Anmesty:
It looks like a general amnesty is off the cards. This is discussed on page 3 in the "Making Change Stick" document found here.
Long-stay rules:We rule out an amnesty; instead the Bill proposes a clear legal duty on migrants to ensure they have permission to be in the UK.
Anyone who knowingly enters or stays here without permission after it has expired or been cancelled will be committing an imprisonable offence. We propose a new and straightforward single concept of permission to be here.
There is no provision discussed anywhere within the documents or the draft bill for the 10 or 14 year rules. It seems as if everything is being directed towards "permissions" based upon work, family reunification, and asylum. The logic is that one must get into one of those streams or leave the UK. There is no official statement anywhere that explicitly states that the 10/14 year rules are to be abolished, but the silence on the issue is deafening. If anyone has been hoping to attain permanent residency/citizenship through these long-categories in the mid- to long-term, I would advise them to make other plans.
When all these rules come into effect:
There has been no concrete statement as to when such and such a provision will begin. It does appear that various steps may be introduced piecemeal. For instance, it has been stated that individuals lodging applications starting from April 2009 will have to contribute towards the "migrant fund". This would include temporary, ILR and citizenship applications. However, I repeat, there is no definitive information as to when all the provisions of the new laws (e.g., the probational stage, the volunteering requirement, etc.) will take effect. Parliament will spend the upcoming 2008/09 session debating the new Act. They may be completed before the 2009 summer recess, they may not. And not only that, but even when the law gets Royal Assent, the actual validity date may be set some time in the future. If you look at the second page of the "partial impact assessment", it would appear that the UKBA is anticipating having everything up and running by 2011. At this moment, no one can be specific, but some time between summer 2009 and 2011, the new Act will take effect in its entirety.
You might find this to be insightful. Taken from the Wikipedia article on it, here is the historical timeline for the British Nationality Act 1981. This is the major predecessor that is being amended by this new Draft Immigration Bill:
Transitional measures:In the mid-1970s the British Government decided to update the nationality code, which had been significantly amended since the British Nationality Act 1948 came into force on 1 January 1949. In 1977, a Green Paper was produced outlining options for reform of the nationality code. This was followed in 1980 by a White Paper containing the government's specific plans for change. The British Nationality Act 1981 received Royal Assent on 30 October 1981 and came into force on 1 January 1983.
Again this has not been addressed at all in the documents thus far. However, I would expect that individuals who have been granted ILR before that phrase is abolished and replaced by "probational citizenship" will be allowed to retain it. So there won't likely be retroactive effects in that regard. Most likely, however, they will be incentivised/coerced to apply for citizenship through some transitional regime that, again, has not been disclosed. At some point in the future, the naturalisation requirements for ILR holders and probational citizens will likely and naturally merge.
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