End of free movement of workers from EU has significantly increased possibilities of exploitation, care watchdog tells MPs

Post-Brexit restrictions on the free movement of workers from the EU have contributed to modern slavery becoming “a feature” of the care sector in England the Care Quality Commission has told MPs.

James Bullion, chief inspector of adult social care and integrated care at the watchdog, told the Commons health and social care select committee that the end of free movement of workers significantly increased the possibilities of exploitation, which have included cases of care workers not being paid for months and dozens being squeezed into overcrowded lodgings. Cases of modern slavery are on track to have increased tenfold in the last three years he said.

He said the CQC made four referrals about modern slavery in 2021-22, 37 referrals last year, and is on course to make 50 this year. It comes after unions said some foreign workers had in effect been paid as little as £5 an hour and charged thousands of pounds in unexpected fees. This week, a BBC Panorama undercover investigation at Addison Court care home in Gateshead reported allegations of foreign workers being trapped by visa rules and being exploited.

There have been separate complaints of pay being withheld from care workers for months and overcrowding in shared housing.

“It is a trend and it is a feature of the markets now,” Bullion told the MPs. “A few years ago we would have had a market based on more free movement from Europe. Where you have got a situation where you are dependent on a visa and you are then dependent on an employer the possibility for exploitation then increases significantly. I don’t think it is widespread or endemic but I do think it is becoming more common.”

Meanwhile, care homes told the MPs they were “blindsided” by the Home Office’s ban on foreign staff bringing dependents to the UK and warned of an “enormous” impact that could even push family members into mental health crisis.

Martin Green, chief executive of Care England, the umbrella group that represents the main care chains, told the committee care levels would drop as foreign workers stopped coming, causing “enormous pressure on unpaid carers and family members, some of whom will not be able to cope”.

Describing operators as “annoyed” and “irritated” by the government ban, which is expected to deter thousands of foreign care workers from coming to the UK, Green said neither care homes nor the Department of Health and Social Care had been consulted. The ban is due to come into effect next spring as part of a wider attempt to reduce immigration by 300,000 a year, launched by the prime minister, Rishi Sunak. Skills for Care, a government agency, also told the MPs “the mechanism and the specific changes weren’t clear to us” before the announcement.

In the year ending December 2023, 120,000 dependents accompanied 100,000 care workers from abroad, but those dependents will no longer be allowed from next spring, the home secretary, James Cleverly, announced earlier this month.

Green said he was “very concerned” by the move. “We are in a position in some areas where we cannot recruit staff and in some areas this is reducing capacity,” he said. “I have got members who have had to reduce the number of people they support because they can’t get the staff.”

He said overseas workers have “good skills” and continuity of care is good because they stay in jobs.

“The impact will be enormous,” he said. “There will be less care available, people will be at higher levels of dependency when they access it, you will also have the enormous pressure on unpaid carers and family members, some of whom will not be able to cope with that pressure and then will become people who need care and support themselves – whether it is mental health support or whatever.”