UK to Ban Overseas Recruitment of Care Workers in Bid to Curb Migration
The UK government will end the recruitment of care workers from abroad as part of a sweeping crackdown on immigration, Home Secretary Yvette Cooper announced on Sunday.
In an appearance on Sky News’ Sunday Morning with Trevor Phillips on May 11, Cooper said the care worker visa route will be closed under new measures designed to “significantly” cut net migration. The move is expected to reduce the number of low-skilled foreign workers entering the country by around 50,000 this year.
She said:
We’re going to introduce new restrictions on lower-skilled workers, so new visa controls, because we think actually what we should be doing is concentrating on the higher-skilled migration, and we should be concentrating on training in the UK.
Also, we will be closing the care worker visa for overseas recruitment.
The announcement was also published on the official Gov.uk website.
The home office wrote, “Under plans to be outlined on Monday (12 May), the government will go further and put an end to any more overseas recruitment.“
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Care England, a charity representing independent care providers, described Ms Cooper’s remarks as a “crushing blow to an already fragile sector” and said the government “is kicking us while we’re already down”.
Martin Green, Chief Executive of Care England, emphasized that international recruitment remains a “lifeline” for the care sector, which is currently grappling with a growing number of unfilled positions.
Meanwhile, it has come to light that the government is also preparing to assess foreign nationals convicted of any crime in the UK for potential deportation.
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In a series of interviews on Sunday, Home Secretary Yvette Cooper stated that while the government will not commit to a specific net migration target, it intends to focus on curbing recruitment in lower-skilled sectors.
Speaking on Sky News’s Sunday Morning with Trevor Phillips, Cooper said: “We’re going to introduce new restrictions on lower-skilled workers, new visa controls, because we believe the priority should be on attracting higher-skilled migrants and investing in domestic training here in the UK.”
When asked by the BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg where care homes were expected to find staff following the visa changes, Yvette Cooper suggested employers should look to recruit from individuals who had originally come to the UK in good faith as care workers but were later “exploited” by rogue employers.
Care companies should be recruiting from those workers. They can also extend existing visas. They could recruit as well from people who are on other visas, who are already here. But we do think it’s time to end that care worker recruitment from abroad, she said.
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