There are currently around 130,000 vacancies in the social care sector, a higher proportion of unfilled roles than anywhere else in the labour market. According to the industry body Skills for Care, an ageing population means that 540,000 new care workers will be needed by 2040. Finding them, in a sector where employees have historically been grossly underpaid and undervalued, will be one of the challenges of the next decade.
Against that disconcerting backdrop, curtailing the practice of hiring care workers from overseas would seem to be – to put it mildly – counterintuitive policymaking. But that is what the government has chosen to do, despite opposition from both Care England and Unison, the biggest union representing health and care workers. On Tuesday, as part of Labour’s broader drive to significantly reduce legal migration, the special visa route that allowed international staff to ease a dire recruitment crisis was closed down. Care workers already here on a sponsorship visa will have to stay for 10 years rather than five to win indefinite leave to remain.
Justifying the decision, Labour has pointed to evidence of abuse of the visa system by unscrupulous employers. Egregious exploitation of vulnerable workers has undoubtedly taken place, and needs to be fully stamped out. But that could be achieved through better regulation, rather than what amounts to a ban on future hiring from abroad. In truth, the government’s motives have more to do with the wider political goal of spiking Reform UK’s guns on immigration.
The upshot for the social care sector is that institutions already on the edge, as a result of rising costs and understaffing, have lost a potential future lifeline. The number of care workers recruited from overseas had, in any case, already fallen steeply last year after visas for dependants were curtailed. But in a notoriously dysfunctional system, their presence has continued to be indispensable.
The home secretary, Yvette Cooper, has responded to concerns by arguing that providers will in future have to make a greater effort to attract domestic applicants. In the brave new world envisaged by Ms Cooper, that should lead to a much-needed improvement in pay and working conditions as employers seek to incentivise new recruits. To hasten this process, Labour has proposed measures designed to pave the way for a “fair pay agreement” in the sector.
Such initiatives are long overdue in a historically underunionised environment. But truly transformative change will only come about through the type of central funding settlement that successive governments have promised and then failed to deliver. It is a national disgrace that one in five residential care workers live in poverty, despite performing a vital, often stressful role that requires complex skills. But cash-strapped councils already overwhelmed by the cost of commissioning social care are not in a position to help right that wrong.
Labour has charged Dame Louise Casey with coming up with a comprehensive financial solution. But her independent commission into adult social care will not make its final report until 2028, by which time parliament’s focus will be entirely on the next election. For the foreseeable future, those requiring the services of Britain’s chronically neglected adult social care sector will thus be obliged to take their chances. That makes this week’s decision to reject future assistance from overseas look shortsighted at best, and politically cynical at worst.
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