Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the impact of closing social care visas for carers from overseas on vacancies in the care workforce.

As set out in the Immigration White Paper, visa extensions and in-country switching for those already in the country with working rights will be permitted for a transition period until 2028. This will be kept under review.

Care workers are essential to those who draw on care and support, helping them to maintain their quality of life, independence and connection to the things that matter to them. In England, as per the Care Act 2014, it is the responsibility of local government to develop a market that delivers a wide range of sustainable high-quality care and support services, that will be available to their communities. English local authorities have responsibility under the Care Act 2014 to meet social care needs and statutory guidance directs them to ensure there is sufficient workforce in adult social care.

The care worker route has seen unacceptable levels of abuse and exploitation, between July 2022 and December 2024 the Home Office revoked over 470 sponsor licences, impacting around 40,000 workers in the care sector. The Department of Health and Social Care is providing up to £12.5 million to regional partnerships in 2025/26 to respond to unethical international recruitment practices in the adult social care sector. This includes supporting international recruits impacted by sponsor licence revocations to find alternative employment.

In the technical annex published alongside the Immigration White Paper on 12 May 2025, the Home Office has estimated an annual reduction of approximately 7,000 main visa applicants as a result of ending overseas recruitment for care workers and senior care workers. This is based on their internal management information for entry visas granted covering the period March 2024 to February 2025. This estimate reflects that there was a drop in visa grants of more than 90% compared with the 12 months ending in March 2024. This analysis will be refined and included within the relevant Impact Assessments accompanying the rule changes, as appropriate.

The Department of Health and Social Care continues to monitor adult social care workforce capacity, bringing together national data sets from Skills for Care’s monthly tracking data, the Capacity Tracker tool and intelligence from key sector partners. The Department of Health and Social Care primarily uses filled posts as the most accurate measure of adult social care workforce capacity rather than number of vacancies. As vacancies are the total number of posts advertised by the adult social care sector’s independent and competing providers, they don’t necessarily reflect the number of workers required to meet adult social care needs. Vacancies are ultimately impacted by other factors such as providers’ ambitions to grow and are not necessarily a good indicator of capacity pressures as a result.