Latest news with #skilledworker
The Independent
04-07-2025
- Politics
- The Independent
Home Office migrant worker visa failure revealed
A cross-party committee of MPs, the Public Accounts Committee (PAC), has found the government failed to gather basic information on skilled worker visa holders, including whether they leave the UK after their visas expire. The PAC report criticised the Home Office for not analysing exit checks since the skilled worker visa route was introduced in 2020, leading to a lack of data on how many people return home or stay illegally. The committee highlighted widespread exploitation of migrant workers, particularly in the social care sector, attributing this vulnerability to the sponsorship model that ties a worker's right to remain to their employer. The Home Office's response to tackling migrant worker exploitation was deemed "slow and ineffective" by the PAC, which noted a lack of reliable data on the extent of abuses. Concerns have been raised that new legislation to end the recruitment of care workers from abroad could exacerbate existing staff shortages in the social care sector, which has a high reliance on migrant labour.
Telegraph
04-07-2025
- Business
- Telegraph
Home Office has no idea how many migrants overstay their visas
The Home Office does not know how many people are leaving the UK after their visas expire or how many are working illegally, a report by MPs has found. The Government has failed to gather 'basic information' such as the proportion of people on working visas who had returned to their home country, according to the public accounts committee (PAC), which examines the value for money of government projects. The committee found the Home Office had not analysed exit checks since the skilled worker visa route was introduced in 2020 under the Conservatives. Some 1.18 million people applied to come to the UK on this route – to attract skilled workers after Brexit – between its launch in December of that year and the end of 2024. Around 630,000 of those were dependants of the main visa applicant. The Home Office said it could only tell if a person was still in the country by matching its own data with airline passenger information, according to the PAC report, published on Friday. The committee also raised concerns that the expansion of the skilled worker route in 2022 to attract staff for the struggling social care sector led to the exploitation of some migrant workers. The report said there was 'widespread evidence of workers suffering debt bondage, working excessive hours and exploitative conditions', but adds there is 'no reliable data on the extent of abuses'. The PAC highlighted that migrant workers are 'vulnerable to exploitation' because a person's right to remain is dependent on their employer under the sponsorship model. The Home Office said more than 470 sponsor licences in the care sector had been revoked between July 2022 and December 2024 in a crackdown on abuse and exploitation. More than 39,000 workers were associated with those sponsors since October 2020. The PAC said: 'The cross-government response to tackling the exploitation of migrant workers has been insufficient and, within this, the Home Office's response has been slow and ineffective.' Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown, the committee chairman, said that while the then-Tory government had 'moved swiftly to open up the visa system to help the social care system cope during the pandemic', the speed and volume of applications ' came at a painfully high cost – to the safety of workers from the depredations of labour market abuses, and the integrity of the system from people not following the rules'. He added: 'There has long been mounting evidence of serious issues with the system, laid bare once again in our inquiry. 'And yet basic information, such as how many people on skilled worker visas have been modern slavery victims, and whether people leave the UK after their visas expire, seems to still not have been gathered by Government.' Earlier this week, legislation to end the recruitment of care workers from abroad was introduced to Parliament as part of a raft of immigration reforms. The move raised concerns from the adult social care sector, with the GMB union describing the decision as 'potentially catastrophic' because of the reliance on migrant workers and some 130,000 vacancies across England. Sir Geoffrey warned that unless there is 'effective cross-government working, there is a risk that these changes will exacerbate challenges for the care sector'. He said the Government must 'develop a deeper understanding of the role that immigration plays in sector workforce strategies, as well as how domestic workforce plans will help address skills shortages', warning that it 'no longer has the excuse of the global crisis caused by the pandemic if it operates this system on the fly, and without due care'. Adis Sehic, a policy manager at the Work Rights Centre, said the report 'unequivocally finds that the sponsorship system is making migrant workers vulnerable to exploitation because it ties workers to employers' and that the Home Office had 'simply relied on sponsors' goodwill to comply with immigration rules'. He added: 'This report is yet more damning evidence that the principle of sponsorship, which ties migrant workers in the UK to their employer, is inherently unsafe for workers and, in our view, breaches their human rights. 'Structural reform of the sponsorship system must urgently be undertaken if this Government is to meaningfully uphold its commitments relating to employment and human rights.' The PAC recommended that a clear method must be set out on assessing what happens when visas end, 'specifically what measures are in place or will be put in place to record when people leave the country'.
BBC News
03-07-2025
- Politics
- BBC News
Home Office unaware if foreign workers leave UK after visas end, MPs say
The Home Office does not know whether foreign workers are leaving the UK or staying to work illegally after their visas expire, a cross-party committee of MPs has said. The Public Accounts Committee (PAC), which scrutinises government spending, said the Home Office had failed to analyse exit checks since the skilled worker visa route was introduced in 2020 under the 1.18 million people have applied to come to the UK via this route between its launch in December 2020 and the end of Home Office said earlier this year that it was working to modernise border security and boost digital checks. The BBC has approached the Home Office for comment on the report. The skilled worker visa route replaced the Tier 2 (General) work visa after the UK left the European Union. The route was expanded in 2022 by the previous Conservative government to address skill shortages and job vacancies in health and social care in the wake of the Covid pandemic, driving net migration to record the PAC has accused the Home Office of failing to gather "basic information" on whether people leave the UK after their visas expire and showing "little curiosity about how the route was operating".Its report said the department still relied on airline passenger records to check if someone had left the country and that there had been no analysis of those records since 2020. It added that the Home Office needed to set out what measures would be put in place to record when people had left the report also said there was "widespread evidence of workers suffering debt bondage, working excessive hours and exploitative conditions" and accused the department of being "slow and ineffective" to tackle May, Home Secretary Yvette Cooper said the government would end overseas recruitment for care workers as part of the plans to curb near record net Office Permanent Secretary Dame Antonia Romeo has also said overstaying is a "problem" the department was "fixing".
The National
02-06-2025
- Business
- The National
Best photos of June 2: From a tomato fight to fog over Sydney
Under the UK government's proposals, migrants will have to spend 10 years in the UK before being able to apply for citizenship. Skilled worker visas will require a university degree, and there will be tighter restrictions on recruitment for jobs with skills shortages. But what are described as "high-contributing" individuals such as doctors and nurses could be fast-tracked through the system. Language requirements will be increased for all immigration routes to ensure a higher level of English. Rules will also be laid out for adult dependants, meaning they will have to demonstrate a basic understanding of the language. The plans also call for stricter tests for colleges and universities offering places to foreign students and a reduction in the time graduates can remain in the UK after their studies from two years to 18 months.
Free Malaysia Today
12-05-2025
- Business
- Free Malaysia Today
UK to end ‘failed free market experiment' in immigration
British interior minister, Yvette Cooper, said they are taking decisive action to restore control and order to the system. (EPA Images pic) LONDON : The British government outlined plans on Sunday to end what it called the 'failed free market experiment' in mass immigration by restricting skilled worker visas to graduate-level jobs and forcing businesses to increase training for local workers. British Prime Minister Keir Starmer is under pressure to cut net migration after the success of Nigel Farage's right-wing, anti-immigration Reform UK party in local elections this month. Under the government's new plans, skilled visas will only be granted to people in graduate jobs, while visas for lower-skilled roles will only be issued in areas critical to the nation's industrial strategy, and in return businesses must increase training of British workers. The Labour government said the changes will be part of a policy document, known as a white paper, to be published on Monday setting out how ministers plan to reduce immigration. High levels of legal migration were one of the major drivers behind the vote to leave the EU in 2016 with voters unhappy about the free movement of workers across the bloc. After Britain eventually left the EU in 2020, the then Conservative government reduced the threshold to allow workers in categories such as yoga teachers, dog walkers and DJs to be eligible for skilled worker visas. 'We inherited a failed immigration system where the previous government replaced free movement with a free market experiment,' Yvette Cooper, the British interior minister, said in a statement. 'We are taking decisive action to restore control and order to the immigration system.' While post-Brexit changes to visas saw a sharp drop in the number of EU migrants to Britain, new work visa rules and people arriving from Ukraine and Hong Kong under special visa schemes led to a surge in immigration. Net migration, or the number of people coming to Britain minus the number leaving, rose to a record 906,000 people in the year to June 2023, up from the 184,000 people who arrived in the same period during 2019, when Britain was still in the EU.
