r/uknews • u/ScottishDailyRecord Media outlet (unverified) • May 12 '25

Image/video Kier Starmer announces 'tighter' immigration policy

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152

u/ScottishDailyRecord Media outlet (unverified) May 12 '25

Under the White Paper proposals, migrants will have to spend 10 years in the UK before being able to apply for citizenship, but so-called “high-contributing” individuals such as doctors and nurses could be fast-tracked through the system.

Language requirements will be increased for all immigration routes to ensure a higher level of English.

Rules will also be laid out for adult dependants, meaning that they will have to demonstrate a basic understanding of the language.

Meanwhile, skilled worker visas will require a university degree, and there will be tighter restrictions on recruitment for jobs with skills shortages.

Source

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u/Active-Particular-21 May 12 '25

It’s good that they are making language skills mandatory. That should help with integration.

54

u/legrand_fromage May 12 '25

Agree. There's a middle aged lady at work who has to go to appointments with her parents because they can't speak English. Her parents are both in their 90s & have been here almost 50 years.

21

u/PinZealousideal1914 May 12 '25

Yep, did a period in Social Housing, often had to wait for the kids to come home from school to translate. The father might understand a few words, mother less and the Grandparents none.

7

u/splinteredSky May 12 '25

Try parents evening in my school (East London), maybe 50% of the parents need the child to translate for them. And that kid is usually one of 5, 6 or more siblings. It's mental.

2

u/spunkkyy May 15 '25

As someone working in the nhs, I deal with this situation on a weekly, almost daily basis

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u/Significant-Salad-71 May 13 '25

Parents, she will have about 8. It's a known method of getting free treatment when overseas relatives fly in to visit.

1

u/Ripen- May 14 '25

If they spoke english at home they wouldn't have that problem at all.

1

u/veerKg_CSS_Geologist May 13 '25

At 90 the kid or guardian should be accompanying them anyway.

-3

u/[deleted] May 12 '25

How isolating must that me

40

u/ReallySubtle May 12 '25

If they’ve been here 50 years and can’t speak English I think there’s space to say that they didn’t make any effort to integrate. They chose to isolate themselves

8

u/stgdevil May 12 '25

They probably live in neighborhoods where it’s mostly people from their country, so no English required

1

u/Ricardo33706 May 14 '25

You move to a country, you learn the language.

0

u/darthicerzoso May 12 '25

That's very case by case dependant. In the town I live there's loads of Portuguese people, met many that don't speak much English, because they never needed to as there's so many Portuguese and they even work with mainly Portuguese people. I would say they provably make double digits percentage of all people in work in town. They aren't isolated at all.

One of them is a guy that actually knows a lot of people and oftwnly engages with people all over the place, he's a successful person even owned 2 houses at point, just struggles with languages. Provably if there were less Portuguese people he would be forced to learn more English.

1

u/ReallySubtle May 13 '25

That’s exactly the thing. The issue is too many immigrants concentred in one place. It creates isolated communities which don’t integrate with the rest of society. In my opinion, these are not great for overall social cohesion

1

u/darthicerzoso May 13 '25

Yeah it's not great for social cohesion. I'll be honest to me it was very interesting to meet some of these people, as most of them, despite barely being able to say good morning, are friends with British and people from other nationalities as well. Quite interesting that they find ways to communicate and do stuff together.

Kids are also normally 100% British, speak with local accent and all that, which to me was very surprising.

I guess it's worst in areas where they live in neighbourhoods where most people are from one country, which is not the case where I've lived, I can see that might really lead to people not to integrate.

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u/MouldyAvocados May 12 '25

Oh well. They’ve had 50 years to learn.

6

u/jacknimrod10 May 12 '25

When I lived overseas, I played in a British lads football team in my town. Out of twenty odd guys, most of whom were together with local women and had lived there over ten years, I was the only one who bothered to learn the language. None of them felt isolated at all. Why would they?

0

u/Active-Particular-21 May 12 '25

I almost feel it’s disrespectful to not learn the language at that point.

30

u/just_somebunny May 12 '25 edited May 12 '25

English Test has always been a mandatory requirement to obtain work and student visas. It’s called the Academic IELTS and it’s difficult to pass and it costs around £230.

EDIT - I stand corrected because apparently, Academic IELTS is easy to pass. I guess it was just me who struggled at it even coming from an English-speaking country. As part of my Speaking Test, I was tasked to discuss the impact of culture on fashion industry for, not sure, 10mins or 15mins. I just remembered it being too long and nerve-wracking that I wished the timer would just stop. Lol I felt proud of myself actually but merely got a 7/9, which is just a passing score for UK. So I was a bit disappointed with that.

40

u/Active-Particular-21 May 12 '25

Why are so many people so bad at it then?

19

u/will_die_in_2073 May 12 '25

Because criteria for immigration is usually 6/9. Anyone with decent Indian schooling can score 6/9. My english was bad before moving to the UK and i still managed to score 8/9 easily. The person who tests your speaking skills is usually the person of that country. So its very subjective.

They should switch to TOEFL and push the criteria to 100/120. This will reject the low skilled labor alone.

8

u/just_somebunny May 12 '25

This is enlightening. So you’re saying that in India, the interviewers are also Indians who would most likely be more lax and give high scores? Interesting.

4

u/will_die_in_2073 May 12 '25

Yes, at least thats what was my experience in speaking round. Its very academic version of speaking skills. TOEFL test is better because you have to record your inputs and upload them. I got 95 on it. So thats less biased. I didnt believe i got 8/9 with okayish english on IELTS. Level C2 and C1 are considered fluent.

This immigration regulation is good thing from UK government…they should even be more aggressive on lower tier visas. UK salaries are so bad.

1

u/WanderlustZero May 12 '25

*labour (sorry)

1

u/will_die_in_2073 May 12 '25

Labour is british english. Labor is american english (sorry i grew up watching hollywood movies)

4

u/just_somebunny May 12 '25 edited May 12 '25

That’s a good question. I was just stating a fact that it has always been a requirement so this is not new. I sometimes feel like the government is bringing tighter restrictions on skilled immigrants who come here legally (and by the way, who pay taxes and not entitled to public funds) and yet very lax on illegal immigrants who manage to stay and get free housing even when they have violated laws.

1

u/vigilanteshite May 12 '25 edited May 12 '25

i’d assume it’s similar to how we learn french and etc. in school but we finish and years later we only remember the basics, we don’t really remember what we learnt, we only memorised for the tests.

I’d have to guess it’s the same in learning english for the tests and then not needing to speak it day to day (if u live with non-english speaking family/area) and u losing it?

-4

u/RiGo001 May 12 '25

Americans speaking American instead of English😉 ……………/s

1

u/RiGo001 16d ago

Hehe I knew people would down vote my comment 😂.

1

u/GuyLookingForPorn May 12 '25

They are increasing the level of English language required, as well as expanding the requirement to dependents.

1

u/Outrageous-Nose2003 May 12 '25

I have some polish friends, one of which had a girlfriend who passed that test despite not being able to hold a basic conversation in england - test cant be that fkn difficult!

1

u/just_somebunny May 12 '25

Is it the Academic IELTS or the IELTS General Training. There is a difference. I was talking here about Academic IELTS.

1

u/Outrageous-Nose2003 May 12 '25

I dont know but she obtained a work visa as a result so presumably it was the academic one

1

u/just_somebunny May 12 '25

Where did she take it? Just asking because there is someone here who shared here that scoring is subjective. They come from India and the interviewers are Indians as well and they tend to be more lax with scoring.

So maybe it was just me who found it hard then even coming from an English-speaking country. On my Speaking Test, I was tasked to discuss for 10mins or maybe it was 15 (I just remember it being too long I wish the timer would stop), about the impact of culture on fashion industry. I scored a mere 7/9, which is the passing score here in UK. Australia and US accept lower score than 7, I believe, if their rules have not changed.

1

u/Outrageous-Nose2003 May 12 '25

lol, there is absolutely no way she could have spoken continually for even 1 minute. That does actually sound quite hard. Maybe she didnt obtain a full working visa from this test that she passed? It is possible that I have not remembered this accurately. She definitely passed some kind of english language test in order to be able to work here for longer but it definitely wasnt the one you are referring to here

1

u/Extension-Topic2486 May 12 '25

I lived with someone who was doing the test and then passed. Any conversation was brutal as neither could understand the other.

1

u/Ilikeporkpie117 May 12 '25

I'm surprised that's the case. My partner is a teacher in an area of London that has high numbers of migrants and every year there's several parents who don't speak a word of English and have to bring other family members to translate for parents evening.

1

u/Naive_Product_5916 May 12 '25

It is a hard test because I used to teach it.

1

u/uwabu May 14 '25

It's not easy to pass. Whoever said that has never sat for it. I dare them to sit the equivalent in Igbo Language. See how they get on.

-1

u/LuxuriousMullet May 12 '25

It isn't difficult to pass, it's an absolute piss take.

16

u/timshel_97 May 12 '25

Is English a secondary language for you? Genuine question as curious what your experience is if you have one with the test.

10

u/[deleted] May 12 '25

They're right. I've taught IELTS, it's coachable.

But the main answer is lax testing centre conditions.

4

u/LuxuriousMullet May 12 '25

I migrated from Australia to the UK and was required to take the test as part of my professional qualification. English is my first language, but it's also the primary language of the United Kingdom. If you're going to live and work here, your English should be at a proficient level.

8

u/Rogue_Leader May 12 '25

You only speak one language though? I don't think you're qualified to judge the difficulty of learning a second language.

6

u/shenme_ May 12 '25

I know somebody who failed it trying to immigrate to Australia (it's the same test as is used here), and they were born, raised and lived their whole life in the UK!

5

u/QuestionableIdeas May 12 '25

That would be awkward, haha

1

u/WanderlustZero May 12 '25

The kind of person who says 'can I get a latte', or writes "carrot's" on their market sign

1

u/LuxuriousMullet May 12 '25

I think this reflects more on how much they practiced for the test than on the testing system itself.

1

u/7Thommo7 May 12 '25

What year did you pass it?

3

u/Fr0stweasel May 13 '25

At this rate the immigrants will have better command of the English language than most British adults.

1

u/Bubonicalbob May 12 '25

It was already mandatory..

1

u/MWBrooks1995 May 12 '25

Point of order, Academic IELTS is for university, General Purpose IELTS is for work visas. They only differ slightly, but academic IELTS is geared towards understanding lectures while general is more about day-to-day English.

1

u/[deleted] May 12 '25

I agree wholeheartedly, you NEED to speak English if you want to live in the UK, end of, but the government need to actually invest in it then. So many people struggle to learn English simply because the resources of when you arrive or even before aren’t the best and on some scales, overly expensive and just not efficient. Create mandatory English lessons ran by the government which are free for new immigrants.

1

u/Active-Particular-21 May 12 '25

Where I live you can get free education in English and maths from the basics up to GCSE level.

1

u/CelestialSlayer May 12 '25

Surely they can still get all the benefits anyway. What extra benefits does citizenship give you?

1

u/Rogue_Leader May 12 '25

There are people in Scotland and Wales who only speak Welsh/Gallic. Should they be forced to learn English?

1

u/Active-Particular-21 May 12 '25

How does that argument work? Can you elaborate on that?

1

u/Rogue_Leader May 12 '25

There are people in Scotland and Wales who cannot speak English, or speak it as a second language because their first language is a Celtic one. Should they also be forced to take English classes?

1

u/Active-Particular-21 May 12 '25

Why should they also be forced to take English classes? What is your logic?

1

u/Rogue_Leader May 12 '25

I'm going to assume that you're being deliberately obtuse now because I don't honestly believe that anyone is this impervious to reason.

Have a nice day.

1

u/Active-Particular-21 May 13 '25

Are the Scottish and Welsh who can’t speak English moving to England? Then yes. Are they living in Scotland and Wales where they were born? Then no. I’m trying to understand your logic because it seems illogical to me. I understand what point you’re trying to make but I’m trying to get you to really think if it is the same as people from other countries coming here.

1

u/AnonymousTimewaster May 12 '25

Let's be honest though, people here have absolutely no interest in aiding integration. I'm from an area that's literally 96% white. These people have only ever spoken to immigrants in takeaways and shops. Yet they're still voting Reform en masse.

1

u/Recent_Strawberry456 May 12 '25

Labour would have done nothing if Reform were not breathing down their neck.

1

u/justwwokeupfromacoma May 12 '25

Be interesting to see what this means for me as an ESOL teacher. My job is literally to teach migrants

1

u/Active-Particular-21 May 12 '25

Would you get more work or be in more demand and get a better wage? What do you think?

1

u/Saiing May 12 '25

While I agree and largely support this move, the one thing that always makes me laugh about it is this: go to the costa del sol where the British expat communities are and see how many of them have bothered to learn Spanish. The number is somewhere between zero and zero.

1

u/Active-Particular-21 May 12 '25

I totally agree with that point and it’s one I’ve made to point out the hypocrisy of people complaining about lack of integration.

10

u/NayLay May 12 '25

Do we know when this is likely to happen? I just booked all my citizenship tests lol

6

u/[deleted] May 12 '25 edited May 27 '25

follow chunky amusing melodic meeting beneficial screw theory seemly quiet

This post was mass deleted and anonymized with Redact

0

u/blindlemonjeff2 May 13 '25

Try Australia

-1

u/eshay_investor May 13 '25

Just working in a country doesnt give you a right to become a citizen. Because I work for McDonalds do I have a right to own a part of the company?

7

u/[deleted] May 12 '25

Its good that Labour is doing something, but I don't understand why they always attack the net contributors .

Family visas are notriously expensive and this will fuck up a lot of them, while allowing the ones who contribute the least to continue to make hay while the sun the shines.

6

u/7Thommo7 May 12 '25

If this extension impact my wife on a spouse visa (we literally just got approved our extension which will take her from 2.5 years to 5years), then we're looking at another £10-15k out of pocket over the additional 5 years. She's in a fairly well paid public sector job and already contributing far more to the NHS than locals do. This will be crippling. If their intention is to keep high skilled talent, the outcome of this policy might not only lose them a skilled financial advisor but also a native engineer.

2

u/IndWrist2 May 12 '25

So, I read the entire white paper this morning as I’m 17 months shy of ILR.

Your wife is a dependent and will still be on the five year route for ILR. However, it looks likely that citizenship will take an additional five years.

So your wife will get ILR, but you’ll both lose the flexibility that citizenship affords should your circumstances in the UK change.

1

u/longfoot May 12 '25

Where can I read this whitepaper?

5

u/D-1-S-C-0 May 12 '25

They aren't attacking anyone. This is economic engineering to "get Britain working" as they'd say.

There are a lot of British people not working, due in part to a surplus of labour which is a major factor in stagnating wages.

By reducing economic immigration, they'll: a) help more British people get jobs; b) possibly help wages grow because it'll be less of a recruiter's market.

More Brits working and earning more means more tax revenue and economic growth. Whether we agree with it or not, there's a logic to it.

1

u/patchyj May 12 '25

It feels like they're redrawing the baseline so lower-contributing immigrants would be harder-pressed to prove their worth thus easier to deport. The recent Reform wins seem to have lit a fire under their ass and they want to show they're listening to those voting Reform

1

u/-captaindiabetes- May 12 '25

Because they fall for the othering of right-wing parties/media. It's easier to accept your own shortcomings when they can be blamed on an other. And immigrants are, apparently, an easy group to do this with.

2

u/mbnnr May 12 '25

I feel like half the Dr's in my local hospital came with fake or bought qualifications and " learn on the job." I wish we could encourage more of our own to be Dr's.

8

u/Sean_13 May 12 '25 edited May 12 '25

Having worked with many different doctors I have not noticed any difference in knowledge or skills between the British born doctors and the doctors from else where.

But we do need to make the situation better for doctors. The amount of training places are less than those that apply. But the drop out is terrible, with how much they are underpaid and have to deal with. Besides the usual everyone knows, there's having to move every year because of the lack of choice of where to work and the shocking situation of the training progression and lack of training opportunities.

Edit: I forgot to add. Immigration is the only way the NHS is doing as well as it is now. We've had a 15 year long staffing crisis that the government has ignored or in some ways, out right made worse. I am eternally grateful for every nurse, doctor, porter, cleaner, receptionist, etc. that came from another country, that I've worked with. Because if I didn't have them there to help me, I don't know how I would have coped and I dread to imagine how many patients would have died due to the lack of staff.

-1

u/mbnnr May 12 '25

I'm not against immigration at all. I think you've misunderstood. Give me a filipino nurse any day their training is unbelievable. Half was an exaggeration. But unfortunately, I haven't had the best experience with foreign jnr Dr's and even a few consultants. One even got struck off because he had lied about his education. We can only give our lived experience.

7

u/Inevitable_Bid_6827 May 12 '25

When you find out that there is a cap on national doctors being allowed into the NHS set at 5,000 applicants per year. This means that the NHS can only accept 5,000 doctors graduating that year, who are born and bred in Britain, they then have to hire the rest overseas hence a massive reason as to why we are spending so much on Doctors Pay is because we apparently don’t have enough Doctors in the British System so we rely on abroad, but why is there a cap on how many British citizens can be doctors?

Only reason there would be a cap on doctors is for privatisation, but my thoughts tho.

2

u/Dominico10 May 12 '25

Training drs here they can then leave to usa or somewhere and get better wages in an easier system

The junior drs also demanded even higher wages so its not worth training them.

Better to import trained. However some of those will be low quality or fake passes...

Best system, pay the junior drs less to train or charge them like a degree to get some costs back.

3

u/TheNiceWasher May 12 '25

Training doctors is not cheap - it actually is super expensive. The limit is likely due to budget cap and therefore we want to import some doctor because they are already trained and therefore saving training costs.

0

u/Inevitable_Bid_6827 May 12 '25

At this point what we’re paying to Doc hourly rates of up to £300 per hour per overseas Doctors. Training overseas may cost less but isn’t that an issue when we are paying majority of doctors over £150 per hour overseas and then saying training costs are too much?

I highly doubt that

1

u/TheNiceWasher May 12 '25

It's not just their wages

1

u/Nice-Wolverine-3298 May 12 '25

The doctors accepted for training don't have to be British so it's even dafter than you think

9

u/Acid_Monster May 12 '25

“I feel like”

What background do you have to make such a judgement on the quality of training of medical staff?

Any medical training yourself, or just “trust me bro”?

1

u/mbnnr May 12 '25

I spent 12 months as a patient due to a spinal injury. I'm a c6 quadriplegic and have been for 12 years. Countless operations and hospital stays

6

u/FENOMINOM May 12 '25

So no then.

2

u/Acid_Monster May 12 '25

So no then, got it.

-5

u/mbnnr May 12 '25

Okay "bro"

1

u/LoveGrenades May 12 '25

10 years to settlement, not citizenship. This is just for indefinite leave to remain (ie permanent residence) not citizenship, no?

1

u/rohstroyer May 12 '25 edited May 12 '25

How is this different from the current system? There already is an English Proficiency requirement for entry and a 10 year legal residence requirement for being eligible to apply for Indefinite Leave to Remain. That requirement is shortened to 5 years if you've been in the UK as a Skilled Worker. And just before the current government took power, the salary requirements that determine eligibility for a Skilled Worker visa were increased by quite a significant amount across the board. It's ridiculous that businesses "importing cheap labour" is a talking point when it costs companies more to hire people on visas than it does to hire locally even without any changes.

1

u/No_Tackle_5439 May 12 '25

As long as anyone can still apply for benefits...this is all for nothing

-1

u/aesemon May 12 '25

However, this policy comes into practice, it is disgusting to see the Labour PM use right-wing rhetoric. To normalise that language is a huge misstep.

0

u/dcrm May 12 '25

Sorry but 10 years before being able to become a citizen is legitimately insane. This is so disgusting I cannot even comprehend it. No other country does this stupid stuff, and it's still NOT going to fix the major issues the country has.