Shabana Mahmood rowed back on her most hardline plans to make care workers wait 15 years for settlement in the UK, but told MPs on Monday that many migrants would still face retrospective rule changes to make them wait a decade.

Under pressure from a cabinet backlash and health unions, the home secretary has offered a carve-out for care workers to allow them to apply for indefinite leave to remain after five years.

But most of the rigorous new rules drawn up by Mahmood’s office last year remain, including plans to force those who arrived in the UK by irregular means such as small boats to face up to 30 years before being able to apply for settlement.

The changes drew cries of betrayal from the Conservatives and the Reform UK leader, Nigel Farage, who said it was “the beginning of the capitulation”.

But Mahmood told the Commons she would still enact sweeping changes that will mean many migrant workers will wait double the time they had expected for settlement.

She said settlement was “one of most…