Chris Philp says the home secretary is giving in to ‘open-borders Labour left’ ahead of an announcement this afternoon
The King’s Fund, a health thinktank, is warning that Shabana Mahmood is planning to tighten the residency rules for foreign workers when the number of overseas care workers being recruited is already on course to fall to 10,000 a year.
And this is happening as vacancies in the sector increase, it says in its analysis. It explains:
Overseas care worker recruitment is falling from its high point of 105,000 in 2023/24 to 30,000 in 2025/26, with it trending to fall to 10,000 in 2026/27. In 2025/26 there were 1.02 million filled direct care independent sector posts and 65,000 vacancies. Vacancy rates in the social care sector are above average when compared with others.
Alongside a decline in the number of international recruits, the number of new domestic workers starters in care work is also falling – with now more leaving than are starting. There were 140,000 new British starters in 2025/26, down from 255,000 in 2020/21, compared with 175,000 who left the sector in the last financial year.
The divergent trend lines of the growth in demand for care workers and the expected fall in new international recruits that the sector relies on, paints a bleak picture for where the social care workforce will be unless there is significant intervention from the government.
We have never, in the history of this country, had so much low-skilled migration in so little time. We estimate, based on findings from the migration advisory committee … That the lifetime cost to the taxpayer will be £10bn.
The £10bn figure should be put in wider context. New IPPR analysis suggests that, as a whole, the estimated net lifetime fiscal contribution of all skilled workers (including health and care workers) who were expected to settle in 2026-30, along with their adult dependants, is roughly £115bn. This follows the same approach as the Home Office in calculating the £10 billion net cost for care workers and adult dependants (see methodology below for more details). The risk of deterring skilled workers who make a significant fiscal contribution should therefore be an important consideration for the final set of proposals.
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