Recommendation 13

The Home Office is facing an extremely difficult choice. If no changes are made to eligibility for settled status, hundreds of thousands of care workers and their dependants will become eligible for settled status in the next few years—gaining access to public funds and likely drawing on the public purse. If the Government proceeds with plans for a 15-year route for care workers this will likely lead to one of two outcomes for affected workers: they will leave the sector and return to their countries of origin, increasing vacancies in the social care sector, reducing the availability of care and increasing cost pressures which the Government may need to cover, or they will remain in the UK care sector, at prolonged risk of poverty and exploitation. This dilemma emanates from the long-standing issue of low pay and poor conditions in the care sector, and the Home Office’s mismanagement of the Health and Care Worker visa. It is important to acknowledge that migrants who work in our care sector make a genuine and valuable contribution to our country. There is also a legitimate public interest in responding to the recent high levels of migration through the care route, and addressing the direct fiscal impacts associated with this group reaching settlement after five years. Extending routes to settlement for care workers will have unintended consequences, and the Government will need to be prepared to identify these and mitigate them where necessary. (Conclusion, Paragraph 56)