Brexit: Health and Social Care Workforce

Baroness Wheeler Excerpts

Thursday 13th December 2018 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Baroness Wheeler]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the report by the National Institute of Economic and Social Research, Brexit and the Health & Social Care Workforce in the UK, published on 6 November.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health and Social Care (Lord O'Shaughnessy) (Con)]

My Lords, the Government are determined to recruit and retain the staff that the health and social care sectors need. This will include a robust domestic recruitment drive as well as ensuring that EU staff, who play such an important role in caring for and supporting patients, are able to stay in this country. That is why on Monday 3 December, we launched the EU settlement scheme pilot for the EU workforce in health and social care.

[Baroness Wheeler (Lab)]

I thank the Minister for his response. The Cavendish report on the current and potential staff shortages across all the key health and social care professions makes for alarming reading and shows how dependent we are on the work and dedication of EU nationals. I want to focus on social care workers. What is the Minister’s response to the Government’s Migration Advisory Committee, which says that these vital staff fall into the category of “low-skilled” and therefore do not merit preferential rights here in any post-Brexit scenario? In the past he has acknowledged the skilled, caring jobs that these staff do in community services, people’s homes, nursing homes and care homes. Does he agree that they are definitely not low-skilled? What is he doing to convince the MAC otherwise? What is the strategy for recruiting the 130,000 new social care workers that we need each year just to stand still, let alone to address the future demands of the service?

[Lord O'Shaughnessy]

I thank the noble Baroness for her question. First, we want to ensure that EU staff working in Britain are able to do so, and course that is why the EU settlement scheme pilot is so important. The social care workforce in this country has increased a lot, with a mixture of domestic and foreign staff. One of the ways in which we are increasing the attractiveness of that profession is by increasing the living wage, which has benefited so many staff in social care. Of course, many of them are highly skilled, and we want to ensure that we continue to be able to attract such skilled staff. We continue to discuss with the Home Office exactly what the right thresholds are for our future immigration system so that we do not lose out on these kinds of staff.