The UK government will end the care worker visa route in the coming months as part of a broad attempt to limit migration, Home Secretary Yvette Cooper stated Sunday.
The measure, detailed in a white paper to be released on Monday, is part of larger limitations on firms utilising visas to fill lower-skilled positions.
Cooper described the decision as the end of a “failed free market experiment” that enabled widespread offshore recruitment.
She told the BBC that the adjustments will reduce annual arrivals by about 50,000, although she did not specify a net migration target.
“It should come down significantly more” than 500,000, she told reporters.
The crackdown followed local election victories by anti-immigrant Reform UK, which is now polling higher than Labour. Sir Keir Starmer, Labour leader, pledged Sunday to “restore control and cut migration . . . with tough new measures,” adding, “British workers — I’ve got your back.”
The care visa ban has raised concerns among providers, who confront crucial staff shortages.
Jane Townson of the Homecare Association said, “Where will these workers come from if neither funding nor a migration route exists?”
Cooper recognised sector concerns but suggested that care providers hire among the 10,000 migrants currently in the UK on care visas, some of whom accepted jobs “that weren’t actually here or that were not of the proper standard”.
She promised a new “fair pay agreement” for care workers, noting that “we saw that huge increase in care work recruitment from abroad, but without actually ever tackling the problems in the system.”
Shadow Home Secretary Chris Philp slammed the change as “a little 50,000 tweak”, accusing the Conservative government of responding “too late” once migration surpassed 900,000 in 2023.
The government also intends to restrict skilled worker visas to graduate-level posts and non-graduate visas to strictly time-limited employment related to industry demands.
While the adjustments for international students are less severe than anticipated, Cooper stated that colleges must police visa compliance.
Reform Richard Tice, the UK’s deputy leader, said public outrage over immigration helped his party win local elections.
He described the government’s approach as a failure and requested a “separate, dedicated Department of Immigration“.
