Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask Her Majesty's Government, further to the conclusions from the Migration Advisory Committee in their report Review of the Shortage Occupation List: 2020, published on 29 September, regarding the consequences of the end of freedom of movement between the UK and EU on the recruitment of staff in the social care sector, what plans they have to address low wages in social care.

The Government does not have direct responsibility for pay awards in adult social care in the same way as for other areas of the public sector. The Government nonetheless maintains oversight of the social care system and we are committed to raising the profile of the social care sector. The Government expects local authorities to commission care at the rate that allows providers to employ the staff they need to deliver quality care.

We are taking action to support adult social care providers to recruit domestically. In order to attract more people to the sector we ran a national recruitment campaign. We are working with the Department for Work and Pensions to promote adult social care careers to jobseekers, and we have launched an online recruitment tool as part of this.