Care Worker Visa Regime

Lord Allan of Hallam Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd April 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

The Home Office seemed to bear the brunt of the noble Baroness’s accusations, but this was a cross-government exercise, involving the Department of Health, the Treasury, No. 10, the Cabinet Office and other departments. The fact is that the most recent published statistics, relating to the year ending December 2023, show that we have issued more than 146,000 health and care worker visas. To suggest that we are not supporting the sector would be inaccurate—we are. That includes things such as how to register good applications, explaining the rules around genuine vacancies and addressing the mismatch between the actual job and salary, not things such as anticipated demand. There is a lot of work going on.

[Lord Allan of Hallam (LD)]

My Lords, there are accounts of care workers coming to the UK being exploited, as either the jobs do not exist as advertised or they find themselves in hock to middlemen. Does the Minister agree that people who come here and apply for these visas in good faith should be treated with compassion? Can he explain how many people the Home Office has employed to help those people by going after fraudulent sponsors and exploitative agents?

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

The noble Lord is right; there has been some abuse of the system, which is readily acknowledged by the sector itself. I noticed that the Skills for Care website points out that this system has been open to abuse in the past, and it provides some helpful links to some of the stories about modern slavery. Of course, the Government will not tolerate illegal activity in the labour market in general. Any accusations of illegal employment practices will be thoroughly investigated, and we strongly condemn offering health and care worker visa-holders employment under false pretences, which partly motivates these changes.