UK To Ban Overseas Recruitment Of Care Workers Under New Migration Rules

Care workers will no longer be recruited from overseas as part of new visa restrictions aimed at significantly reducing net migration, according to UK Home Secretary Yvette Cooper.

Speaking on Sky News’ Sunday Morning with Trevor Phillips on May 11, Cooper announced that the government plans to shut down the care worker visa route. The move is part of broader measures intended to cut the number of low-skilled foreign workers by approximately 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 made on the Gov.uk website.

“Under plans to be outlined on Monday (12 May), the government will go further and put an end to any more overseas recruitment,” the home office wrote.

The announcement comes just ahead of the release of the Immigration White Paper this week, which is expected to outline further details of the government’s planned reforms.

Care England, a charity representing independent care providers, criticized Home Secretary Yvette Cooper’s remarks as a “crushing blow to an already fragile sector,” accusing the government of “kicking us while we’re already down.”

Martin Green, the organisation’s chief executive, said international recruitment is a “lifeline” for the care sector, which is already grappling with growing staff shortages.

It has also been revealed that the government intends to begin assessing foreign nationals convicted of any crimes in the UK for potential deportation.

During a series of interviews on Sunday, Cooper reiterated that the government will not commit to a specific net migration target but will focus on reducing recruitment in lower-skilled sectors.

Speaking to Sky News’s Sunday Morning with Trevor Phillips, Cooper 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.

“New requirements to train here in the UK to make sure that the UK workforce benefits, and also we will be closing the care worker visa for overseas recruitment.”

When asked by the BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg where care homes would find staff following the visa ban, Yvette Cooper responded that employers should look to recruit from among those who had already arrived in the UK as care workers in good faith but had been “exploited” by unscrupulous 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.