Responding to Home Office measures to tackle exploitation of migrant care workers, RCN General Secretary and Chief Executive Professor Nicola Ranger said:
“Rogue employers who deny migrant care workers their basic employment rights should face tougher sanctions, and today’s measures are a step in the right direction.
“However, it’s clear the government needs to go further. Reclaiming costs for sponsorship is already against current guidance and so we need to know what these stronger controls look like in reality. Ministers must also look at the other ways rogue employers use repayment clauses to demand eye-watering, arbitrary sums of money, and how threats to immigration status are regularly used to coerce.
“A full government investigation, as promised during the election, is the only way to identify the scale and types of exploitation taking place in the sector, paving the way for comprehensive action to eradicate it.”
Ends
Notes to editors
In August 2024, RCN data revealed a six-fold increase in the number of overseas care workers being exploited by rogue employers in the past three years.
