Proposed ILR Rules – The Unfair Impact on Working Mothers and the Need for a Full Maternity Exemption

[Zinary]

I am writing this with a newborn in my arms, and my heart is completely breaking.
Instead of being allowed to heal, rest, and soak in the pure joy of my baby, I am sitting here crying, terrified, and questioning if I made the right choice to have a child. How can a mother be driven to question her greatest gift, her absolute world, all because of a cruel change to immigration law?
On 2 November, Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood announced the finalized "Earned Settlement" rules. To get Indefinite Leave to Remain (ILR) in the standard 5 years, you now must earn over £50,271 a year.
But the absolute malice is in the fine print: you must meet that £50,271 threshold in three out of the last five years before you apply.
The Home Office is actively spinning this "3 out of 5 years" rule as a generous maternity "buffer." They are telling the public it gives women two years of leeway to have a baby.
Let me tell you why that math is a blatant, calculated lie for real women:

1. The Starting Trap: Many of us spent our first two years in the UK working up from entry-level salaries, earning below that £50k mark. Our two "buffer years" are ALREADY GONE. We have zero margin for error left.
2. The Maternity Penalty: Pregnancy is nine months of physical toll, followed by maternity leave and statutory pay dips. If your annual P60 earnings drop below £50,271 because you lose out on bonuses, commission, or overtime while caring for your baby, your year doesn't count. The clock resets.
3. The Multi-Child Ban: If you want to have two children within five years, it is mathematically impossible to hit that threshold for three consecutive years.

If the math fails you because you chose to have a baby, you are forced onto the 10-year path. The punishment? Paying thousands of pounds more in upfront Immigration Health Surcharges (IHS) and visa extensions just to keep your home. For a family, we are talking about an extra £35,000+ extracted by the Home Office. This is evil. It is a pay-to-settle hierarchy that penalizes the female body and treats human lives like a spreadsheet. The right to live and build a family must NEVER be a hard choice. The Home Office is laying these rules before Parliament next month (December) to take effect in 2027. We have a tiny, critical window to fight this. I am calling on every mother, every ally, and anyone who believes that a woman shouldn't be penalized for having a child to help us.

• If you are an immigration lawyer: How do we launch a class-action challenge against this under the Equality Act?
• If you have links to journalists or MPs: Please help us get this cruel math into the mainstream media. Backbench Labour MPs forced a U-turn on care workers last week—we can force a U-turn on mothers if we make enough noise.
• If you are a British citizen: Will you write to your MP on behalf of your migrant friends and colleagues who have no voice in the ballot box?

Please bump this, share this, and tell me what we can do. I refuse to let a spreadsheet dictate whether it was a "mistake" to hold my beautiful baby.

Shouting “WHERES THE HUMANITY” isn’t going to help gain sympathy. Lots of people are sick of the amount of migrants that have come into the UK, especially when it means needing UC and NHS resources. Very little will change that.

Oh right, so you aren't planning to use the NHS? Did you go totally private for the pregnancy and birth? What about schooling? Will you be donating your non-means tested CB?

I was born in London and had to completely self-fund my son's nursery. I absolutely had to go back to work as I didn't have a penny, (husband left abruptly) so my son went into nursery aged 3 and it was genuinely the toughest time of my life. Working 10 hour days, relying on my sister to collect him, and getting not a penny of help for nursery fees. It was nothing like it is today. By the time he was born I'd contributed thousands in taxes. Guess I'm just one of those who puts in and rarely takes out.

I don’t think the option of encouraging young women to migrate to a country to produce babies for our benefit is the solid argument you think it is. That’s verging on exploitation.

I don’t think it is exploitation as someone who is under 30 has been educated elsewhere, is typically young and healthy and has 35 years plus of work in them. It is a solid economic argument.

As for maternity, women in tech/doctors/law etc who are high earners are getting ILR pretty quickly. So lots of women from China/India/HK in the top jobs are qualifying quickly.

As it should be. Then the lower paid jobs can be done by young people who were born here starting out and need experience. There are so many young people here who can’t get work. Yeah I get some are lazy but there’s a massive shortage of jobs

@Zinary

So you came to the Uk

Were you already married

or did you meet your husband here

is your husband the same nationality to you

What would happen if you did have to return to your own country ?

would your husband go with you

would your child / children go with you as I couldn't figure out if you have had one or two children during this 5 year period.

How many years out of the 5 required years have you done ?

Is it just not a choice not to have a second child during this 5 year period - if this baby is indeed your first ?

I think it is unfair to do that retrospectively for people who came here legally. I think it is done to look like the Government are taking action, as nothing they or previous governments have tried is stopping illegal immigration.

Regardless of other arguments for / against it strikes me as extremely unfair to change the goal posts for those who've already invested in moving to a new country in good faith. Surely new rules ought to taper in?

And if earning below £50000 is such a problem, you have to question why our entire society is reliant on such a high proportion of just those low earning jobs. I'd like to see how a high earner manages when one removes their kids' nanny and most of the school staff; their parents' carers; a large proportion of NHS staff including sone of the doctors; refuse collection; most people working for utilities; supply chain logistics; retail etc etc.

Actually I think it's very important to compare our rules to those of other countries with both much more generous and lax policies and much stricter ones. I assume for you to come to the conclusion that the UK rules are 'unfair' you must be comparing it to somewhere you think is fairer?

The concept of 'fairness' is not a binary thing. There is no fixed point at which something becomes fair or unfair, just or unjust, it's entirely subjective and depends on the context. In the vast majority of cases this country doesn't owe anyone ILTR or a promise of citizenship, or the automatic right to be here (apart from a small handful of countries where it does.)

We can (and absolutely should) make our own rules based on our perceived needs as a country balanced against the very real challenges that too much immigration presents. We don't have to do you or anyone else any favours. You didn't come to the UK as a selfless act of service to us, did you? You came because you calculated that, all things considered, you would be financially better off or generally safer and more comfortable here, with a better standard of living.

You have used the words fair and unfair, just and unjust, cruel, equality, evil, malice, punishment....when talking about the new rules announced in the UK.

How about you tell us where you are from and we will compare our rules to the rules on immigration there? I think that is only fair. I'm going to assume it must be massively easier, better and more generous a country to be an immigrant wanting to get into the job market, especially a low skill, low wage position which needs topping up with state benefits, or to be an asylum seeker, otherwise why would you be complaining?

What is stopping the woman going back to work after three months and the man taking extended parental leave?
Pretty sexist to assume that the woman has to take many months off and that the man can't do this instead of her.

Normally I would agree.

Nobody would have an issue if the OP hadnt claimed that it is unfair that she isn’t able to work round the ILR because she has decided to have a child within the five years and is insisting on 12 months maternity.

Everyone who wants a child considers the financial implications - why should she not have to?

And her child will cost the UK just as much as any child born to a UK citizen, so it seems a bit unfair to be so demanding and accusing the country of being inhumane

Apparently free education and healthcare for her child doesn’t count as it’s a human right 🙄

OK but they are doing this because 1.25 million people arrived during a set period, many low skilled and costing into the many billions and billions (based on projections) and therefore affecting the countries finances, long term? So I am not sure “fairness” comes into it much.
And they have found a carve out for care specifically as they fulfilled a social role post pandemic, a bit like Windrush.
And anyone in high skill earning 125k is getting ILR very quickly - 3 years and can still qualify for mat allowances as these don’t constitute accessing public funds.
So I fail to see how the Government have not tried to strike a middle ground compromise.
I really think we are past individual groups whingeing that the axe falls on them. It is what it is. You have to adjust your behaviour and work within the system. ie go back to work sooner etc - years ago and in most countries around the world, hardly anyone gets to stay home with their baby for 12 months.

Also we desperately need people to have children to support an increasingly aging population

No we don't.

We can import as many adults as we like.

The only people who "desperately" need British people to give birth are those who are trying to keep the country as white as they can.

In your world maybe.

It was clear as day that it was sarcasm.
Sarcasm and irony are very British.

You are ignoring all the costs incurred after ILR has been gained.

Also the OP is not necessarily typical. I have looked this up and apparently a British person earning £29000 gross can bring in their partner and as many children as they have. The British partner can then claim child benefit and Universal Credit as if they were single.

You can have a child whenever you like, you are lucky many young couples can't and the NHS won't fund endless attempts at IVF, where I am it's one chance and that's it. Where's their human right to have a child? Count your blessings, you have your baby, you aren't being deported but you can choose to go home if that's what you want.

This is blatant sexism! It is so much easier for men to meet that threshold!

Being English born and bred, I am fully aware of this. In fact I have been outside the UK for precisely three days in the last 56 years.

I am also AuDHD so sometimes take the written word at face value - I was asking for proof because I didn’t want to come out and tell someone they were lying as it’s against talk guidelines.

Well plan your family around the rules then. It isn’t sexist at all.

I feel fir the OP who might well have a dh who is British and British children.

The reality is that this applies to many BRITISH people who meet someine abroad or in the U.K., get married, have a family and suddenly, theyre basically told by the British government Theyre not welcome to the U.K. anymore. Or that they ‘chose’ to have a family with non brit so they can fuck off to another country instead.

It is an issue and going on about the fact the OP (or any other woman, not man…) should have thought about it before getting pg, rules change or theyre only here to abuse the system (because clearly with a wage if 50k, that’s what they’re doing 🙄🙄) lack compassion for their fellow Brits and anyone caught in the storm tbh.

@Zinary this is a proposal and not law yet.
Get your citizenship asap and VOTE. Make it count.

Difficult to plan fir a rule that didn’t exist 5 years ago when you had a child though…..

But not, I wager, in the country from whence she came.