Informative · Labour

Andy Burnham just considered a care worker exemption and it has split his Cabinet

22 October 2026 · 22 October 2026Share

Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood at the 2025 APCC NPCC Partnership Summit. — Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood sets out her vision for policing reform at the 2025 APCC NPCC Partnership Summit. File photo. UK Home Office · CC BY 4.0

A row inside Andy Burnham's government is now out in the open. Two Cabinet ministers won't back the Home Secretary's own flagship policy.

So what is it?

Shabana Mahmood is the Home Secretary. She wants migrants to wait longer before they can settle in Britain permanently.

Right now, most migrants can apply for indefinite leave to remain after five years. Her plan pushes that to ten years for most migrants. And to 15 years for care workers.

That plan has been public since last autumn. It's been under consultation for months. But the fight over it has only just turned public, and personal.

Here's the twist. Andy Burnham, the Prime Minister, is now considering an exemption for care workers. Let them settle sooner than everyone else.

And his own Home Office is against it.

The Home Office says if care workers don't get a faster path, fine. But if they do, they'll just leave the sector the moment they're allowed to.

So the Home Secretary's own department is warning the Prime Minister off softening her own policy.

Two Cabinet colleagues already won't get behind it.

About a month ago, Angela Rayner, the Housing Secretary, said something pointed. Applying this rule backwards, to care workers who arrived from 2021 onwards, means quote "changing the goalposts" for people who came here to do that job.

Then, about a week ago, Miatta Fahnbulleh, the Energy Secretary, posted on her own constituency website. She said extending the wait could prolong the process of building cohesion in communities. That post was later deleted.

A day after that, Sky News asked her straight. Did she back the 15-year plan? She wouldn't say yes. She kept saying she backed immigration reform generally. Not the plan itself.

The rest of this story is for Silver and Gold members.

The Palace of Westminster on the bank of the River Thames in London. — The Palace of Westminster, home to the House of Commons and House of Lords, on the bank of the River Thames in London. File photo. Diliff · CC BY-SA 2.5

Miatta Fahnbulleh came to Britain from Liberia as a child refugee.

Angela Rayner says there's no rift at all. She told LBC people love saying girls are all falling out. And she says it just isn't true.

But someone close to Shabana Mahmood told The Times something different. They said Andy Burnham quote "has been on Shabana's side throughout this row over ILR."

So one of the Home Secretary's own allies is saying the Prime Minister hasn't actually caved. Not yet.

A government person wouldn't confirm either way. They only said settlement must be earned, not automatic. And that responses to the consultation are still being looked at.

Now here's why the numbers matter.

The plans go to Parliament as soon as next month. And more than 100 Labour MPs are understood to be against the measure as it stands.

Earlier this year, 80 Labour MPs wrote to Andy Burnham directly. They wanted the reforms watered down. They said it was unfair to apply the new rule backwards.

And the Conservatives have spotted an opening. Kemi Badenoch, the Conservative leader, says her party could lend its votes to get the reforms through. She warned that failing to curb immigration risks Britain seeing the kind of civil unrest France has had.

Chris Philp, the Shadow Home Secretary, put it bluntly. He said Cabinet ministers were campaigning against their own government's immigration policy.

So what don't we know?

Whether Andy Burnham will actually announce that care-worker exemption. Whether he holds the line his ally describes instead. And whether that 100 Labour MPs figure is a real whip count, or just an estimate.

Right now, the Home Secretary's own policy is being fought over by her own government. In public. A month before it even reaches Parliament.

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Andy Burnham just considered a care worker exemption and it has split his Cabinet

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