Certificate of Sponsorship: Foreign Health and Care Workers Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateBaroness Bennett of Manor Castle
Main Page: Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (Green Party - Life peer)Department Debates - View all Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle's debates with the Home Office
(9 months, 2 weeks ago)
Lords ChamberInformation is certainly available on the GOV.UK website, which is signposted from the health and social care visa pages. There are also NGO bodies, including Care England and the gangmasters licensing authority, and, as the noble Baroness, Lady O’Grady, said, trade unions.
The Minister has used the term “abuses” a number of times. The Gangmasters and Labour Abuse Authority, to which he has just referred, says that the health and care worker visa system is being abused by criminals, leading to a “constant stream of allegations” of fraud and modern slavery—a rather stronger term. Following on from the question about the involvement of the private sector in this, I ask: what value are all these Wild West private sector firms that are popping up adding to the system? Would it be better to do this not in a privatised way but, if we need to recruit care workers from overseas, to do so through a national workforce plan and not-for-profit agencies?
The noble Baroness will be unsurprised to learn that I do not agree that the state is the answer in the provision of health and social care in the way that she suggests. It is entirely appropriate that private companies can recruit in the way that they presently do, that abuses are stamped out and that the Home Office uses its enforcement powers in the way that it does and will continue to do.