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UK to time limit visas for roles below graduate level under new migration plan UK care homes face ban on overseas recruitment under migration plans
(about 11 hours later)
Yvette Cooper to announce proposals to reduce net migration as government reacts to growing pressure from Reform UK Yvette Cooper to announce proposals to reduce net migration in response to growing pressure from Reform UK
Visas for skilled overseas workers will be time-limited for those not taking a graduate-level job, the Home Office has announced. Care homes will be prevented from recruiting staff from abroad as part of an overhaul of rules to drive down net migration, Yvette Cooper has said.
The measure comes as part of a preview of wider plans being unveiled this week that are designed to reduce net migration to the UK. In a change that will concern employers in the sector, the home secretary said providers should instead seek to employ foreign staff who have already come to the country or extend existing visas.
Under the proposals, already revealed in part by the Guardian, the standard skilled visa threshold will only apply to jobs gauged at six on the regulated qualifications framework (RQF), which is equivalent to a degree, rather than the current three, roughly the standard of A-level. It is part of a preview of wider plans to be announced by Cooper on Monday designed to reduce net migration to the UK.
According to details set out by the Home Office, for anyone filling a job deemed as below RQF 6, they will only be allowed into the country for a limited period, and if there is “strong evidence of shortages which are critical to the industrial strategy”. It has also emerged that the government plans to assess for deportation any foreign criminals who commit any crimes in the UK.
Additionally, for this to happen, employers in the sector bringing in the overseas staff must show they have plans to increase domestic recruitment and skills. In a series of interviews on Sunday, Cooper said the government would not set a figure for net migration but would target recruitment in lower-skilled sectors.
Yvette Cooper, the home secretary, hailed the plan as “decisive action to restore control and order to the immigration system, raise domestic training and skills, and bring down net migration while promoting economic growth”. Speaking to Sky News’s Sunday Morning with Trevor Phillips, Cooper said: “We’re going to introduce new restrictions on lower-skilled workers, so new visa controls, because we think actually what we should be doing is concentrating on the higher-skilled migration and we should be concentrating on training in the UK.
On Monday, she will present a government white paper – a document which sets out plans for future legislation – intended to notably curb net migration, as ministers try to respond to the local election success of Reform UK, with its vehement anti-migration message. “New requirements to train here in the UK to make sure that the UK workforce benefits, and also we will be closing the care worker visa for overseas recruitment.”
While skilled visa numbers have already significantly reduced in the last few years, further hurdles to overseas recruitment could cause problems for industries such as care and hospitality, with one care organisation warning that without coherent government action to attract UK staff, more care providers could go out of business. Asked by the BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg where care homes would recruit staff from, Cooper said companies should recruit from a pool of people who came as care workers in good faith but had been “exploited” by unscrupulous employers.
The other policy set out seeks to address this in part, with the establishment of what is called the Labour Market Evidence Group. “Care companies should be recruiting from those workers. They can also extend existing visas. They could recruit as well from people who are on other visas, who are already here. But we do think it’s time to end that care worker recruitment from abroad,” she said.
Made up of officials from industry and skills bodies, as well as government and the Migration Advisory Council (MAC) quango, it will, the Home Office said, “inform understanding of where sectors are overly reliant on overseas labour and reverse underinvestment in domestic skills”. While Cooper declined to set a specific target for net migration, she said ministers believed changes to certain visas could result in “up to 50,000 fewer lower-skilled visas” over the next year.
Cooper is under significant pressure to further reduce net migration, particularly with the rise of Reform. As well as winning control of 10 councils on 1 May, Nigel Farage’s party, which is promising an effective freeze on most migration, is topping most polls of national voter preference.
Announcing the skilled visa changes, Cooper reiterated the government’s blame on previous Conservative administrations for, she said, having “replaced free movement [in the EU] with a free market experiment”. At present, foreign criminals are only reported to the Home Office if they receive a jail sentence and only those given a year behind bars are usually considered for deportation.
Under the new arrangements, the Home Office will be informed of all foreign nationals convicted of offences – not just those who receive prison sentences – and will be able to use wider removal powers on other crimes, including swifter action to remove people who have recently arrived in the country but already committed crimes.
The overhaul will make it easier to remove those who commit offences, including violence against women and girls, street crime and knife crime, before the threat they pose escalates.
On Monday, Cooper will present a government white paper – a document that sets out plans for future legislation – intended to notably curb net migration, as ministers try to respond to the local election success of Reform UK.
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“The last government lost control of the immigration system and there was no proper plan to tackle skills shortages here at home. This has undermined public confidence, distorted our labour market, and been really damaging for both our immigration system and our economy.” Nigel Farage’s party has focused much of its campaign work on the increase in net migration and successive governments’ failure to stop irregular crossings by asylum seekers across the Channel.
It remains to be seen how much of an impact the changes to skilled visas will make in absolute numbers. MAC data shows that the number of skilled workers entering the UK for jobs with skill levels below RQF six had already dropped in the last few years, while the numbers with degree level skills have stayed constant at about 75,000 annually. The Home Office will also introduce rules so that any foreign national placed on the sex offender register, regardless of sentence length, will be classed as having committed a “serious crime” with no right to asylum protections in the UK.
Nadra Ahmed, executive chair of the National Care Association, said that while her group would have to examine the proposals in detail, she was worried about the potential “accidental consequences” for a sector where about 70,000 staff are from overseas, and which has an estimated 120,000 vacancies. As part of the white paper, the government will update refusal policies and immigration rules to mirror these changes. This means if a person commits an offence while on a short-term visa, they will be refused if they make a fresh application.
“Making it even more difficult for the sector seems strange because the statistics are clear – at the moment we can’t attract the domestic workforce, because we haven’t sorted out fair pay for them,” she said. Other proposals are expected to include new rules so that companies that repeatedly fail to show efforts to recruit UK-based staff, rather than recruit from abroad, could lose their right to sponsor foreign workers. Sectors targeted by the government include engineering and IT.
“And if this isn’t funded, then the gap in the social care sector economy will only grow. That will drive providers out of the sector, which will have a direct impact on the ability to help people who need support today.” It is expected that work visas will be strictly time-limited for most jobs that do not need graduate-level skills.
Foreign students who have studied for degrees in the UK will face tighter tules over their right to remain after finishing university. Overseas workers will be expected to have a better understanding of English, but reported suggestions of A-level equivalent have been denied.
Cooper is under significant pressure to further reduce net migration. As well as winning control of 10 councils on 1 May, Reform, which is promising an effective freeze on most migration, is topping most polls of national voter preference.
While skilled visa numbers have already significantly reduced in the last few years, further hurdles to overseas recruitment could cause problems for industries such as care and hospitality.
Ministers also plan to introduce a Labour Market Evidence Group, made up of officials from industry and skills bodies, as well as from the government and the Migration Advisory Council (MAC). It would, the Home Office said, “inform understanding of where sectors are overly reliant on overseas labour and reverse underinvestment in domestic skills”.