The Public Accounts Committee has criticised the Home Office for failing to collaborate sufficiently with other departments when making changes to the skilled worker visa route.
In a report published on Friday, the committee said the Home Office opened up the route to include social care workers “quickly” and without understanding the risks.
The MPs said there has been “insufficient collaboration with other departments on the role that immigration should play in sectoral workforce strategies” when the Home Office considered making changes to the rules.
While decisions on immigration rules are subject to collective government agreement, the Home Office is responsible for immigration policy, working with other departments to consider competing objectives.
But the committee said the Home Office expanded the skilled worker visa in 2022 to include care workers without producing an impact assessment.
As a result of these shortcomings, the Home Office “has not had a full understanding of the potential consequences of changes for different sectors of the labour market or regions of the United Kingdom”, the committee said.
“In particular, the Home Office needs an up-to-date understanding of skill shortages and salary levels across the devolved nations to understand how the route is working across the United Kingdom,” it added.
The Home Office recently published the immigration white paper, Restoring control over the immigration system, which included a commitment to establish a Labour Market Evidence Group to help develop a stronger evidence base on the domestic labour market and a clearer understanding of the role that immigration should play in key sectors.
The PAC report asks the Home Office to write to the committee before the end of 2025 to explain how the Labour Market Evidence Group is working and how it will lead to a deeper understanding of the role that immigration plays in sector workforce strategies.
The committee also asked for other departments to provide more rigorous analysis of the needs of sectors affected by potential rule changes, including an assessment of the role of immigration in sectoral workforce plans and how potential rule changes may affect this.
The report warns that significant risks relating to non-compliance with visa rules, and the exploitation of migrant workers were not anticipated or planned for when the skilled worker visa route – first introduced in 2020 – was expanded in 2022 to fill social care vacancies during the pandemic.
The number of applicants to the skilled worker visa route was “much higher than anticipated” with 931,000 visas issued to overseas applicants between 2020 and 2024 – more than double the forecasted number of 360,000, the report notes. It says the unintended consequences of this are not fully understood.
Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown, chair of the committee, said: “Government now needs 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.”
Following its move to ease entry requirements for care workers, the Home Office “identified evidence of exploitation of migrant care workers but was initially slow to respond”, the report says.
The committee also said it is “not convinced” by the approach of the Home Office to meeting its responsibility to prevent modern slavery. This is “illustrated by it not knowing how many people with skilled worker visas had been referred as potential victims”, it said.
MPs found that the Home Office does not understand the extent to which people are complying with the terms of their visa and leaving the United Kingdom when they should. The report also expresses concern that “the Home Office did not understand the practical challenges of applying controls in the care sector” when it opened up the route to include care workers.
Significant numbers of those sponsoring applicants for skilled worker visas were not subject to checks, the report says. It says the Home Office also does not know what happens to people at the end of their visa – whether they return to their home country or stay and work illegally in the UK – since no analysis of exit checks has been conducted since the route was introduced.
The PAC report recommends that the Home Office should work with relevant government bodies to establish an agreed response to tackling exploitation risks and consequences, and that it should also undertake a full assessment of its approach to tackling compliance risks.
A number of the committee’s recommendations address shortfalls in customer service at the Home Office. The PAC report suggests that the Home Office target of 80% of applicants being satisfied with the visa application service “illustrates a lack of ambition, suggesting that it is content with one in five of its customers being dissatisfied”. The report also recommends that “more stretching” customer service targets should be set.
MPs also identified that applicants and sponsors to the visa scheme are unable to track the process of their applications, giving rise to a large number of complaints about the service. The committee recommended that the Home Office provide an update on the progress of improvements to the IT systems that operate the sponsorship scheme and visa applications.
The Home Office has been contacted for comment.