Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask Her Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the impact of the income requirement of £25,600 for immigrants on staffing levels in care homes; and what plans they have to ensure that care homes experience no staff shortages because of that requirement.

The new ‘Skilled Worker’ route will mean roles such as senior care worker and registered manager that meet the skills and/or salary requirements will be eligible for a sponsored Skilled Worker visa. However, we recognise that occupations such as direct care roles which do not meet the skills and salary threshold will not be eligible. The flow of European Union workers into the sector annually is small comparable to the size of the workforce – fewer than 5% of all workers joining the sector in a direct care role in 2019/20 had arrived from the EU in the previous 12 months. Therefore, we expect employers will be able to recruit domestically to outnumber any decreased flow of workers from the EU and we are taking action to support this.