Immigration: Au Pairs

(asked on 2nd December 2021) - View Source

Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what recent assessment she has made of the potential merits of establishing a dedicated immigration route for au pairs from the EU.


Answered by
Kevin Foster Portrait
Kevin Foster
This question was answered on 7th December 2021

Home Office officials have been in correspondence with the British Au Pair Agencies Association on numerous occasions regarding the au pair sector.

Since 2008 successive governments have decided the UK’s immigration system will not offer a dedicated visa route for au pairs. With the ending of free movement, this position now applies to EEA nationals.

Immigration routes which allow general work rights in the UK can be used by those who may wish to take up au pair roles, such as those who arrive under our Youth Mobility Schemes (YMS). We remain open to negotiating YMS arrangements with other countries and territories, including the EU or nations within it. However, as each YMS is subject to a bilateral, reciprocal agreement which also provides benefit to UK Nationals, we will therefore not add nations to the YMS route unilaterally as it is not simply a one-way route for recruiting cheaper labour overseas.

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