Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what recent discussions he has had with the Home Secretary on ensuring that care homes and care providers can continue to recruit staff from outside the UK in the event that vacancies remain unfilled when advertised to the domestic labour market; and if will make a statement.

The Secretary of State for Health and Social Care and the Home Secretary have regular discussions about the design of the future Points-Based Immigration system. The independent Migration Advisory Committee has repeatedly advised that migration should not be a solution to workforce shortages in social care. We recognise that the changes to the immigration system and the ending of freedom of movement will mean that social care employers will need to redouble efforts to promote jobs in social care to workers in the United Kingdom.

In order to attract more people into social care, we launched a new national recruitment campaign, ‘Care for others; Make a difference’ and an online platform to fast-track recruitment, which sits alongside many local initiatives that have been put in place to recruit staff.