Written evidence by Dr Jonathan Collinson (SCI0245)

At a Glance

This submission argues that settlement – Indefinite Leave to Remain – is the assumption of social responsibility for the individual. This is normatively and theoretically distinct from citizenship as the assumption of political responsibility. Settlement as the assumption of social responsibility for an individual extends the protection of the national life-raft of the welfare benefits system and nationalised health service in situations of ill-health, disability, or unemployment. Settlement therefore forms a vital aspect of the social contract between the receiving society and immigrant, and that where the receiving society demands the integration of the immigrant, the state has a corresponding duty to assume social responsibility for the integrated individual. Thus, the social contract between the state and immigrant is that where the immigrant accedes to the state’s demand that they integrate, the state must then assume social responsibility for the individual through a grant of settled status.

1. Introduction

This submission defends the UK immigration law’s “indefinite leave to remain” status against two current political attacks. First, from Reform’s nationalist proposal to abolish the status in favour of a single status of citizenship[1] and second, the Labour government’s proposal that settlement ought to be ‘earned’ through demonstrations of economic, fiscal, social, or community contribution.[2] It does so by articulating the normative underpinning of settlement in UK immigration law as an assumption of social responsibility for the individual. This is normatively and theoretically distinct from citizenship as the assumption of political responsibility. Settlement as the assumption of social responsibility for an individual extends the protection of the national life-raft of the welfare benefits system and nationalised health service in situations of ill-health, disability, or unemployment. Settlement therefore forms a vital aspect of the social contract between the receiving society and immigrant, and that where the receiving society demands the integration of the immigrant, the state has a corresponding duty to assume social responsibility for the integrated individual. Thus, the social contract between the state and immigrant is that where the immigrant accedes to the state’s demand that they integrate, the state must then assume social responsibility for the individual through a grant of settled status.

              Indefinite leave to remain (ILR) is also known as ‘settlement’ or ‘settled status’ in UK law and this submission uses ILR, settlement, and settled status interchangeably. The term ILR describes its function in the UK’s immigration law as giving legal permission (‘leave’) to someone to stay in the country for an indefinite rather than a time-limited period. Viewing ILR as “settlement” reflects the understanding that the holder has made their home in the UK for a sustained period of time (minimum qualifying periods of three, five, 10, and 20 years under current law depending on the visa held) and intends to continue to do so (is “settled”).

              Settlement principally carries the right for the holder to access means-tested welfare benefits and free use of the NHS.[3] This is important because this access is not currently granted to most individuals resident in the UK on time-limited visas, who are normally subject to a condition that they have ‘no recourse to public funds’.[4] Individuals with time-limited visas are frequently required to pay a ‘health surcharge’ at the point of applying for a visa or visa renewal,[5] and may also be charged for their use of NHS secondary[6] and maternity[7] healthcare. By contrast, when settled status is obtained, the holder no longer has to make regular payments to the NHS over and above contributing through general taxation. Furthermore, individuals with time-limited visas may be required to stay in employment with a specified employer[8] or in a relationship with a specified partner[9] or forfeit their limited leave to remain. A settled person, however, is under no such obligation and may change their job or partner without consequences for their rights to residence.

The Committee asks what the difference between settlement and citizenship is or should be. In Parts 2 and 3, I argue that a grant of settled status is, in UK law, an assumption of social responsibility for the individual, distinct from the assumption of political responsibility underlying citizenship naturalisation. In Part 4, the concept of ‘earned citizenship’ is revealed as being incoherent in the context of the government’s articulation of economic growth as the primary social goal of its political prospectus, and inconsistent with the theoretical premise of settlement in UK immigration law as the assumption of social responsibility. In Part 5, I make and defend the normative case for settlement in UK immigration law, arguing that where the state demands the integration of the immigrant, the state has a corresponding duty to assume social responsibility for the integrated individual. Finally, in Part 6, I argue that neither the nationalist nor ‘earned settlement’ attacks on ILR are consistent with this normative proposition.

2. Settled status as an assumption of social responsibility

I argue that a grant of settled status in UK law is an assumption of social responsibility for the individual. The UK’s welfare benefits system and National Health Service (NHS) are life-rafts of socialised responsibility in what is otherwise an economically liberal or neoliberal state based on a premise of individual responsibility. Welfare benefits and the NHS were created to socialise the risks of disability, ill-health, and unemployment. The quote commonly attributed to Bevan is emblematic of this: ‘illness is neither an indulgence for which people have to pay, nor an offence for which they should be penalised, but a misfortune the cost of which should be shared by the community’.[10] Thus, everyone in society has an obligation to its members through the creation and maintenance of the national life-rafts of support in case of disability, ill-health, and unemployment.

Admittance to and benefit from the national life-raft is not conditional on fiscal contributions or good works. Means tested public funds and NHS care are made available to everyone who needs it who qualifies, rather than it being based on prior contribution. Prior fiscal contributions through tax or national insurance are not required, as is the case with contributory benefits such as the state pension. Nor are prior social contributions through good works required. NHS treatment, child benefit, and an uplift to family Universal Credit entitlement are available to citizen and settled babes-in-arms, despite it being impossible for them to have made an evidencable contribution, being neither taxpayer nor able to undertake acts of community value. An 18-year-old school leaver is entitled to Universal Credit without having a prior history of taxpaying and without having to evidence having made a positive social or community contribution.

              Individuals on time-limited visas are, by and large, excluded from the socialisation of these risks and, instead, are subject to the full neoliberal logic of personal responsibility. In the event of ill-health or unemployment, they must either pay their way or else take individual initiative and exit the UK and then might avail themselves of whatever national life-rafts are provided for in their country of nationality. Given this, settlement is not a status of granting rights, but a status of assuming responsibility for the individual within the national life-rafts of the welfare benefits system and NHS. Granting settlement is, essentially, society assuming responsibility for an individual within the socialisation of risk; of saying, “we will take care of you”.

That settled status is not the granting of a general right to welfare benefits is further proven by the fact that most non-means tested benefits are not ‘public funds’ for the purpose of the ‘no recourse to public funds’ condition.[11] Certain social security schemes, such as the state pension, statutory sick pay, statutory maternity pay, may be paid out to an individual with a time limited visa because they can earn the right to access these through their individual national insurance contributions. We grant individuals with time-limited visas the right to buy into these forms of nationalised insurance and grant the right to receive payments from these schemes based on those contributions. No contribution in, no benefits out. The premise of national insurance as a distinct element of the tax regime is that in paying in contributions, these can later be drawn on in case of sickness, maternity, or old age (whether this premise has ever been fulfilled is beside the point). All workers, including migrant workers on time-limited visas, are granted the right to enter this national insurance scheme.

By contrast, the public funds extended to those with settled status are means-tested benefits. They are benefits to which all people (not just workers) are entitled to receive, regardless of their fiscal contribution. You do not have to have contributed a penny in general taxation to receive the benefits extended, and the amount received can never be varied or exhausted based on the quantity of your previous contributions (unlike some of the benefits associated with prior national insurance contributions). Therefore, granting settled status extends to the individual the protections of the national life-raft to which everyone contributes on the basis of ability (through general taxation) and receives on the basis of need rather than on past contribution. Granting the legal status of settlement to an individual is, therefore, about assuming social responsibility for them.

3. Citizenship as an assumption of political responsibility

The additional rights associated with citizenship are primarily political – the right to vote and stand for election to Parliament – and the right of abode, which is freedom from deportation.[12] Citizenship is not granted concurrently with settled status; an adult seeking naturalisation as a British citizen must have had settled status for at least one year before being eligible to apply and a minimum of five years residence in total.[13] Settled status is ‘social citizenship’ (per TH Marshall)[14] in that it provides equality of social rights, but full citizenship is a status of complete belonging to the polity. Citizenship as ‘the right to have rights’ (per Hannah Arendt) is the right to make the rules by which everyone else must follow within society through an individual’s ability to participate in the political process as political equals with other citizens.[15] Citizenship can also be characterised as an assumption of responsibility - political rather than social. The hallmark of citizenship is non-deportability. By granting citizenship, a polity assumes responsibility for that individual if they commit a criminal offence; the responsibility to incarcerate as needed and reintegrate into the polity afterwards. The ability to deport the non-citizen (including settled or permanent residents) is consequent to the polity not having assumed political responsibility for them.

The UK has increasingly disavowed any responsibility towards foreign criminals, by withholding rehabilitative courses from incarcerated foreign nationals,[16] by making more foreign national offenders subject to automatic deportation,[17] and even by abrogating its responsibility to incarcerate at all through extensions to the Early Removal Scheme.[18] Citizenship as the assumption of responsibility is also one of the reasons that international law seeks to discourage citizenship stripping and statelessness, even as a consequence of criminal behaviour, because it is the state abrogating the responsibilities that it had (or should have) assumed.[19] Therefore, citizenship has different philosophical underpinnings from settlement, even if they were to be granted concurrently. The assumption of social responsibility, that “we will take care of you”, is theoretically distinct from being granted the right to contribute to making the rules for the political community.

4. ‘Earned settlement’ and logical incoherence

The government’s plans for settlement are logically incoherent. These include extending the qualification period for settlement for skilled worker migrants to a minimum of ten years, and including an element of requiring settlement to be ‘earned’ through demonstrations of economic, fiscal, social, and/or community contribution. The plan is incoherent as it undercuts the government’s own case for admitting skilled migrants, and it does not fit the existing underlying rationale for settlement based on an assumption of social responsibility for three reasons.

              First, the government’s rationale for admitting migrants for the purposes of work is that such workers are necessary for the economic and fiscal contribution that they make. Skilled worker visas are obtained by those in jobs which are defined by the government through its own immigration rules as being (a) highly skilled (at degree level or above),[20] (b) highly paid (as defined by the minimum salary),[21] and/or (c) fulfil a critical shortage (enumerated in the Immigration Salary List of occupations experiencing skilled labour shortages).[22] The government has the power to control the entry of workers further by, for example, reintroducing the resident labour market test which was a feature of the original Points Based System to ensure that the vacancy could not be filled by a worker already resident in the UK.[23]

Throughout their time limited stay in the UK, highly skilled workers must continue to be employed in a job which meets the requisite skill, salary, and/or shortage threshold,[24] with an employer with a sponsorship licence to ensure the continued surveillance of those conditions.[25] The highly skilled worker must therefore continue to meet the government’s requirements for economic and fiscal contribution for the duration of their time-limited visa. If they do not, for example in the case of redundancy or demotion, they must either find a job within the UK which meets the economic and fiscal conditions set by the government, switch to another visa category which the government permits migrants to reside on (such as a student, family member of a citizen or settled person, or other economic category such as an active investor), or else have their leave to remain cancelled.

              Requiring a separate demonstration of fiscal or economic contribution at the point of settlement suggests that the government believes that its own rules for the entry and continued stay of highly skilled workers, as well as its own policies on taxation, are incapable of ensuring that an admitted migrant worker does, in fact, make an economic and fiscal contribution. This is either an extraordinary admission of failure or a point of incoherence in the policy, given the level of control that the government can wield over its admission of workers for the purpose of employment, and the ways in which it already defines who is able to obtain entry on this basis to ensure that applicants for entry would be providing a material economic or fiscal contribution to the UK.

              Secondly, many highly skilled workers make evident social and community contributions through the very work that they are granted entry to the UK to perform. Doctors, other healthcare workers, teachers, and caring professions are necessarily delivering social and community benefit through their profession. But this government has also defined economic growth as its overriding social goal, foundational to its political prospectus for delivering benefit to the community.[26] It argues that its policies to stimulate economic growth should outweigh environmental and other concerns because it believes economic growth to be the defining social goal by which the whole community benefits. Building more homes ensures more people are able to afford good quality housing, growing businesses ensures that more people are employed, and increasing economic activity enables more taxation to be paid to fund the NHS, schools, and the other social and community functions of government. Therefore, requiring further demonstrations of social and community contributions by individual migrants for the purposes of settlement undermines the government’s case for its prioritisation of economic growth above all other factors.

Thirdly, the policy of requiring a demonstration of contribution is incoherent with the hitherto underlying premise of settlement as the assumption of social responsibility. The previous two points might be said to apply exclusively to skilled worker visa holders, and other migrants admitted to visa categories which are exclusively related to economic activity (investors and so on). However, the above arguments are not about defending settlement for highly skilled workers per se, but by way of highlighting the wider incoherence of the government’s proposals for earned citizenship with respect to its justifications for its entry controls for workers and for its promotion of economic growth as the primary social benefit which this government seeks to deliver.

5. Settled status, integration, and the social contract with migrants

The best normative case for settlement as it currently stands in UK immigration law is that where the state demands the integration of the immigrant, the state has a corresponding duty to assume social responsibility for that integrated individual. The social contract between the state and immigrant must be that where the immigrant accedes to the state’s demand that they integrate, the state must provide settled status. This formulation works in reverse too: the state cannot legitimately demand integration by a migrant if it withholds the possibility of future settlement.

              Discourses around migrant integration can be controversial and the problematisation of “integration”[27] is to be welcomed. However, this submission proceeds on the basis that UK immigration law does demand the integration of migrants seeking settlement.[28] In the absence of an agreed definition for integration,[29] I define integration as (a) a process that is integrative and (b) makes one integral. I expand on these definitions below.

              Integration as a process is integrative and makes one integral; it changes the immigrant and the receiving society.[30] Integration as an integrative process does not require an individual to renounce or disavow their prior identity; rather, they make the norms of the receiving society an integrative part of their newly formed identity, which contains aspects of both. Society must also accept the reception of migrants as an integrative process too, in that it will be different simply for the fact of being receptive and open to the integration of the immigrant in a newly formed integrative, hyphenated identity of being British-. Integration is a two-way process of embeddedness within communities that makes the immigrant integral too. On the community level, integrated immigrant communities are integral to what Britain is: Britain would be incomplete without its integrated immigrant communities. Stripping Britain back to an imagined, white Anglo-Saxon core would mean that Britain would no longer be Britain. On the individual level, integration is found when my immigrant neighbours, colleagues, and family members make themselves integral to my life, and where I make myself integral to theirs: incomplete without.

Current UK immigration law and practice only makes formal demands of integration on those it offers the possibility of settlement. Individuals on a Hong Kong British National (Overseas) visa,[31] Highly Skilled Workers,[32] and other economic visas, and their dependents,[33] must meet English language requirements and pass the ‘Life in the UK’ knowledge test. Refugees are subject to being denied settlement if they have failed to integrate by demonstrating that their ‘character, conduct or associations are considered not to be conducive to the public good’,[34] which is more onerous than the criteria for exclusion from the initial grant of time-limited refugee status of having committed serious crime or international wrongs.[35] These are tested at the point of application for settlement but reflect continuous demands to engage with the integrative process of integration. These tests are combined with the temporal condition of a minimum period of continuous residence as a proxy condition for integration, reflecting the view that integration can only be achieved over a period of time,[36] rather than being instantly achieved by the individual or bestowed by the receiving society.

By contrast, UK immigration law does not make formal demands of integration of migrants to whom it denies the possibility of settlement.[37] Students, displaced Ukrainians, intra-company transferees, and visitors, amongst others, all have stays in the UK which are always assumed to be temporary.[38] In these cases, extensions to visas are never accompanied by integration tests, such as when extending a Ukrainian scheme visa, or an application for a further student visa as a postgraduate student.

6. Settlement as duty

As integration is a process of making oneself integral to the receiving society, then the assumption of social responsibility through settled status for the integrated individual becomes a normative duty on the state. The demand for integration and resultant duty to assume social responsibility are logically distinct from citizenship. In becoming integrated, the migrant has made themselves integral to the receiving society: the receiving society is incomplete without them. Assuming social responsibility for them within the national life-raft of state welfare and NHS treatment allows that person to remain a part of the society to which they are integral in the event of unemployment, disability, or ill-health. Withholding access to public funds and free secondary healthcare may require the integrated individual to leave the UK to secure the necessities of survival in their country of nationality or elsewhere. In so doing, the person who has made themselves integral – at the demand of the receiving society – must leave the UK and, in having lost an integral part of itself, the receiving society is less than it was before. Only by assuming social responsibility for the integrated individual through settlement, can the receiving society ensure its integrity.

              Whether the integrated individual also wants to become part of the body politic by assuming political responsibility as a citizen, and, indeed, whether the receiving society wants to assume political responsibility for them by making them citizen, is a logically distinct question. There may be lots of good reasons why an integrated individual may not wish to become a citizen; for example, if in obtaining British citizenship they would be forced by the laws of the country of existing nationality to renounce their other citizenship. Forcing a choice between residency and citizenship in these circumstances is inimical to the liberal premise of the exercise of free will.

The state may also be content to let an individual reside permanently on its territory but not want to assume political responsibility or want an individual to be part of the rule-making political community as a citizen, because of their notoriety, for example. In the case of Mohamed Al Fayed, his previous involvement in providing cash to MPs to ask questions in Parliament meant that it was reasonable to assert that although his continued residency in the UK was not contrary to the public good warranting deportation, his previous subversion of the political process was sufficient reason for it to be undesirable to allow him to participate more deeply in the political life of the nation as a citizen.[39]

              Settlement as duty also answers the claim that settlement ought to be earned through fiscal, economic, social, and/or community contributions. Despite the White Paper’s emphasis on ‘long-term contribution’,[40] such contributions are not valid proxy conditions for integration because they can be earned without engaging in the process of integration. For example, Taylor Swift’s 2024 tour to the UK generated about £1billion of economic activity in the UK,[41] with knock-on fiscal contributions on taxes paid on that activity, whilst also making a profound social contribution by helping to underline the UK as a major destination for international musical acts and ensuring that her British fans could see her in their own country rather than having to live or travel abroad. Swift’s tour included visits to only 10 other European countries, and the UK was the only European tour stop outside of the EU.[42] However, despite Swift’s economic and fiscal contribution being orders of magnitude greater than most citizen or migrant workers would achieve across multiple lifetimes, it would be absurd to suggest that she had thereby ‘earned’ settlement in the UK. This is because settlement is not premised on the migrant’s contribution but on their integration. The swift nature of her visit to the UK would have been insufficient for her to have engaged in the integrative process of integration through which she was able to form a new and distinct identity as British-Taylor, nor made her contribution integral to the UK (as welcome as the short-term economic boost may have been). She would have failed the tests of integration set by UK settlement law: time (as a proxy for integration as a process) and would be unlikely to be able to pass the ‘Life in the UK’ test on the strength of knowledge of what it means to live in the UK obtained solely during a short tour. Indeed, the ‘Life in the UK’ test is supposedly based on what an integrated individual should know from having been an integral resident of the UK.

7. Conclusion

It is also not to say that there are not also other excellent functionalist reasons to reject the government’s proposals. These include pointing to the myriad of ways in which settlement is already earned, and the fact that it is impossible to define and measure the totality of a person’s economic, fiscal, community, or social contributions. Furthermore, vulnerable individuals (such as refugees) may be unable to meet or evidence such rules for reasons of their vulnerability, and undermine their integration,[43] and such requirements perpetuate the gendered ways in which the economic and intrinsic values of domestic, caring, and child-raising labour are rendered invisible to public policy.[44]

19 December 2025