UNIONS and campaigners have condemned Labour’s immigration reforms after Home Secretary Yvette Cooper confirmed that the government will scrap the care worker visa for overseas recruitment.

Announcing the policy ahead of Monday’s Immigration White Paper, Ms Cooper said the visa route would be closed to “prevent” international recruitment for care jobs, though companies may continue to employ people already in Britain on care visas whose sponsorship has subsequently been cancelled.

The White Paper will also change skilled visa thresholds to graduate-level and includes tighter restrictions on recruitment for jobs with skills shortages.

The legislation aims to bring down net migration — the number of foreign nationals who arrive in Britain, minus the number of people who leave — which stood at 728,000 in 2024.

“What we should be doing is concentrating on the higher-skilled migration, and we should be concentrating on training in the UK,” the Home Secretary told Sky News today. “We will be closing the care worker visa for overseas recruitment.”

Under current rules, care workers need a certificate of sponsorship from a British employer, from which the Home Office now plans to demand more, urging them to hire locally and train domestic staff instead.

But Unison general secretary Christina McAnea said: “The NHS and the care sector would have collapsed long ago without the thousands of workers who’ve come to the UK from overseas.

“Migrant health and care staff already here will now be understandably anxious about what’s to happen to them. 

“The government must reassure these overseas workers they’ll be allowed to stay and continue with their indispensable work.”

Ms McAnea, whose union represents NHS and care workers, said that care workers from around the world “no longer want” to come to Britain due to “hostile” policies, bans on bringing family members, and widespread exploitation by unscrupulous employers.

She said: “The way overseas care workers have been treated by some corrupt care bosses is shameful. 

“Politicians must stop describing care jobs as low-skilled. They are anything but. 

“The work is tough, requires a high level of skills and huge amounts of empathy — as any family whose relative is receiving care support knows only too well.”

Ms McAnea said that the social care sector has been in crisis for years, is severely understaffed and “unable to provide care packages for all those needing support.” 

“That has a huge impact on the NHS too,” she said.

”The government must get on with making its fair pay agreement a reality and ensure social care is funded properly. 

“So long as care wages stay barely above the legal minimum, employers will never be able to recruit the staff needed to deliver a national care service of which we can all be proud.”

Care England chief executive Professor Martin Green described the decision as “a crushing blow to a fragile sector.”

“The government is kicking us while we’re already down,” he said. “For years, the sector has been propping itself up with dwindling resources, rising costs, and mounting vacancies.”

He said that while international recruitment “wasn’t a silver bullet,” it was “a lifeline.” 

“Taking it away now, with no warning, no funding, and no alternative, is not just short-sighted — it’s cruel,” he said. 

Mr Green said that while the government had made promises of reforms under the Employment Rights Bill and a Fair Pay Agreement, those were “years away and come with no significant funding attached.”

He warned of 70,000 domestic workers lost in the last two years, with vacancies still soaring. 

“There’s a dangerous pattern emerging: action is too slow where it’s needed, and too fast when it’s harmful. The sector cannot take any more. 

“We need proper funding, a real workforce plan, and immediate recognition that, without care, the NHS, our communities and countless families will fall apart.”

Scottish Green MSP Gillian Mackay called the policy “cruel and totally self-defeating,” warning it will “only serve to hammer Scotland’s services.”

Reform UK leader “Nigel Farage just has to say ‘jump’ and Labour will ask how high,” she said. 

SNP’s Westminster deputy leader Pete Wishart said that Labour is “continuing the Tories’ damaging agenda” and “going even further with its self-defeating, hostile migration policies.”

Migrants’ Rights Network CEO Fizza Qureshi said: “Measures set out in the new white paper show that this government is just continuing what the previous government started without learning or understanding the fundamental issues with existing visa schemes.

”Banning overseas health and social care recruitment and increasing ‘skilled’ worker thresholds makes no sense when there is a significant need for more care workers with already over 130,000 vacancies in the care work industry. 

”Moves to push employers to train workers already in the UK will only exacerbate the huge unfilled gaps in the workforce, leaving people who are dependent on carers worse off.”