Liberal Democrats Group Motion

This council has no confidence in the employee protection offered to migrant care workers in Oxfordshire andin the UK, and believe that visa design is driving exploitation.[1] Sponsorship agencies have been able to get away with exploiting these carers by demanding large sums of money (often thousands of pounds) in exchange for arranging the carers' journey to the UK, housing them (often in disgraceful conditions) and arranging work. Carers often find they are not given the number of hours work promised and are forced to use food banks to survive.^[2]Many migrant carers have borrowed large sums from loan companies in their own country in order to pay the sponsorship fees, and are then trapped in the UK as they cannot return home without paying the money back. When migrants raise their concerns and needs with their sponsors they are threatened with being returned to their countries.[3]

The consequences are many. Migrant carers doing much needed work are forced to live in poverty with very stressful working conditions causing bad health and inability to work.[4]For example, one Oxfordshire family with disabilities reported that their carer X from Ghana needed to arrive for work at a client's (rural) home at 6am. Public transport was not available but sponsors refused to pay for a taxi, so he spent all his wages paying for one himself.

Carers' clients are also affected, if carers become ill and are unable to work. This means their client either has no carer or numerous different cover carers to be instructed in the client's individual care needs. It can lead to clients’ families being unable to cope so the client must go into residential care, at great emotional cost to the client and their family, and at great financial cost to Social Services. The Joseph Rowntree Foundation found that "despite need for care far outstripping current provision, care providers are losing business due to ongoing staff shortages.  A Care England study[5] found in 2023 that 44% of providers it surveyed had turned down new admissions and 18% had to close services altogether due to ongoing staff shortages.”[6]

Council believes the following steps should be taken to improve migrant carers' situation.

1. Simplify visa applications: The 60-day time limit needs to be extended so that carers don’t lose their visa if they haven’t found a new sponsor.

2. Grant access to public funds: Introduce a safety net whereby care workers can access public funds.

3. Provide flexible work visas: Support migrant care workers with work visas that are simply amendable to reflect changing work situations. Currently the UK’s labour market enforcement system is complicated, confusing and in dire need of reform.

Council resolves to request that Cabinet Member Cllr Chewe Munkonge write to Wes Streeting, Secretary of State for Social Care, calling on him to drive these actions forward promptly.