The UK government has announced an end to overseas recruitment for social care visas, as part of immigration policies unveiled by the, Prime Minister, Keir Starmer, in a White Paper to help Britain strengthen control of its borders and reduce migration.
“In line with our wider reforms to skills thresholds, we will close social care visas to new applications from abroad,” the UK Home Office said on its website on Monday.
“For a transition period until 2028, while the workforce strategy is being developed and rolled out, we will permit visa extensions and in-country switching for those already here. This will be kept under review,” it added.
It said the measures would reshape Britain’s immigration system towards “those who contribute most to economic growth, with higher skills standards for graduates and workers”.
It explained that new requirements on employers to boost domestic training would end the reliance on international recruitment, restoring order to a “failed system” that saw net migration quadruple between 2019 and 2023.
Key policies in the 82-page blueprint, titled ‘Restoring Control over the Immigration System,’ include reversing the long-term trend of increasing international recruitment at the expense of skills and training.
It also includes the establishment of the labour market evidence group to make informed decisions about the state of the labour market and the role that different policies should play, rather than always relying on migration, and the engagement of sector bodies by departments across government.
The UK government will also lift the level for skilled workers back to RQF 6 (Graduate level) and above, while salary thresholds will rise.
It further noted that the immigration salary list, which gives people discounts from salary thresholds, would be abolished.
“Access to the points-based immigration system will be limited to occupations where there have been long term shortages, on a time limited basis, where the Migration Advisory Committee (MAC) has advised it is justified, where there is a workforce strategy in place, and where employers seeking to recruit from abroad are committed to playing their part in increasing recruitment from the domestic workforce,” it added.
The government also said it would strengthen the requirements that all sponsoring institutions must meet to recruit international students.
“We will introduce new interventions for sponsors who are close to failing their sponsor duties, including placing them on an action plan designed to improve their compliance, and imposing limits on the number of new international students they can recruit while they are subject to those plans. We will reduce the ability for graduates to remain in the UK after their studies to a period of 18 months,” it said.
It, however, said it would go further in ensuring that the very highly skilled have opportunities to come to the UK and access its targeted routes for the brightest and best global talent.
According to the government, this includes increasing the number of people arriving on its very high-talent routes, alongside faster routes for bringing people to the UK who have the right skills and experience to supercharge UK growth in strategic industries.
As part of efforts to strengthen its border, the UK government said the new policies would apply to individuals who claim asylum where conditions in their home country have not materially changed, “particularly where they have claimed asylum after arrival”.
“Tighter visa controls, restrictions, requirements, or scrutiny will be applied where we have evidence of abuse, based on a clear assessment of the risks,” it added.
The new policies came more than three months after UK opposition leader, Kemi Badenoch, said her Conservative party would make it more difficult for regular migrants to settle permanently in Britain.
She had said in an interview on February 5 that migrants would have to prove they had made a net contribution to the UK economy in order to settle indefinitely in the country, by working and paying taxes.
“We need to slow down the track for citizenship. A UK passport should be a privilege, not an automatic right,” Badenoch, who was born in London to Nigerian parents and raised in Nigeria, said.
