I see from my casework as Telford’s MP how the Home Office and our immigration system operates in practice. I see that Illegal immigration and abuse of the asylum system is not the only cause for concern when it comes to immigration to the UK.
Legal routes into the UK are also being abused. The exceptionally high numbers coming here via legal routes, make the numbers coming by small boats seem insignificant by comparison.
There are no limits to the number of people who can come here using legal routes. People want to come here and many have found there are easier and cheaper ways to do it than coming by boat. Let’s take the case of people coming here on health and social care visas. It was intended to be skilled worker visa for a shortage occupation. Instead, it’s a free for all. It was forecast that 6,000 visas would be issued each year; 145,000 care worker visas were issued for care workers and 203,000 for their partners and dependants in the last year. Newly created ‘care agencies’ have been set up to recruit overseas workers. The worker is charged a fee and then finds there is no job for them, or they have no experience of care work and are not paid minimum wage. A system of abuse has sprung up around this route. It has become an industry.
The Home Office has woken up to the fraudulent use of this route in its various guises and is starting to revoke employers’ licences to sponsor overseas workers and is terminating the workers’ visas. This leaves these unskilled workers and their families facing deportation. Some disappear into the black economy.
Abuse of legal routes is creating unprecedented pressure on public services, but no one seems to acknowledge this is happening. No provision has been made for sudden unprecedented demand. Rules have now been brought in to stop dependents of health and social care workers coming here, shutting the door after the horse has bolted. The naivety of the Home Office when it comes to protecting our borders is childlike.
