A cross-party House of Lords scrutiny committee has voiced concerns over restrictions to health and social care visas.

The changes, which come into force on 11 March, include stopping health and care workers bringing dependants to the UK and narrowing visa eligibility from all posts in the care sector to only those where the sponsor is registered with the CQC.

Baroness Randerson, member of the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee, said: “We recognise that these changes are intended to address concerns about levels of legal migration. However, there is alarm among social care providers about the impact of these changes: the care sector is already struggling to recruit sufficient workers and is worried these measures could make things worse.”

The Home Office told the committee the measures would reduce the number of dependants coming to the UK by 120,000 per year but would have no effect on worker numbers. The Home Office argued this was due to the high level of global supply, that workers were seeking to come to the UK without their dependants and there was a reduction in demand because of the CQC policy change. However, the committee said the Home Office had provided no evidence to support these claims.

The Lords were also concerned the Home Office had not consulted with the care sector and general public on the changes. The Home Office said it not want to publicise the change in order to avoid a possible surge in last minute applications. However, the committee said the changes had already been publicised with a high profile announcement in the commons by the home secretary in December 2023.

Baroness Randerson added: “The government says that the dependant ban will not reduce the number of immigrant workers, but it has not provided evidence to back this up. This means it is impossible for Parliament to assess the effects of the changes properly and the sector is also left in the dark.

“Whenever the government lays legislation which has the potential to affect the effectiveness of a sector and has real world consequences for the public at large, it must provide information on the impact. This is a principle the government has accepted but does not always observe in practice and we are writing to the Home Office to ask for further details.

“We will continue to highlight examples where departments fall short of their obligations to provide information to Parliament and the public thereby hindering our ability to effectively scrutinise secondary legislation.”

Minister for legal migration and the border, Tom Pursglove MP, said: “We know that migration to the UK remains too high, but our plan will deliver a decisive cut in numbers that the public expect so we can get back to sustainable and well-managed levels. Under our new measures, 300,000 people who came to the UK last year would now not be able to come.

“Care workers make a vital contribution to society, and we are grateful to those from overseas who care for our loved ones, but immigration is not the long-term answer to our social care needs.

“These measures laid in Parliament will deliver on our promise and cut the rising numbers of visas granted to overseas care workers and address significant concerns about high levels of non-compliance, worker exploitation and abuse within the social care sector, particularly for overseas workers.”