If your loved one is being cared for in a care home, in a nursing facility, or by in-home carers, the Home Office’s proposed changes to skilled-worker visas should worry you.
The government brought foreign care workers to the UK after the pandemic, because the social care system was failing. Few would choose a job in the care sector – with its low wages, lack of respect for its workers, long hours, unappealing shift patterns, and mentally, physically, and emotionally taxing work – if other jobs are available.
Many care homes are reliant on foreign workers, even making up the majority of staff in many care facilities. So what will the government do if the foreign workers who prop up the care sector have to leave? How many care homes in the UK would be forced to close their doors if even half of their foreign workers resigned? If those care homes closed, where would the elderly and ill people who live in them go?
Yet this danger threatens. Under the current rules, a worker on a Health and Care Work visa must work for their sponsor employer for five years before they are able to apply for settled status. Under the new rules, they would be required to work for their sponsor employer for 15 years, three times as long, before becoming eligible for settlement.
This is a danger to all workers. Precarious work is bad for workers, wherever they are from – if you have a dispute with your boss and don’t have the protection of a strong union, you could lose your job. A migrant worker could lose their job, and then the entire life which they’ve worked hard to build in this country. This dependency shifts the balance of power between the whole workforce and the employer. Even as the Labour government is passing the Employment Rights Bill, it is undermining workers’ rights!
The primary reason the Home Office has given for this change is a “negative fiscal impact” produced by “low-skilled” migrants. The argument is that over their lifetimes, low-paid workers get more from education, health and pension services than the income taxes they pay. However, according to the Migration Advisory Committee, this is similar to the ‘negative fiscal impact’ of a similar locally born worker. This ignores the enormous social contribution care workers make, let alone the billions in profits many generate for the bosses of privatised care services!
Government officials are ostensibly making an attempt to encourage British workers to take up care-work roles. The extent of this attempt seems to be a “fair-pay agreement” for social care in England. The ‘fair pay’ plan would not come into effect until 2028, long after the proposed changes to the Health and Care Work visa. The efficacy of the plan is untested and uncertain, and it is entirely irrelevant to the care sector outside of England. There is no equivalent plan in process for the rest of the UK. Once again, Westminster has introduced policy which completely ignores the needs of the people. We must all loudly protest against the proposed changes, and protect the services our elderly and infirm so desperately need.
Mina Fraser
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