A Home Office assault on abuse and exploitation will result in long-term sanctions for companies that violate visa regulations.
Ministers plan to double the amount of time that businesses might face penalties for major employment violations, like failing to pay the minimum wage or frequently breaking visa regulations.
Migration minister Seema Malhotra said the Government was committed to ensuring “those who abuse our immigration system face the strongest possible consequences”.
Currently, firms who flout work visa regulations can only be sanctioned for a maximum of 12 months. Under Government changes this will be doubled to at least two years for repeat offenders.
Measures introduced through the Government’s Employments Rights Bill – which is making its way through Parliament – will also take action against employers who are showing signs of rule breaking.
Action plans binding businesses who commit visa breaches into improvements will be strengthened, and the period they apply for will be lengthened from three months to a year.
While these plans are in place, employers will be restricted from hiring overseas workers.
Employers will also have to pay the costs of visa sponsorship rather than passing this onto their workers.
The Home Office says overseas workers in UK care companies have been particularly vulnerable to exploitation.
Some 450 sponsor licences in the sector have been revoked since July 2022, and work is taking place to help care workers into alternative jobs when their sponsor has lost their licence.
Ms Malhotra said: “No longer will employers be able to flout the rules with little consequence or exploit international workers for costs they were always supposed to pay if they choose not to recruit domestically.
“Worker exploitation is completely unacceptable. Shamefully, these practices have been seen particularly in our care sector, where workers coming to the UK to support our health and social care service have all too often found themselves plunged into unjustifiable insecurity and debt. This can, and must, end.”
Health minister Stephen Kinnock added: “Migrant workers are a valuable part of our social care workforce.
“However, there has been an unacceptable rise in the exploitation and abuse of overseas social care workers from rogue operators.”
The rule changes will apply to skilled worker visas first, including for care workers, and will be extended to other sponsored routes in future.
Dr Dora-Olivia Vicol, CEO of the Work Rights Centre, welcomed the Government’s plans, but said what was being done was the “bare minimum”.
Dr Vicol added: “Waiting until employers have committed serious breaches of the law before taking action’ was indeed the tactic of the last government, but if this Government is serious about addressing migrant workers’ exploitation, it’ll have to go beyond simply sticking plasters on a broken work migration system that enables exploitation by design.
“Days before they were elected, Labour committed to investigating the appalling treatment of migrant care workers. They must deliver on this promise, which will inevitably point the finger at sponsorship.”
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