Care homes set to face ban on recruiting overseas staff

UK care homes will no longer be allowed to recruit workers from overseas as ministers scramble to slash net migration to significantly” below half a million people a year.

- KATE DEVLIN

The crackdown is part of a swathe of measures in a long-awaited white paper on migration as Labour attempts to tackle the growing threat posed by Nigel Farage and Reform.

Also included will be plans to deport more foreign criminals, tell employers they must train UK staff, and requirements that skilled workers entering Britain must have a degree.

Home secretary Yvette Cooper, who is due to set out the sweeping changes today, said that high levels of people coming into the country and a lack of training in the UK were creating “distortions” that were “undermining the economy”.

Net migration reached 900,000 in 2023, although it fell to just over 700,000 a year later. Ms Cooper said the government’s reforms will not include a target number, but added that it had to fall “significantly” below 500,000.

She told the BBC’s Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg show the rules around care worker visas would be changed to prevent it being used to recruit from overseas after “we saw that huge increase in care work recruitment from abroad, but without [it] actually ever tackling the problems in the system”.