The Home Office lost control of the skilled worker visa route after the Covid pandemic, casting doubt over how many migrant workers are complying with the terms of their visas and leaving some vulnerable to exploitation and modern slavery.
MPs on the House of Commons Public Accounts Committee claim the Home Office’s response to tackling exploitation is slow and ineffective as its skilled worker visas inquiry has warned that government does not whether or not people are leaving the UK after visas expire.
The committee’s report, published today, stated that changes to the system by the Home Office failed to properly consider the risks of non-compliance with visa rules and exploitation of migrant workers. The skilled worker visa route, which was opened up to help the social care sector during the pandemic, is based on a sponsorship model where a migrant’s right to remain in the UK is dependent on their employer.
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This reliance makes migrant workers vulnerable to exploitation, said the 16-strong committee, whose inquiry heard widespread evidence of workers suffering debt bondage, working excessive hours and exploitative conditions.
Far more people had used the skilled worker visa route than the Home Office anticipated in 2020, found the PAC.
Ministers had forecast that the Home Office would issue 360,000 skilled worker visas to overseas applicants (including dependants) over the three years to April 2024, but in fact it issued 931,000. Between December 2020 to the end of 2024, 1.18 million people applied to enter the UK via this route, including 630,000 as dependants of the main applicant. The route had enabled employers to recruit internationally to help address skill shortages but had also led to an 80% increase in people staying permanently in the UK in 2024 compared with 2021. The number of people claiming asylum after entering on a skilled worker visa rose from 53 in 2022 to 5,300 in 2024.
The PAC’s report noted that the Home Office did not know how many people with skilled worker visas had been referred as potential victims of modern slavery. It was also unclear whether arrangements to safeguard care workers whose employers’ sponsor licence had been revoked were working effectively. Additionally, insufficient action had taken place to identify bogus agents overseas who charge applicants unnecessary fees or claim to be able to find them work in the UK.
Basic information, such as how many people on skilled worker visas have been modern slavery victims, and whether people leave the UK after their visas expire, seems to still not have been gathered by government” – Geoffrey Clifton-Brown MP
The Home Office did not understand the extent to which people are complying with the terms of their visa and leaving the UK when they should, found the report, or had a grasp of whether those who had lost their sponsorship were taken on by other sponsors or what happened to people at the end of their visa.
The Home Office has not analysed exit checks since the route was introduced, and does not know what proportion of people return to their home country after their visa has expired, and how many may be working illegally in the UK, found the PAC.
The MPs also said they were concerned by new restrictions on the overseas recruitment of care workers because of increasing demand, but recognised that the NHS 10-year plan could address the lack of parity in pay and conditions between the NHS and social care, making it easier to recruit more domestic workers in this sector.
Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown MP, chair of the Committee, said the popularity of the skilled worker visa route came at a “painfully high cost – to the safety of workers from the depredations of labour market abuses, and the integrity of the system from people not following the rules.
“There has long been mounting evidence of serious issues with the system, laid bare once again in our inquiry. And yet basic information, such as how many people on skilled worker visas have been modern slavery victims, and whether people leave the UK after their visas expire, seems to still not have been gathered by government.”
He added that ministers needed to develop a deeper understanding of the role that immigration plays in sector workforce strategies, as well as how domestic workforce plans will help address skills shortages.
“Government no longer has the excuse of the global crisis caused by the pandemic if it operates this system on the fly, and without due care,” said Clifton-Brown.
The PAC report concluded that there needed to be far more collaboration between the Home Office and other departments on the role of sectoral workforce strategies. There was also a need for the new Labour Market Evidence Group to develop a stronger evidence base on the domestic labour market.
The report features a series of recommendations designed to help the Home Office work together with other government departments and agencies to gain a more thorough understanding of the visa route and its issues.
Legal comment
Ashley Stothard, immigration lawyer at leading law firm Freeths, said the PAC findings “highlight a deeply concerning, although not entirely unsurprising, failure in the UK’s immigration oversight. The skilled worker system was meant to be agile and responsive to labour market needs but that’s come at the cost of basic safeguards and accountability.
The delegation of enforcement punishes the innocent due to administrative errors and allows dishonest actors to cheat the system” – Ashley Stothard, Freeths
“The lack of exit data and the Home Office’s failure to monitor whether visa holders leave the UK is a dereliction of duty to the UK public. Rather than build a robust enforcement system, the Home Office has outsourced responsibility to employers, landlords and even banks – entities that are neither trained nor equipped to handle the complexities of immigration compliance. Moreover, this delegation of enforcement punishes the innocent due to administrative errors and allows dishonest actors to cheat the system.
“The sponsorship system has systemic vulnerability built in. Tying a migrant’s legal status to a single employer creates a power imbalance that is ripe for exploitation. The PAC’s findings of debt bondage, excessive hours, and revoked sponsor licences are not isolated incidents; they are the symptoms of a structurally flawed system.
“The government’s recent move to end overseas recruitment in social care, while perhaps politically advantageous, does not address the root of the problem. It is vital that immigration policy is not driven by short-term political pressures but by long term, evidence-based understanding of workforce needs and human rights obligations. Immigration is a hugely complex system with constantly moving parts – legal, economic and human. It requires careful coordinated management, not piecemeal delegation and reactive policymaking. The Home Office has so far failed to meet that challenge.”
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