Monday 29 September 2025

Matthew Wills (Partner) has been quoted by The Scottish Herald in an article discussing the potential impacts of Reform UK’s proposal to abolish indefinite leave to remain. The article, published on Saturday 27 September 2025, estimates that approximately 9% of the UK population hold either indefinite leave to remain or settled status under the EU Settlement Scheme.

Matthew commented:

‘If you are on time limited immigration, it’s a costly business. Part of the benefit of having secured permanent immigration status is that no further application needs to be made.

If all of those individuals with indefinite leave to remain have that rescinded and they are required to revert to time limited immigration permission, which is seemingly indefinite and needs to continue to be extended, that would generate a huge amount of revenue on the basis of the current immigration laws but what is worth pointing out is that it does render the UK fundamentally less attractive to “the brightest and the best”.

If you are seeking to relocate your expertise and your business to the UK, are you going to be attracted by the fact that you will never be able to establish any form of permanence in the country, and you will be required to continually make payments to the government for however many years or indeed decades you wish to remain here?’

You can read the full article here.