Certificate of Common Sponsorship

Carla Denyer Excerpts

Wednesday 22nd January 2025 Westminster Hall

[Carla Denyer (Bristol Central) (Green)]

I am delighted to serve under your chairship again, Dr Huq. I thank the hon. Member for Poole (Neil Duncan-Jordan) for securing this important debate. Having worked with him on the issue, I know we share a commitment to securing a fair solution for the workers affected by these rules.

As the hon. Member outlined, the situation for people on health and care worker visas is uniquely difficult. The way that visa works puts employees into an incredibly and intolerably vulnerable position. If they lose their job, they lose their right to live and work in the UK, unless they find an eligible alternative employer within 60 days. A survey conducted by the Work Rights Centre found that only 5% of those who tried were successful within that timeframe.

The situation can be even more difficult when, as Unison reports, employers withhold references for employees trying to change jobs. We can see it is really difficult for those workers to change employers. What does that mean? It means that employers hold significant power over their employees’ right to live and work here. Their lives are effectively under the control of the employers. That can be disastrous, as it has been found that many employers wield that power to make unfair demands on their workers.

There have been reports of unreasonable demands made under the either implicit or sometimes explicit threat of revoking sponsorship. Employers do not have the right to deport people, yet that is what they are threatening to do. The Royal College of Nursing told us about a member who was asked to work on days she was not contracted to, tried to refuse and was told in reply by the employer, “We sponsor you.” That was a clear threat intended to intimidate her into compliance with work outside the contract. That is echoed by a domiciliary care worker from India who told Unison that every conversation they had with managers felt threatening and often ended with the word “visa”.

The RCN has also reported threatening tactics being used to get employees to sign new more restrictive contracts, including—shockingly—being given just 30 minutes to sign before having their sponsorship revoked. Care worker Divya told Citizens Advice that she had not been paid in two months, while her British colleagues had been paid as normal. She was falling behind on bills. Having contacted her employer once about it, she was understandably scared to follow up, in fear she would be dismissed. She said:

“I feel like we’re being treated as slaves.”

There are other horrific examples, such as being given unsuitable and overpriced housing, or finding out that they do not even have the work that was promised when they arrived. Citizens Advice reports that a quarter of the migrant care workers it spoke to were given no work when they arrived in the UK. One in eight contracts were changed on arrival. It is blatantly clear that that is completely unacceptable.

The Government have acknowledged the harm of those rogue employers, and have taken action around increasing sanctions for the breach of rules. However, as the hon. Member for Poole pointed out, those measures do not do enough to address the toxic power imbalance that arises when so much of an employee’s life is in the hands of a single employer. In short, they do not prevent this injustice. That is the crux of the issue and must be addressed.

A certificate of common sponsorship would change that. It would mean that an employee’s sponsorship would not be chained to a single employer and it would break that exclusive link that is so often exploited. I strongly urge the Government to consider that as a solution. We have already had helpful suggestions for how it might work. Then we can empower migrant care workers to demand the fair conditions they rightly deserve.