Wandsworth Migration Board: Response to the Earned Settlement Consultation
Borough migration board letter on transitional protection, NRPF, public funds penalties, refugees and essential workers.
Summary
The Wandsworth Migration Board's 28 January 2026 joint letter to the Home Secretary records a local partnership response to the Earned Settlement consultation. It objects to proposals that would lengthen settlement routes to ten, fifteen or twenty years and warns that lack of clear transitional protection would create uncertainty for people already living, working and building family life in the UK.
The letter also criticises public-funds penalties and the risk that people could be pushed into more precarious or exploitative conditions. The response is useful because it is not a single-organisation comment. It brings together statutory and community perspectives in one borough, including concerns about refugees, lower-paid essential workers, families, homelessness prevention and access to advice.
It asks for full transitional protections, realistic settlement pathways, protection for vulnerable groups and removal of measures that would penalise people for needing support.
Why this matters for the archive
This record captures a borough-level multi-agency view. It shows how Earned Settlement was read by local partners as a homelessness, exploitation, refugee integration and essential-worker issue, not only as a national immigration-policy consultation.
Key Observations
- The letter warns against applying new settlement conditions to people already in the UK without clear transitional protection.
- It treats public funds penalties as a risk to families and people facing hardship.
- It links the proposals to homelessness, exploitation and reduced integration.
- It asks for realistic settlement pathways and protection for vulnerable residents and lower-paid essential workers.