Coram Children’s Legal Centre (CCLC) has this week responded to the Home Office’s publication this week of its plans to reform immigration policy,with both a written response and through evidence given in parliament to the Women and Equalities Committee
The immigration white paper published by the Home Office in May 2025 committed to increasing the standard qualifying period for settlement from five to ten years, and its subsequent consultation paper A Fairer Pathway to Settlement, published in November 2025, consulted on the design of the new framework.
While CCLC welcomes that there has been an important change to the Home Office’s original proposals so that many care workers and their families who are already in the UK will be able to settle after five years, other care workers will, alongside tens of thousands of skilled workers earning below £50,000, now have to wait ten years, despite moving their lives and families to the UK on the expectation of being able to settle after five.
CCLC also believes that the plans announced will keep thousands of children in limbo and also bar some families from ever getting permanent status, with children in refugee families being required to wait up to 30 years for permanent settlement.
On Wednesday 4th November CCLC Head of Policy Anita Hurrell gave evidence in parliament to the Women and Equalities Committee on the impact on equalities of the proposed reforms, where she re-emphasised CCLC’s long-held position that long routes are not in children’s best interests:
“We were pleased to see recognition of children, both in the original November consultation and now with the response to the consultation. But we are still incredibly concerned that there’ll be many, many children in thousands of families who will be on a very long route under the new system. We welcome that there’s some recognition that children need bespoke routes, but children depend on their parents. Indeed, the state depends on parents to look after their children.”
She also argued that the proposals would create “a greater number of undocumented people, including children and families”. The full session is available here.
You can read CCLC’s full response to the plans here.
