Speeches by Dixon.

“Very significant changes were made to the route, in particular—I am sure we will spend quite a bit of today’s session on this—the inclusion of care workers in 2022 and then further changes to eligibility requirements in spring 2024. I want to understand what work was done to assess the impacts ahead of implementation a…”

“We are going to come on to what was done and whether it was done in a timely enough way to protect very vulnerable workers coming into this country with good intentions and for good reason. There are nearly 2 million—I think it is 1.8 million—workers in the care sector doing an amazing job every day looking after older…”

“I want to come specifically to the care labour market, because there are particular characteristics, as you are saying, of the care labour market, not least that these are quite low-paid workers. I do not like to say “low skilled” because they are doing important and skilled work. It was very easy for organisations to …”

“To illustrate this briefly, most of the shortage in care is in rural areas and in domiciliary care, yet that was not where most of the people were being brought to. There was a complete mismatch, both regionally and in the type of workers. Now that these revocations have happened, that means that the people who are lef…”

“I would like to draw on some further evidence that we have received and to home in on a couple of aspects relating to care that you have brought in to effectively address the historical problem, the first being the hubs. These are for people who have found themselves here, who have come in under the work visa, only to …”

“I want to come back to some of the evidence that we have received. Unison surveyed 3,000 people who had come to the care sector. It was saying that one in seven had paid money to an employer, and one in 11 to a recruiter or agency, before coming here. We will get on to this shortly. In terms of the conditions that thos…”

“Are there timescales for the administrative review process to conclude?”

“The sponsors’ requirement extends to where there has been an agency in the country abroad that effectively makes the introduction and charges a fee there.”

“I have examples currently of people overseas still having agencies advertised to them, and distinguishing between those that are exploiting and those that are fair is really difficult. Those people will ultimately be coming through your skilled worker visa route and may find themselves here already destitute, because t…”

“The NAO Report, in paragraph 3.25, highlights evidence of people being charged significant fees in their home countries, which I mentioned briefly. Given the criticism here that there was potentially limited engagement with the FCDO and overseas partners, we have touched a lot on what is going on in the UK, but could y…”

“Yes, particularly about what happens overseas. Both Clive and I have concerns about that.”

“My understanding, just to clarify, was that if they lost employment with the sponsor, they were then, effectively, no longer here legally. Often, if the accommodation is tied, they find themselves basically destitute. Until this matching process works and another sponsoring organisation takes them on, there is a period…”

“Would you agree that there is a need for greater transparency, at a minimum, and potentially also to set some improvement targets around these other areas once people are outside of the straightforward cases?”

“As constituency MPs, we get quite a lot of casework through, including relating to visa applications. I just want to share briefly one case, that I think illustrates the challenge of not having any targets for your non-straightforward cases. A care assistant from Zimbabwe arrived in April 2023 under a skilled worker vi…”

“I apologise for not getting here earlier; I have been listening to carers who have been sharing their stories. I spoke to a woman who is caring for her husband, who has a neurodegenerative disease and currently scores only two points across the board. Their family would be penalised under the tightening restrictions. D…”

“Will the Minister give way?”

“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Efford. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Derby South (Baggy Shanker), the hon. Member for Newton Abbot (Martin Wrigley) and other colleagues for securing this important debate, and I thank all Members who have made contributions illustrating something that is a sc…”

“The Lansley reforms were implemented top down by the Conservatives. The idea that the NHS could ever be truly independent, when it is there to serve us—the taxpayer and the general public! Does the Secretary of State agree that it is absolutely the right decision to move funding away from the centre to the frontline to…”

“The only additional one on the data is where we do not have shared boundaries between local authorities and health, which is a quick point on that additional challenge.”

“I think we will be coming back to some points there but thank you.”