THE PRIME MINISTERS SHOCKING & SHAMEFUL IMMIGRATION PLAN AND WHY WE MUST OPPOSE IT

Absent action, over the next five years some 350,000 low-skilled workers and their dependents will qualify for settlement. At that point they will gain access to welfare, free health care and social housing. We estimate based on findings from the Migration Advisory Committee that the lifetime cost of the taxpayer will be 10 billion pounds. That figure would be paid for by working people in this country. Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood attempting to justify the government's shocking and shameful plan to double the time it takes most migrant workers to qualify for permanent residence from five years to ten, which the Home Secretary argued would save costs on public services. We estimate based on findings from the Migration Advisory Committee that the lifetime cost of the taxpayer will be 10 billion pounds. Well new analysis of the government's own figures indicate public finances will gain just 600 million pounds, not the 10 billion pounds figure cited by the Home Secretary if migrants access to benefits is reduced. It's just 6% of the figure the Home Secretary suggested would actually be saved by the changes. That's according to data from the Migration Advisory Committee obtained via a Freedom of Information request. Jonathan Portes, a professor of economics and public policy at King's College London who obtained the data, has said the savings were likely to be offset by costs of migrants leaving the UK and high earners being deterred from moving to the UK. So it appears the Home Secretary's claim that her proposals are necessary to save 10 billion pounds has now been thoroughly debunked by the government's own data. In fact, as Portes has pointed out, care workers and their dependents actually strengthen the public finances for at least the first two decades after arrival, and any savings from restricting their access to benefits are likely to be small compared to the costs that result from making the UK a less attractive destination for immigrants. If you're not yet familiar with the government's shocking immigration plans which have rightly sparked revolt by more than 100 members of the Parliamentary Labour Party, hold on to your seats. Settlement, or indefinite leave to remain, comes almost automatically after five years residence in this country. As this government announced in its immigration white paper, the starting point for settlement will move from five years to ten. Even more controversial, the Prime Minister wants the plan to apply retrospectively to migrants already here, affecting over two million people who have arrived in this country since 2021. We propose these changes apply to everyone in the country today who has not yet received indefinite leave to remain. Were that to happen, it would be an appalling breach of trust on the part of the government to people who have come to this country at our invitation to work in our health and social care sectors. To recognise the particular value to society they play, the government proposes the following. Those paying the higher rate of tax could qualify at five years, while those on the top rate could qualify after three. So if you earn over £50,000 a year, your clock could be cut by five years, and if you earn over £125,000 a year, your clock could be cut by seven years. But here comes the kicker. Finally, this consultation addresses the question of the so-called Boris wave, specifically the cohort of lower qualified workers who enter the country, along with their dependents through the health and care visa, some of whom are never expected to be net economic contributors. It is right that we apply more stringent controls for this group. And for that reason, we propose they should wait 15 years. The Prime Minister's plan to offer rapid routes to assessment for those earning six figure salaries whilst punishing and making lower paid workers wait appears to be based on the notion that care workers are low skilled because they're low paid. It's an absolute disgrace. Care workers, highly skilled work and only paid so poorly because of the failure of successive governments to value it properly. Just think about that. And now the Prime Minister actually wants to punish migrants who have come to this country at our invitation to work in our health and social care sectors by forcing them to wait 15 years before being granted indefinite leave to remain instead of the five years they were promised before they made the decision to uproot their lives and come and work in this country. It's reprehensible. Without migrants, Britain would grind to a halt. That's especially true when it comes to health and social care, where more than a fifth of the NHS workforce in England is made up of migrant staff. The Prime Minister's plan will keep people working in key industries like care in temporary status for a decade or more. It will keep people in insecure work, make them more easily exploitable, poorer and marginalised. When did that become the policy of a Labour government? And if you thought it couldn't get any worse, this plan will also increase child poverty. Yes, you heard that right. It will actually increase child poverty. Independent research has estimated the government's policy to double the time it takes for migrants to qualify for settlement in the UK will prolong poverty for between 60,000 and 90,000 children of foreign workers by 2029. And if all that's not bad enough, a report by the Institute for Public Policy Research, described by the Home Secretary as Britain's leading progressive think tank, has shown that the government's proposals will be a fiscal cost to the UK for decades. It will directly undermine the government's child poverty strategy and starve our society and economy of the skills we need to fulfil the government's important ambitions on industrial strategy, house building, manufacturing and in health and social care. It will also undermine community cohesion and integration, weakening the bonds that hold our society together. And all for what? So the Prime Minister can shamelessly be seen to be competing with far-right parties like Reform. And it just gets worse. The Prime Minister wants to put these changes into law with no parliamentary debate and no vote. Well, absolute bollocks to that. More than 100 Labour MPs have written to the Home Secretary opposing the government's proposed immigration reforms. That's a quarter of the Parliamentary Labour Party. And that was before new figures exposed the government's £10bn claim as a complete fiscal fantasy. It's not too late for the government to rethink this shameful plan. Contact your MP now, tag them to this film and ask them to oppose it.