A time bomb is ticking.
asserted
bomb → tick → ?
And instead of working day and night to defuse it, Labour are bickering and dithering over which, if any, cable to cut.
asserted
Labour → work → cable
As the Mail reported yesterday, at least 200,000 migrants have now been granted 'settled status' since the Government first outlined proposals to tighten rules last autumn.
asserted
Government → report → rules
They will be able to stay in our country indefinitely, drawing on the full panoply of State benefits and being entitled to social housing.
asserted
They → stay → housing
Thousands every week are now making the UK their permanent home.
asserted
UK → make → ?
Some are either 'low wage' or 'no wage', which is to say they will not benefit the Exchequer during their lifetimes but will instead be a serious net drag on public finances.
asserted
they → say → finances
Explosive
Those to have arrived since the pandemic alone could cost the British taxpayer some £10billion, according to the Home Office's own calculations – and at a time when the State is taxing everyone to the hilt and growth is sclerotic.
uncertain
growth → arrive → hilt
So what's going on – and can anything be done to prevent this time bomb going off?
asserted
bomb → go → ?
The Mail reported yesterday that at least 200,000 migrants have now been granted 'settled status' since the Government first outlined proposals to tighten rules last autumn
To answer that question, it's worth outlining the current immigration rules.
Five years after first arriving in Britain, most legal migrants win the right to apply for 'settlement', also known as 'indefinite leave to remain' (ILR).
asserted
migrants → report → leave
This allows them to immediately start claiming welfare handouts, including universal credit and other benefits.
asserted
them → allow → credit
In theory, there is nothing to stop a migrant aged 25 or so securing ILR and then spending the rest of his or her life on the dole.
asserted
migrant → be → dole
During the pandemic, migration to Britain – and everywhere else – inevitably plunged as people stopped travelling.
asserted
people → plunge → Britain
But as the Covid virus receded, more than one million migrants came to Britain.
asserted
migrants → recede → Britain
The first among these are now securing ILR en masse – and, from next year, their numbers will accelerate still further and are projected to peak in 2028.
asserted
numbers → secure → 2028
Last November, Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood warned that it was essential to make these foreign nationals wait longer to secure ILR.
asserted
nationals → warn → ILR
Under her proposals, the baseline qualification period would double to ten years.
asserted
period → double → years
Low-skilled foreign workers – those performing roles requiring qualifications below a bachelor's degree – could face a 15-year baseline, she said.
uncertain
she → skille → baseline
Anyone claiming benefits for more than a year would suffer a ten-year penalty.
asserted
Anyone → claim → penalty
Under Shabana Mahmood's proposals last November, the wait period for foreign nationals to secure indefinite leave to remain would double to ten years
Her plans, therefore, meant that lower-skilled workers who made sustained claims for state handouts would be forced to wait up to 25 years to secure ILR.
uncertain
who → secure → ILR
In contrast, high-earning foreign workers could accept an accelerated route: those paying the 45 per cent income tax rate would get seven years' discount, for example.
uncertain
those → earn → example
To the man or woman in the street, this all seems perfectly reasonable: if you've contributed a lot in taxes, you are surely more deserving of the privilege of living permanently in Britain than someone who has paid in nothing or very little.
asserted
who → seem → nothing
But such basic concepts of fairness are of course considered unthinkable by the welfare-obsessed Labour Party.
asserted
concepts → consider → Party
Following Andy Burnham's leadership coup this summer and the party's Leftwards march towards the imagined idyll of the 1970s, the Government's determination to tackle this ILR booby-trap has all but evaporated.
asserted
determination → follow → trap
Ms Mahmood's original plan is essentially dead, and when she unveils a bowdlerised version in the coming weeks it's likely to impose far fewer new restrictions on ILR and be far more generous to migrants who are already here.
And this represents an enormous economic problem because of the sheer mass of people involved.
asserted
this → unveil → people
The number of affected migrants is around 1.6million – more than the population of Ms Mahmood's home city of Birmingham.
asserted
number → affect → Birmingham
According to Home Office estimates, that is the 'central estimate' of the number who will obtain settlement between this year and 2030, but it could be as high as 2.2million.
uncertain
it → accord → 2.2million
Across all migrant categories, the number of ILR cases is likely to spiral upwards from 140,000 last year to peak at 449,000 in 2028.
asserted
number → spiral → 2028
Crucially, the totals include a massive spike in the number who arrived here on 'health and care worker' visas, introduced by the last Conservative government.
asserted
who → include → government
Just 6,000 of those were
eligible to apply for ILR last year, but by 2028 it is likely to be 210,000 – all on this one visa alone.
The Daily Mail has previously revealed how deeply flawed the care visa system was, with phony applications running rife and bogus agencies coining it in.
asserted
agencies → apply → it
Worse still, more than 10,000 who arrived under the care visa have gone on to claim 'asylum' here.
uncertain
who → arrive → asylum
Independent think-tank Cambridge Circus Research has described the health and care worker visa as a 'textbook policy failure' which should 'serve as a lesson'.
asserted
which → describe → lesson
The Home Office had expected between just 6,000 and 40,000 applications a year, the report sets out, but in the 12 months to October 2023 there were more than 132,000 decided applications.
asserted
report → expect → October
Bizarrely, new arrivals were initially entitled to bring their families, meaning that by 2025 nearly 295,000 visas had been issued to main applicants but a further 433,000 handed to their 'dependants'.
asserted
433,000 → entitle → dependants
It's worth stating that the health and care worker visa, and the wider relaxation of immigration restrictions, were the actions of a government trying to deal with the after-effects of a global pandemic, and which had been left with a £300billion bill after furlough schemes and other State largesse.
asserted
which → state → schemes
It was also an attempt to address a genuine shortage of care workers.
asserted
It → address → workers
Nonetheless, Rishi Sunak's administration got the message, introducing a hurried series of visa restrictions which brought immigration levels down again.
asserted
which → get → levels
However, the true implications of this record migration wave are now only just beginning to bite, thanks to the five-year lag on securing ILR.
asserted
implications → begin → ILR
Ms Mahmood's proposals were designed to take the sting out of all this.
asserted
proposals → design → this
But now, with Labour's lunatics ascendant, she will almost certainly have to allow post-Covid migrants – some of whom arrived on those dodgy visas – to qualify for ILR much more quickly than she or the Treasury would prefer.
asserted
she → have → ILR
In all likelihood, the million-plus migrants who came in the post-Covid wave will very soon be eligible for ILR – and the taxpayer will be on the hook for the ruinous public expenditure this entails.
asserted
this → come → expenditure
…and 5 more, not listed.
The Aporia
