Scrapping plans to make ‘Boriswave’ migrants wait longer for permanent residency set to cost each British household more than £1,000

Scrapping plans to make “Boriswave” migrants wait longer for permanent residency will cost each British household more than £1,000, new analysis has shown.

A total of 1.6 million foreign workers rushed to Britain between 2021 and 2024, thanks to Boris Johnson’s visa reforms in what has now been dubbed “Boriswave”.

 

To combat the population surge, Shabana Mahmood, the Home Secretary, has announced plans to double the time it takes for foreign nationals to obtain permanent settled status in the UK.

The proposals would raise the qualifying period for permanent settlement from five years to 10, a policy the Home Secretary says is inspired by Denmark.

The Home Secretary also wants to apply the changes to migrants who arrived in the UK since 2021.

But these plans could be disrupted as mounting pressure from Labour MPs to drop the plans has grown.

More than 100 MPs, including former deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner, have signed a letter opposing Ms Mahmood’s plans.

Scrapping plans to make ‘Boriswave’ migrants wait longer for permanent residency will cost each British household more than £1,000

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Incoming Prime Minister Andy Burnham is also understood to have a softer stance on immigration.

Last year, he criticised the plans, claiming they would leave migrants in a “sense of limbo and unable to integrate”.

Reform UK, which has previously called for a national inquiry into the “Boriswave” migration surge, has estimated that allowing the 1.6 million migrants to gain indefinite leave to remain would cost each British household £1,100.

The total cost to the taxpayer over their lifetime is £30billion, according to the analysis.