Sacha Wooldridge

It’s official!!! 🥳🍾🥂 Ecstatic to be made partner today @birkettsllp

The ‘Shabana has lost’ narrative and ‘this is a huge u-turn’ is overblown. These settlement changes are the biggest for decades & thousands today face uncertainty & businesses are facing millions more in costs to retain their existing workforce hitting SMEs hard

Those losing their heads over concessions for care workers on settlement may want to remember that this visa pathway is closed and no new overseas applicants can come to the UK as a care worker so these concessions benefit only a limited cohort #earnedsettlement

The #earnedsettlement proposals offer a nice sweetener to the banks, financial & professional services sectors in the City/UK - no-one was asking for reduced qualifying period but they’ve got one. They sponsor thousands of high earner migrants - the savings will be substantial

Life in the UK test to be retained for #earnedsettlement - the current pub quiz MCQ style test is unlikely to be successfully answered by most British nationals. I’d argue it would need some significant reform to become a valuable measure of integration in any way

Previously criminal threshold for settlement was a 12 month custodial sentence - any level of fine for even a very minor criminal offence could therefore rule out thousands more from applying for ILR #earnedsettlement

Not to be a pedant but its unhelpful disinformation - settlement has NEVER been automatic - it's always required a pro-active, physical application & payment of a substantial application fee. Failure to apply means your status would expire and you'd become illegal #justsaying

Wonder what Minister of Religion visa holders will do for Settlement - if they’re not paid at all or their stipend is <£12,570 per annum will they be able to apply for ILR ever? #earnedsettlement

Unusual for Home Office to apply rules at ‘date of decision’ not ‘date of application’ - is Shabana mis-speaking or do we risk settlement applications being held by Gov until new rules come in to limit who can qualify? Will this drive a gold rush in priority processing payments?!

10 Year long residence ILR is a popular alternative pathway where people combine time among routes eg as a student + work routes - this is now to be scrapped so many will have to wait a lot longer now to apply

Ukraine visa scheme categorically ruled out from the Settlement route consultation - not a qualifying ‘safe and legal route’ and retained position that there won’t be a pathway to ILR

Hot off the press - settlement changes announced. Immigration lawyers WhatsApp groups exploding almost as much as my inbox from client enquiries

Pleasure to speak to @LucyGJWhite @Bloomberg for @birkettsllp re: new Investor visa options the chancellor should consider as part of the budget to bring wealth creators to the UK bloomberg.com/news/articles/…

A party that pretend they take their stance to protect British women - the main people women need protecting from is the likes of these horrific individuals. Sickening

So here for the Sugababes vibes at Labour conf - all around noughties revival for the win

Foreign Secretary @Ed_Miliband made time to speak at the Labour movement for Europe @labour4europe fringe #Lab26 & shared the value he places in his role on support from his EU counterparts 🇬🇧 🇪🇺 Valuable to have balanced input/reality check from @anandMenon1 about rejoining

First full day at #Lab26