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The press release issued by the Home Office on 12 May 2025.

International recruitment for care workers will end under plans announced by Home Secretary Yvette Cooper.

The government’s Immigration White Paper, published in Parliament tomorrow, will include the change as the government takes action to bring down historically high levels of net migration.

Care workers from overseas have made a huge contribution to social care in the UK, but too many have been subject to shameful levels of abuse and exploitation.

Workers seeking to support the UK’s care sector arrived to find themselves saddled with debt, treated unfairly, or in extreme cases discover the jobs they were promised did not exist.

In March, the Home Office revealed over 470 care providers had had their licence to sponsor international staff suspended since 2022.

Under plans to be outlined on Monday (12 May), the government will go further and put an end to any more overseas recruitment.

The crackdown on rogue care providers has seen around 40,000 workers displaced, many of whom are ready to rejoin the workforce. They will be given the opportunity to do the jobs they were promised, while long-term plans are drawn up to train homegrown talent into the care sector.

International workers who are already sponsored to work legally in the sector will be able to continue to extend their stay, change sponsors and apply to settle, including those who need to switch employers following a sponsor licence revocation.

This government is committed to tackling these issues and has committed to establishing Fair Pay Agreements which will empower worker, employer and other sector representatives to negotiate improvements in the terms of employment. This builds on the announcement in January of the expansion of the Care Workforce Pathway which will support the adult social care sector to professionalise the workforce.

Together, these measures will move the UK away from a dependence on overseas workers to fulfil our care needs. Baroness Casey has also begun work on an independent commission into adult social care – a once in a generation opportunity to transcend party politics and build consensus on the future of the sector.

The Immigration White Paper, published in full tomorrow, is part of government efforts to restore order, control and fairness to the system, bring down net migration and promote economic growth.

The press release issued by the Home Office on 11 May 2025.

New reforms to deportation and removal rules will make it easier to remove foreign criminals committing crimes in the UK, the Home Office will announce tomorrow.

Currently the Home Office is only informed of foreign nationals given prison sentences and deportation arrangements focus predominantly on those sentenced to more than a year in prison.

Under the new arrangements, the Home Office will be informed of all foreign nationals convicted of offences – not just those who receive prison sentences – and will be able to use wider removal powers on other crimes including swifter action to remove people who have recently arrived in the country but have already committed crimes.

The overhaul will make it easier to remove those who commit offences – including violence against women and girls, street and knife crimes – before the threat they pose escalates.

The reforms will be announced tomorrow as part of the government’s Immigration White Paper, which will radically reform Britain’s failed immigration system.

The Home Office will consider all offences, not just those that carry a 12-month custodial sentence, and strengthen powers to remove perpetrators of violence against women and girls.

Any foreign national placed on the Sex Offenders Register – regardless of sentence length – will be classed as having committed a ‘serious crime’ with no right to asylum protections in the UK.

Since July 2024, the Home Office has removed 3,594 foreign criminals from the UK – a 16% increase on the same period 12 months prior.

Home Secretary Yvette Cooper said:

It is a basic requirement – those who come to the UK should abide by our laws. The system for returning foreign criminals has been far too weak for too long. Already we have increased the number of foreign national offenders being removed since the election. But we need much higher standards. The rules need to be respected and enforced.

We need to restore control so that net migration comes down and proper standards and order are returned.

As part of the White Paper, the government will also update refusal policies and immigration rules to mirror these changes. This means if a person commits an offence while on a short-term visa, they will be refused if they make a fresh application.

New measures will be explored to swiftly cancel visas to those who commit crimes, ensuring action is taken against offenders before they can put down roots in the UK.

Notes to editors

• As part of the Government’s Plan for Change to have Safer Streets and Secure Borders, and efforts to digitise information flows, the Government will be working with partners across the criminal justice system to ensure data on convictions of migrants in the UK is shared swiftly so the necessary action can be taken.

The press release issued by the Home Office on 11 May 2025.

Britain’s failed immigration system will be radically reformed so the system is controlled, managed and fair under a landmark White Paper to be published tomorrow (Monday 12 May).

The government inherited a chaotic immigration system that saw net migration soar to record levels – driven by a huge increase in overseas recruitment since 2020.

The government is now delivering on the priorities of working people to bring down numbers, restore control of Britain’s borders and make the system work for the economy.

The Immigration White Paper will deliver on its manifesto pledge to cut migration by training domestic workers, raising the bar on who can come to the UK and ending reliance on overseas labour.

It will establish tough new controls to restore order to a failed system that saw net migration almost quadruple to one million between 2019 and 2023.

New measures mean skills thresholds for work visas will be returned to degree level – reversing a system that saw the proportion of lower-skilled visas issued increase between 2021 and 2024.

Meanwhile the government will end the chronic underinvestment in domestic skills that has hindered economic growth.

We will support businesses to take on British workers through new industry workforce strategies, while introducing much tighter restrictions on recruitment for shortage occupations.

Employers will first need to develop domestic training plans to boost British skills and recruitment levels – increasing productivity and living standards for working people in the UK.

So migration works for the whole UK, the country will remain open to the best of international talent – enhancing economic growth – while ensuring skilled work for migration purposes must truly mean skilled work.

The announcement follows major steps the government has already taken to crackdown on those exploiting the system and restoring order to the immigration system – ramping up removals to return 24,000 people with no right to be here since July 2024, the highest rate in eight years.

But this government is going further. The White Paper establishes whole new approaches to migration across a range of areas – including work, study and family life – based on the principles of control, contribution and community cohesion.

It delivers on the Prime Minister’s Plan for Change to reduce the staggeringly high levels of immigration and replace Britain’s failing approach with a new plan that supports national security, economic renewal and restoring the confidence of the public.

Home Secretary Yvette Cooper said:

Migration must be properly controlled and managed so the system is fair. Instead, we’ve seen net migration quadruple in the space of just four years, driven especially by overseas recruitment.

We inherited a failed immigration system where the previous government replaced free movement with a free market experiment.

Employers were given much greater freedom to recruit from abroad while action on training fell.

Overseas recruitment soared at the same time as big increases in the number of people not working or in education here in the UK.

The last government lost control of the immigration system and there was no proper plan to tackle skills shortages here at home.

This has undermined public confidence, distorted our labour market, and been really damaging for both our immigration system and our economy.

Under our Plan for Change, we are taking decisive action to restore control and order to the immigration system, raise domestic training and skills, and bring down net migration while promoting economic growth.”

Measures to be set out tomorrow include:

• Raising the skilled visa threshold to RQF6 (graduate level) to reduce increasing numbers of lower-skilled workers coming to the UK – with salary thresholds reflecting the higher skill level.
• For occupations below this level, access to the immigration system will be strictly time-limited, granted only on the basis of strong evidence of shortages which are critical to the industrial strategy and where workforce strategies are drawn up so employers also commit to increasing domestic skills and recruitment.
• Establishing the Labour Market Evidence Group (LMEG) to inform understanding of where sectors are overly reliant on overseas labour and reverse underinvestment in domestic skills.

For the first time it means that there will be a national approach to ensuring that action on skills, employer strategies and increasing UK workforce participation are the first response to labour market shortages rather than employers simply turning to immigration to fill gaps.

Notes to editors

• The Labour Market Evidence Group (LMEG) will be made up of the Industrial Strategy Council, Department of Work and Pensions, skills bodies and the Migration Advisory Committee (MAC) and make recommendations on where workforce strategies are needed.
• These reforms are just part of government action to restore order, control and fairness to the system, and the full Immigration White Paper will be published in Parliament tomorrow.