Think tanks are making various plans to reduce immigration in the process of reducing immigration by the government ahead of the next general election in Britain. Among them, the most discussion is going on about whether the same decision is coming for the care visa as the ban on bringing dependents to the student visa at the undergraduate level.
A group of Conservative MPs has unveiled proposals to stop overseas care workers from being recruited in the UK in an attempt to curb immigration earlier this year. Inside the Tory party MPs are already proposed to reshuffle the temporary scheme for care workers’ visas and raising the skilled work visa salary threshold from around £26,000 to around £38,000.
Last year, 30,000 Indian nationals moved to the UK for care work under the Health and Care Worker Visa process. Of these, more than half (18,000) bought with their dependents.
Dependent visas, which allow the spouses and children of work visa holders to accompany their partners and parents to the UK, are a human right. No family should be divided over arbitrary rules that allow their dependents to enter one country but not another.
The ability of Indian care visa holders to bring their families is one of the attractions of the visa routes and is said to be one of the main reasons why there is now an army of Indian carers for the UK's growing population of the elderly and the sick.
Indians make up the largest proportion of health and care visa holders, ahead of Nigerians (18,000) and Zimbabweans (17,000).
These caregivers are in dire need. Latest figures from industry body Care Skills show there were more than 150,000 vacancies in the adult social care sector in England in the year ending March 2023, equivalent to 9.9% of positions are vacant.
Recruitment in this sector has been difficult for many years and got worse after the UK left the EU and was thus cut off from available labour. Wages are low, largely because the industry depends on funding from local governments, which is very limited.
Conditions can be difficult and last for hours. Although there are currently 30,000 students in the UK studying for careers in the care sector, it will take time for them to graduate, and when they do, it will only hinder the number of vacancies available.
KCL's new report aims to understand the impact of February 2022 visa changes on adult social care workers in the UK. It is based on interviews with 74 people conducted between spring 2022 and spring 2023, including social service providers, recruitment agencies, internationally recruited social workers and industry experts.
The report includes a look at the visa application experience from the perspective of care providers and social workers. More than half of the overseas recruitment service providers surveyed in the report said they had paid for legal advice to meet sponsor requirements.
The number of 'in-country' visas issued to foreign skilled workers is expected to increase from 204,000 in 2023/24 to 584,000 in 2028/29, according to Home Office forecasts.
This is in addition to the additional 200,000 skilled worker visas issued to applicants coming to the UK in 2028/29, a similar figure to the 205,000 in 2023/24. This means the total number of foreign skilled workers will increase annually from 409,000 to 784,000.
Meanwhile, the House of Commons Library very recently published a brief article about visas for social care workers.
The article notes that between June 2022 and June 2023, almost 78,000 people secured long-term visas to work in UK social care after the government eased immigration rules for the sector, but there are now concerns that migrant care workers are being exploited.
Thousands of Bangladeshis are not getting work even after six months after spending around 25 Thousand pounds to come UK in care visa. Lots of Care home licence has been already suspended in last few months.
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