Care worker migrant surge ‘should’ve been obvious’

The Home Office has a limited understanding of the social care system. It “should have been obvious that lots of migrants would arrive for jobs in care, the former borders watchdog has said. The Home Office says it has a ‘limited understanding’ of social care. David Neal says the immigration system has invited large numbers of low-skilled care workers into the UK.

His findings are in a report published after he was sacked. The Home Office said it had already taken steps to limit overseas carers. He said the government under-estimated the demand for the care worker visa. The government has already put restrictions on care workers who want to bring their families to the UK.

A spokesman for the Home Office said: “We do not tolerate illegal activity in the labour market and we will continue to revoke licenses from those who abuse the system’ The Home Office has insisted that his report used inaccurate data that he did not take the opportunity to correct. Mr Neal was sacked in February after he gave data from the report about private jets to the Daily Mail newspaper. The same data was redacted in today’s report when it was issued to parliament. Even now ministers are hiding the true scale of the flaws, redacting much of the vital information, and slipping the reports out when Parliament can’t respond.

34;From allowing high security risk flights to swan into the country with zero in-person checks, despite risks from drugs, guns and people smuggling, through to rampant labour exploitation in the social care visa.