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Gurkhas

Certainly, since 1980, when the rules changed, people from the Commonwealth who served with the British Army have been entitled to settlement in a way that those who served with the Gurkhas were not entitled at that time. Today, we are effectively giving the pre-1997 Gurkhas an entitlement that they did not have, which is roughly equivalent to one that Commonwealth soldiers have had, after four years' active service, to apply for settlement in the UK within two years. We believe that there is legal justification for the exceptional basis of the scheme that we are introducing, and that view was shared by the Home Affairs Committee in its seminar on Tuesday.