Former deputy PM calls visa rule changes for migrants un-British

Care homes, elderly patients and local authorities face a harder staffing fight if visa rules for migrants already in the UK keep tightening, with ministers insisting the changes are needed to cut abuse and reduce net migration. Angela Rayner has branded the approach “un-British”, setting up a direct clash between immigration control and the care system’s dependence on overseas workers.

The Home Office began tightening the route in March 2024, when it stopped care workers from bringing dependants after 120,000 dependants had come with 100,000 workers on the route in the previous year. It also required care providers in England sponsoring migrants to register with the Care Quality Commission, a move aimed at curbing exploitation in a sector repeatedly accused of failing vulnerable staff.

The squeeze deepened on 12 March 2025, when ministers said employers in England would have to prioritise recruiting international care workers already in the country before looking overseas. Those rules took effect on 9 April 2025, forcing providers to prove they had tried to hire from within England before seeking a new recruit from abroad. For care homes already struggling to fill shifts, the policy shifted the burden from overseas recruitment to an in-country pool that is already under pressure.

On 11 May 2025, the government went further and announced it would end overseas recruitment for care workers altogether. The same package still allowed workers already legally sponsored to extend their stay, change sponsors and apply to settle, while transitional rules kept in-country switching applications open until 22 July 2028. The Home Office said more than 470 care providers had had their sponsor licences suspended since 2022, with around 40,000 workers displaced in the crackdown on rogue employers.

Ministers have framed the overhaul as a response to abuse and ballooning migration, pointing to net migration rising from 224,000 in the year to June 2019 to 906,000 in the year ending June 2023. Spring 2025 immigration rules also raised the skills threshold for Skilled Worker and Health and Care visas from RQF level 3 to RQF level 6, while closing Skilled Worker entry clearance applications for care workers and senior care workers. The government’s case is that the system has to move toward homegrown staffing. Rayner’s criticism lands because, for care providers and the local authorities that commission them, the immediate effect of fewer overseas routes is not a slogan but a staffing gap that has to be filled on the ground.