Select committee: Public Accounts Committee
Conclusion 23
37th Report - Immigration: Skilled worker visas
Published 4 Jul 2025
Addressed to HM Treasury
Public Accounts Committee Immigration: Skilled worker visas All items in this report Report on parliament.uk ↗ Inquiry on parliament.uk ↗
Conclusion (the committee's words)
The Home Office seeks to identify sponsors not behaving appropriately. In 2023, it began to apply its genuine vacancy test more rigorously, scrutinising employers to ensure they had guaranteed work for applicants.56 The Home Office also said every employer is expected to do their own compliance checks when they are employing someone.57 Despite this, we were not convinced by the Home Office’s approach, highlighting that sponsors who may be involved in illegal practices are less likely to comply with the necessary checks and that many sponsors had received licences before the Home Office strengthened its controls. The Home Office was unable to tell us how many of these sponsors had been subject to its compliance checks.58
From: Public Accounts Committee, 37th Report - Immigration: Skilled worker visas (HC 819), 4 July 2025
Government response
Latest Treasury Minutes progress report to the Committee of Public Accounts on the Thirty-seventh Report of Session 2024-26
The government responded to the whole report on 4 June 2026 (deadline 4 September 2025).
Treasury minutes: Government response to the Committee of Public Accounts on the Thirty-seventh report from Session 2024-26
Published 15 October 2025.
Summary written by Accountability Index from the government's response. It is not the government's own words.The government agrees with the Committee's recommendations on labour market evidence, evaluation, care workers, exploitation and compliance, but disagrees with the recommendation on customer service.
- On sector workforce analysis, it agrees that other departments should provide more rigorous analysis, with a target implementation date of July 2026, and says the Labour Market Evidence Group "will further strengthen collaboration" between the Home Office and departments leading on labour market and skills.
- It agrees to set out its evaluation of the Skilled Worker route, with a target date of October 2025, stating that the evaluation was published alongside the Immigration White Paper on 12 May.
- On exploitation, it agrees with the recommendation (target date April 2027) and says an update to the Committee is planned for April 2027, "one year after its creation" of the Fair Work Agency.
- It disagrees with the customer service recommendation, stating the Home Office "is committed to continuous improvement in customer service standards" and that it monitors key indicators.