Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether her Department has undertaken an impact assessment on the decision to end overseas recruitment of care workers.

We recognise the huge contribution of overseas care, 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 work in the care sector, alongside the ongoing 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.