An organisation that supports migrant workers has launched a legal challenge against the government’s new policy to bar care workers from bringing children and partners to the UK, warning that it is “tearing families apart”.
According to Migrants at Work, care workers have to choose between family life with their children and partners or getting a job as a health or social carer in the UK – they can no longer do both.
The controversial policy, which took effect last month, has been introduced at a time when the vacancy rate in the adult social care workforce is at almost 10%.
The home secretary, James Cleverly, said the changes had been made to tighten up high levels of non-compliance as well as exploitation and abuse in the care sector.
A report from the Migration Advisory Committee estimated that 236,000 full-time care staff would be needed across the UK in the next 11 years.
A report to the Commons public accounts committee last month found there were 152,000 vacancies in the care sector – a 9.9% vacancy rate. The report said changes had been introduced at a time when “social care workforce shortages are of profound concern”.
The legal action argues that the policy is discriminatory on various grounds including sex, race and is in breach of the public sector equality duty. It claims the home secretary has failed to take into account the needs of care sector workers.
Aké Achi, the founding chief executive of Migrants at Work, said: “The Home Office’s changes to the health and social care visa will further exacerbate the staff shortages in the adult social care workforce.
“On top of this, carers who want to come to the UK are now facing an invidious choice: either they take up a job that will contribute to the delivery of social care at a time of crisis in the UK, or they continue living with their children and partners.
“The new rules will not allow them to do both. We have also seen cases where prospective care workers have been told they have to leave the UK since the new rules have come in, on the basis that their children are not permitted to stay in the UK as their dependants. The new rules are already tearing families apart and the impact on the wider care sector will be disastrous.”
Jeremy Bloom, a solicitor at Duncan Lewis, representing Migrants at Work, said the Home Office still had an opportunity to ditch the new rules and save on the expense of litigation.
He added: “We haven’t seen any evidence that the Home Office has properly considered the impact that this will have on people coming to the UK on health and social care visas, on the vulnerable individuals who need access to social care, or on the wider system of social care.”
He accused the home secretary of ignoring the impact this would have on staff shortages in the social care sector.
“The secretary of state is clear that a full impact assessment was not carried out prior to the introduction of the policy, which raises very serious concerns about whether he has complied with the public sector equality duty.”
A government spokesperson said: “Care workers make a vital contribution to society, but immigration is not the long-term answer to our social care needs. An estimated 120,000 dependants accompanied 100,000 care workers in the year ending September 2023. These numbers are unsustainable, which is why reforms are now in place restricting care workers from bringing dependants with them”.