Care workers will be barred from bringing family members to the UK within weeks amid “significant concerns” over visa abuses.
Legal Migration Minister Tom Pursglove said immigration “is not the long-term answer to our social care needs” as the Home Office laid the changes in Parliament.
Only employers registered by the watchdog – Care Quality Commission – will be able to sponsor visas, under the Government’s new plans.
Some 123,000 foreign care workers were granted visas in just 18 months and an additional 145,000 family members came with them.
Care workers were added to the Shortage Occupation List – which lowers the amount foreign workers have to earn in a job – in 2021 amid staff shortages in the sector.
Legal migration rocketed to 745,000 in the year to December, making it a key election battleground.
It is understood officials wanted to plug a gap of around 150,000 vacancies.
Legal Migration Minister Tom Pursglove said: “This plan, alongside the package we have already introduced to restrict student dependants, is expected to mean around 300,000 people who would have been eligible to come to the UK under last year’s rules, would not be able to.
“These changes include some of the measures announced in that package, namely preventing overseas care workers and senior care workers from bringing their dependants to the UK and requiring care providers in England who wish to sponsor migrant workers to be registered by the Care Quality Commission (CQC).
“These measures will ensure we continue to protect our NHS and social care systems, while addressing significant concerns that have emerged since the introduction of the visa about high levels of non-compliance and worker exploitation and abuse within the adult social care sector, particularly for overseas workers employed within care occupations.”
Mr Pursglove added: “We know that migration to the UK remains too high, but our plan will deliver a decisive cut in numbers that the public expect so we can get back to sustainable and well-managed levels. Under our new measures, 300,000 people who came to the UK last year would now not be able to come.
“Care workers make a vital contribution to society, and we are grateful to those from overseas who care for our loved ones, but immigration is not the long-term answer to our social care needs.
“These measures laid in Parliament will deliver on our promise and cut the rising numbers of visas granted to overseas care workers and address significant concerns about high levels of non-compliance, worker exploitation and abuse within the social care sector, particularly for overseas workers.”
It comes as the outgoing chief inspector of borders and immigration, David Neal, warned a quarter of foreign care workers are employed illegally in other industries.
He highlighted one shocking case where the Home Office had issued 1,234 health and care visas to a company which stated it only had four staff.
Officials also gave 275 care visas to a care home that did not exist.
And Mr Neal said that his inspectors encountered migrants with care visas working illegally in two out of eight enforcement visits between August and October last year.
He said it was representative of the proportion of migrants on care visas working in the UK more broadly, meaning that about 25,000 of the 101,316 people granted a social care visa in the year to September last year would have been working in other sectors illegally.
