Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether she has made an assessment of the potential impact of her Department's publication entitled Restoring control over the immigration system: white paper, published on 12 May 2025, on the ability to fill vacancies in social care.

We hugely welcome the contribution of overseas care workers, but it is important that long-term plans are drawn up to train homegrown talent into the care sector.  

As outlined in the ‘Restoring Control over the Immigration System - Technical Annex’, it is estimated there will be an annual reduction of approximately 7,000 main applicants resulting from the removal of Care and Senior Care worker occupations from the Health and Social Care route

To manage this change, there will be a transitional period until 2028.

Many care workers arriving on this route have been widely exploited, with tens of thousands displaced and promised jobs that did not materialise. They will be given the opportunity to do the jobs they were promised, alongside the development of future workforce plans.

The White Paper sets out a number of reforms to the immigration system which will be implemented in a phased way. Each measure will be subject to an impact assessment when they are brought into force.