham, who inherited the policy from his predecessor Sir Keir Starmer, said before becoming prime minister that he "understood" Rayner's criticism and that Labour "would do well to listen to what Angela has to say".

Growing pressure inside Labour

Rayner is not alone. York Central Labour MP Rachael Maskell told the Today programme the proposals are "technically and morally" the wrong set of values and would affect "people who have come [to Britain] to serve faithfully and are then told that they have to wait another 10 years" to secure British citizenship. Trade unions have pressed the government in recent weeks to soften the plans, and dozens of Labour MPs signed a letter to Mahmood at the start of the year describing the plans as "un-British".

Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy rejected that label. "I don't think they are un-British because I don't think that we have ever had an automatic right to citizenship for most people who come to the UK from overseas," she told BBC Radio 4's Today programme. She said Mahmood was balancing respect for people "regardless of who they or where they stand" with the need for "an immigration system that people have confidence in".

Asked whether Labour could change course, Nandy said: "We always reserve the right to change our minds but we also will reserve the right to stick to our plans if we think we are getting them right." She said the government would not "change the rules of the game" in a way that unfairly disadvantages migrants who have contributed to the UK, and would "strike the right balance" between treating people "fairly and decently as human beings but making sure there is an asylum and immigration system people can have confidence in".

Nandy stopped short of defending the principle of backdating the changes to workers already in the country, emphasising instead fairness for those contributing to the UK — a sign the government may be reconsidering the retrospective element.

What is at stake

If the government reverses course on applying the changes to those who arrived from 2021, large numbers who came to the UK after that date keep a quicker and easier route to settlement. That outcome would draw a dividing line with the Conservatives and Reform UK, which are expected to highlight it.

No decision has been made. The Home Office has committed to publishing the new settlement policy, along with any transitional arrangements, by the end of the year. Migrants currently on work routes should monitor official Home Office announcements rather than rely on earlier published timelines, since the February 2027 settlement date for 2022 arrivals applies only "absent any change".

The row lands on the eve of Labour's conference, where a serving cabinet minister publicly criticising an existing government proposal — even one inherited from the Starmer era — signals significant pressure to drop the retrospective elements of the plan.