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.

Unfortunately people aren't able to move freely around the world living in whatever country they choose. There are always going to be rules around it.
This feels harsh because it's a moving of the goal posts and isn't the offer you expected from the UK.
However, unless you're in some sort of essential occupation like medicine, or have skills unavailable in the UK, I can't imagine in the current climate you're going to get much support to make it easier for you to live here.
I'm sorry for you on a personal level and sorry that the policy will disproportionately impact women. But trying to fight it will be like barking at the moon in this current climate.
You may have more success if you come at it from a pragmatic angle, as in, why the UK needs you, rather than from a place of anger at lost rights, as there will be little sympathy for that at the moment I'm afraid.

Not the case. The male and female are being treated the same, you would be choosing to take an extended period if time off work and at a reduced income. It’s a choice, it’s not mandatory.
You could choose to take less time off and still meet the earnings threshold if you wanted, just like the man
Or assuming the father is British, THEY could take paternity leave and be the one to take months off whilst OP returns to work after a few weeks.

What about shared parental leave? Your husband could take leave and you could go back to work?

OP this is a good point, you can share parental leave which would also make sure your own earning power doesn’t diminish from having children close together.

When a policy forces only the female worker to freeze her biological window to achieve the exact same legal security as her male colleague, it is not a 'neutral criteria.' It is systemic discrimination against women.

You chose to freeze your own biological window by migrating to a country close the time you wanted children.
You could have choose to move 3/4 years earlier and comfortably met the full earning years, or you could have choose to move later and had your children in your home country.
It’s not the responsibility of a foreign government to help you to have a child whenever you feel you fancy, regardless of your own circumstances.

She doesn’t want that type of equality though I’m assuming!

Did you miss where I said I am here because DH is British and circumstances means we need to live here?

The core issue is that the rule does not apply equally to men and women
It does! You're not stopped from going back to work. As above, how about your husband stay at home to look after the babies. See, equality between men and women!

No it isn't.
If you an unskilled or low skilled worker you shouldn't have been able to get a visa in the 1st place. Its that simple.
Choosing to move to another country and complaining about not being able to abuse the system of health care and citizen benefits which is what you are doing is a piss take and you know it.
If you don't like the rules leave because the rules are only going to get harsher as even labour (the left wing pro immigration party) have realised that the general public want to deport most immigrants and when the next election happens and you can guarantee that the right wing party which gets in (whichever one gets in or a coalition) will start removing immigrants and preventing anyone who is a net taker from ever getting a visa let alone ILR

I think you're missing a major issue too. Your partner can take equal parental leave. You can go back to work. Neither of you has to take a whole year off work. Many, many people can't afford to have a year on maternity or paternity leave. All families have to make complicated financial decisions to have a family, and make different compromises. Your compromise just happens to involve immigration status. For others is might be where they live, how long they wait to have a family, how many children they have...

And ultimately, you have a choice to live in a different country if you don't like the immigration laws here. I'm currently planning to go back to my home country, because I no longer want to live in the UK. This is an option for any immigrants.

If you earn £35k you're not a net contributor, you cost the state more than you put in in tax.

Also this has been on the cards for a long time now and you decided to have a child anyway.

In my opinion the changes didn't go nearly far enough and you're lucky that ILR is even still an option at all.

Yes I have to agree.

She doesn’t want that type of equality though I’m assuming!
Exactly that! OP wants privileged equality!

Well you don’t need to, you are choosing to because it’s a net benefit to you. Other wise he would move to your country or you would relocate together.

Wondering how OP is going to fund childcare on her 35k salary…

So just don’t have a baby twice in those years. People can make choices.

So I am pro immigration and people maternity leave and pay.

However I don't understand the 2 years to have a baby? Can't you get your leave to remain then have a baby?

I grew up very poor and according university and early poor pay was a struggle, no way having a baby would have been a good idea. So I didn't start trying until I was 30 and it took 5 years. I had my children at 35 and 38 and I knew it would be a struggle as I knew I had PCOS and endometriosis from the age of 17 and I told my husband who I met at 24 that he needed to be aware of that.

I don't understand why you think you only have a 2 year window when fertile years for most women is a 20 year window. Can you please explain?

Congratulations on your baby and your career though, I feel blessed every day to have both

@Miaaaaaow No I didn’t miss it, my comment still applies.

I moved here decades ago so this isn’t about me personally, but my point here not everyone is an economic migrant. People travel, study abroad, meet people from other countries they want to have children with.

Why are you using chat gpt for all your replies?

You have no right to settle in another country nor do you have a right to have children in that country and still get all the benefits of becoming a citizen or being allowed to stay.

Wait to have kids until your finances cover what is needed, and that includes immigration needs, like many women all over the told have to do because of finances.

The Civil Service does not sponsor workers.

As an immigrant, a refugee no less, people like OP stress me out immensely. I came here as a very young child so have little memory of my home country, I am a British citizen. My parents worked extremely hard to be model citizens (especially as our ethnic group is seen as undesirable) and tbh I still feel grateful every day that Britain continues to give me a home. Even in my situation I can’t imagine displaying the arrogant, entitled attitude OP does. I look around every day at magnificent buildings that my ancestor’s didn’t build, land that my ancestors never farmed, and just feel so supremely lucky and grateful to be here. I want to do everything I can to make my presence in Britain a positive one and repay the kindness - both financially and socially.

So reading this OP, and others like her, has been very agitating 😅 you’re spoiling it for the rest of us girl!! I don’t blame the British for wanting less immigration if they’re hearing people like OP.

even labour (the left wing pro immigration party) have realised that the general public want to deport most immigrants

Those who support Reform and Restore might, but the general public as a whole doesn't want to deport "most immigrants".

Very strange comment in that case.

Well said.