Asked by: Baroness Fraser of Craigmaddie (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the impact of closing social care visas for carers from overseas on vacancies in the care workforce.
Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
As set out in the Immigration White Paper, visa extensions and in-country switching for those already in the country with working rights will be permitted for a transition period until 2028. This will be kept under review.
Care workers are essential to those who draw on care and support, helping them to maintain their quality of life, independence and connection to the things that matter to them. In England, as per the Care Act 2014, it is the responsibility of local government to develop a market that delivers a wide range of sustainable high-quality care and support services, that will be available to their communities. English local authorities have responsibility under the Care Act 2014 to meet social care needs and statutory guidance directs them to ensure there is sufficient workforce in adult social care.
The care worker route has seen unacceptable levels of abuse and exploitation, between July 2022 and December 2024 the Home Office revoked over 470 sponsor licences, impacting around 40,000 workers in the care sector. The Department of Health and Social Care is providing up to £12.5 million to regional partnerships in 2025/26 to respond to unethical international recruitment practices in the adult social care sector. This includes supporting international recruits impacted by sponsor licence revocations to find alternative employment.
In the technical annex published alongside the Immigration White Paper on 12 May 2025, the Home Office has estimated an annual reduction of approximately 7,000 main visa applicants as a result of ending overseas recruitment for care workers and senior care workers. This is based on their internal management information for entry visas granted covering the period March 2024 to February 2025. This estimate reflects that there was a drop in visa grants of more than 90% compared with the 12 months ending in March 2024. This analysis will be refined and included within the relevant Impact Assessments accompanying the rule changes, as appropriate.
The Department of Health and Social Care continues to monitor adult social care workforce capacity, bringing together national data sets from Skills for Care’s monthly tracking data, the Capacity Tracker tool and intelligence from key sector partners. The Department of Health and Social Care primarily uses filled posts as the most accurate measure of adult social care workforce capacity rather than number of vacancies. As vacancies are the total number of posts advertised by the adult social care sector’s independent and competing providers, they don’t necessarily reflect the number of workers required to meet adult social care needs. Vacancies are ultimately impacted by other factors such as providers’ ambitions to grow and are not necessarily a good indicator of capacity pressures as a result.
Asked by: Baroness Fraser of Craigmaddie (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the impact of the discontinuation of care worker visas on care provision.
Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
As set out in the Immigration White Paper, visa extensions and in-country switching for those already in the country with working rights will be permitted for a transition period until 2028. This will be kept under review.
Care workers are essential to those who draw on care and support, helping them to maintain their quality of life, independence and connection to the things that matter to them. In England, as per the Care Act 2014, it is the responsibility of local government to develop a market that delivers a wide range of sustainable high-quality care and support services, that will be available to their communities. English local authorities have responsibility under the Care Act 2014 to meet social care needs and statutory guidance directs them to ensure there is sufficient workforce in adult social care.
The care worker route has seen unacceptable levels of abuse and exploitation, between July 2022 and December 2024 the Home Office revoked over 470 sponsor licences, impacting around 40,000 workers in the care sector. The Department of Health and Social Care is providing up to £12.5 million to regional partnerships in 2025/26 to respond to unethical international recruitment practices in the adult social care sector. This includes supporting international recruits impacted by sponsor licence revocations to find alternative employment.
In the technical annex published alongside the Immigration White Paper on 12 May 2025, the Home Office has estimated an annual reduction of approximately 7,000 main visa applicants as a result of ending overseas recruitment for care workers and senior care workers. This is based on their internal management information for entry visas granted covering the period March 2024 to February 2025. This estimate reflects that there was a drop in visa grants of more than 90% compared with the 12 months ending in March 2024. This analysis will be refined and included within the relevant Impact Assessments accompanying the rule changes, as appropriate.
The Department of Health and Social Care continues to monitor adult social care workforce capacity, bringing together national data sets from Skills for Care’s monthly tracking data, the Capacity Tracker tool and intelligence from key sector partners. The Department of Health and Social Care primarily uses filled posts as the most accurate measure of adult social care workforce capacity rather than number of vacancies. As vacancies are the total number of posts advertised by the adult social care sector’s independent and competing providers, they don’t necessarily reflect the number of workers required to meet adult social care needs. Vacancies are ultimately impacted by other factors such as providers’ ambitions to grow and are not necessarily a good indicator of capacity pressures as a result.
Asked by: Baroness Fraser of Craigmaddie (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Defence:
To ask His Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to ensure that the recently announced support hub for small businesses on accessing the defence supply chain will be adequately resourced, appropriately led, and fully integrated into existing defence innovation structures and procurement frameworks.
Answered by Lord Coaker - Minister of State (Ministry of Defence)
In March 2025 the Prime Minister and the Secretary of State for Defence announced new support to help SMEs access the Defence supply chain and ensure they benefit from the increase in defence spending to 2.5% of GDP. An integral part of this commitment will be the launch of a new SME Support Centre which will help small businesses access the defence supply chain. The detail of how the office will operate is currently being developed by officials with input from across the Ministry of Defence, wider Government and external stakeholders, including companies outside of the existing defence sector. We are working with SMEs to ensure that they have a say in development of the services the support centre will provide.
Asked by: Baroness Fraser of Craigmaddie (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask His Majesty's Government what is the average waiting time for applicants to the Access to Work scheme to receive a decision and how many applications are there currently awaiting a decision.
Answered by Baroness Sherlock - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
The average waiting time for applicants to the Access to Work scheme to receive a decision in February 2025 was 84.6 days. Between the period April 2024-February 2025, the average waiting time for a decision was 56.9 days.
In February 2025 there were 62,000 applications waiting to be processed (this includes new claims, renewals and change of circumstances).
Please note that the data supplied is derived from unpublished management information, which was collected for internal Departmental use only, and have not been quality assured to National Statistics or Official Statistics publication standard. They should therefore be treated with caution.
Asked by: Baroness Fraser of Craigmaddie (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Defence:
To ask His Majesty's Government what percentage of the current defence budget is spent on pensions.
Answered by Lord Coaker - Minister of State (Ministry of Defence)
I refer the noble Baroness to the answer given by my hon. friend, the Minister for Veterans and People (Al Carns), on 30 January 2025 to Question UIN 26778 in the House of Commons.
Asked by: Baroness Fraser of Craigmaddie (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government what percentage of funding for the NHS is spent on pensions.
Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
For 2023/24 we estimate that National Health Service employer contributions are some 7% of total NHS funding. As of 1 April 2024, the NHS employer pension contribution rate rose to 23.7% from 20.68%. In addition, NHS employees pay between 5.2% and 12.5% of their earnings.
Asked by: Baroness Fraser of Craigmaddie (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Defence:
To ask His Majesty's Government what assistance the Reserve Forces' and Cadets' Associations provide for recruiting reservists and cadet instructors.
Answered by Lord Coaker - Minister of State (Ministry of Defence)
The Reserve Forces’ and Cadets’ Associations (RFCAs) offer support to recruitment in multiple ways.
The RFCAs provide media and communications support, including through the provision of small grants from regionally generated income for both Reserve and Cadet units to produce recruiting materials. The RFCA communications teams also support Cadet units with social media aimed at increasing awareness of the cadets and to encourage young people and adults to join. The results have been significant; recent social media campaigns have seen a 200% increase in expressions of interest.
The RFCAs also showcase the Reserves and Cadets with bespoke short films at Lord-Lieutenants’ Awards ceremonies, reinforced with other media around those events. Annual online Cadet Adult Recognition Awards are hugely popular – highlights are then used to advertise adult volunteering on our social media platforms. RFCAs also support County shows and other engagement opportunities that support and enable recruitment.
The RFCA’s Permanent Support Staff manage the in-flow of Cadet Force Adult Volunteers to cadet units, including some recruitment process administration, and it’s Volunteer Estate output actively supports recruitment by providing modern, well-maintained Cadet training centre or Army Reserve Centres that are attractive to potential new recruits.
Asked by: Baroness Fraser of Craigmaddie (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Defence:
To ask His Majesty's Government how many county committees there are in the Reserve Forces' and Cadets' Associations.
Answered by Lord Coaker - Minister of State (Ministry of Defence)
The County Committees, of which there are 26, form a valuable part of the Reserve Forces’ and Cadets’ Associations.
Asked by: Baroness Fraser of Craigmaddie (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the adequacy of the current framework, conditions and support for film and television producers headquartered outside London, including the application of Ofcom’s regional quotas for public service broadcasters in relation to companies which have a substantive base only outside London, in enabling the commissioning of programmes from every part of the UK.
Answered by Baroness Twycross - Baroness in Waiting (HM Household) (Whip)
The Government is committed to supporting the growth of the TV and film industry across the whole of the UK. As the Secretary of State has made clear, the television sector specifically is too centralised in London and the South East. That is why the Government has called on broadcasters to be more ambitious in growing the sector in other parts of the country, in order to spread its benefits to towns and cities across the UK. DCMS is taking forward work to understand the opportunities and challenges to further growing the television industry outside of London and the South East to enable commissioning and production activity across the UK. We are committed to working with the sector to ensure the right framework, conditions and support are in place for this to happen.
All public service broadcasters are subject to regional programme making quotas, which are set and monitored by the independent media regulator Ofcom, who also produce the associated guidance. Any changes to these quotas is similarly a matter for Ofcom.
On the matter of film, the Government maintains a UK-wide funding programme, including investment in infrastructure and tax reliefs to support independent British content. We fund the British Film Institute (BFI) to support the film sector through nationwide funding and initiatives. The BFI’s ten year strategy, Screen Culture 2033, sets out its core principle to reach across the full breadth of our nation. The BFI have sought to devolve funding, share power and support networks across regions. They have been awarded £9 million to enable seven Skills Clusters across the UK to identify skills gaps, coordinate local skills training, and develop clearer pathways to long-term employment in the sector.
We support the British Film Commission’s work and our funding has supported the growth of seven geographic production hubs across the UK, by investing in infrastructure and attracting global film productions that bring inward investment into the local and national economy.
The Government recently introduced the Independent Film Tax Credit to support homegrown talent, which will mean that productions with a budget up to £15 million will be eligible for a relief of 53% on qualifying expenditure, whilst films with a budget up to £23.5 million are also eligible and the relief will be tapered. We support independent content across the nations and regions through the £28 million UK Global Screen Fund. The Chancellor recently confirmed that UK Visual Effects costs in film and high-end TV productions will receive a 5% increase in Audio-Visual Expenditure Credit from 1 April 2025, for an overall rate of 39%.
Asked by: Baroness Fraser of Craigmaddie (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Defence:
To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the appropriateness of Royal Fleet Auxiliary personnel being employed as members of the Civil Service.
Answered by Lord Coaker - Minister of State (Ministry of Defence)
The Royal Navy has launched the RFA35 programme to determine the long-term future of the RFA, defining its purpose, size, function and optimal crewing model to meet future requirements. RFA35 will also consider options for the future status of RFA personnel. Negotiations on pay and other issues are ongoing to resolve the current dispute with trade unions and will provide a foundation for RFA35.