Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment he has made of the impact of the end of free movement on the availability of labour in the UK social care sector.

The flow of EU workers into the sector annually is small comparable to the size of the workforce. Fewer than 5% of all workers joining the sector in a direct care role in 2019/20 had arrived from the EU in the previous 12 months. Therefore, we do not anticipate that there will be an immediate impact on workforce supply. We will continue to monitor the situation with regards to domestic recruitment and the flow of workers from the EU.