'If you can work, you should,' Starmer says as he vows to end foreign care worker recruitment
12 May 2025, 09:47 | Updated: 12 May 2025, 12:23
Sir Keir Starmer has urged anyone capable of work to take up a job as he vowed to cut overseas recruitment in care homes in a crackdown on migration.
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The Prime Minister unveiled a sweeping immigration overhaul on Monday as he scrambles to take on Reform following Labour's poor performance in the local elections earlier this month.
Revealing the plans detailed in a new White Paper, Starmer said net migration will fall "significantly", pledging that every area of the UK's immigration system will be tightened.
That includes in the care home sector, which largely relies on foreign workers.
Official estimates showed there were 131,000 vacancies in social care in England last year even with migrant workers. Starmer has argued the gaps are there to be filled by Brits.
Read more: Keir Starmer's desperate trade deal is a boost for Trump, not Britain
"What's your message to the nine million inactive adults in the UK right now?" Starmer was asked at a press conference in Downing Street on Monday.
Starmer replied that some of those "inactive" adults can't work, but there's others who can.
He added that in Labour's welfare provisions it sets out the ways people who can't work should be protected.
People who can get into work should be supported, he went on, claiming that the current system is doing the opposite.
"If you can work you should work," he added.
Elsewhere, he argued that we have to ask why parts of the economy are "almost addicted to importing cheap labour".
"Perhaps the biggest shift in this White Paper is that we will finally honour what 'take back control' meant and begin to choose who comes here so that migration works for our national interest," he said in his opening speech.
On Sunday, Home Secretary Yvette Cooper said rules will change to restrict care worker recruitment from abroad mark a "significant change".
"We do think it is time to end that care worker recruitment from abroad," she told the BBC.
Ministers have blamed care workers visas for contributing to record levels of migration.
The government says its plans to close this route will see the number of lower-skilled foreign workers entering the country cut by about 50,000 this year.
Net migration reached a record 906,000 in June 2023, and successive governments have been attempting to bring that figure down. In 2024, it stood at 728,000.
Now, only “high-contributing” migrants, such as doctors and nurses, will be eligible for fast-tracked settlement under the new White Paper.
The plans have been labelled as "cruel", and ministers have been told the sector would have "collapsed long ago" without foreign staff.
Nadra Ahmed, the Executive Chairman of the National Care Association said the goverment's sweeping new care policy will impact those who need support most.
Writing for LBC, Ms Ahmed said that "in order to keep the sector sustainable there was a need for it to be able to recruit an international workforce" but that the workers "were promised work and ended up lost in a system based on false promises."
So, what we need is the Home Secretary to explain how these measures are going to help to deliver a care option if they have bothered to address the fundamental issue of where this domestic workforce is going to come from."
Their policy will impact those who need care and support most, as social care lacks the workforce to deliver it," Ms Ahmed wrote.
Read her full LBC Opinion piece here.
Elsewhere in his speech on Monday, Starmer warned Britain could become an "island of strangers" without greater restrictions on immigration.
He also revealed plans to link immigration status to education level, English-language ability and investment in the UK.
Under the plans, skilled worker visas will require a university degree, and there will be tighter restrictions on recruitment for jobs with skills shortages. Sir Keir said without controls on immigration, “we risk becoming an island of strangers, not a nation that walks forward together” as he slammed the Tories for running a "experiment" on open borders.
"The chaos of the previous government also changed the nature of immigration in this country," he said.
"Fewer people who make a strong economic contribution, more who work in parts of our economy that put downward pressure on wages.
"So perhaps the biggest change in this White Paper is that we will finally honour what 'take back control meant' and begin to choose who comes here so that migration works for our national interest."
Labour's immigration shake-up at a glance
- Migrants and dependents must learn English
- Skills level raised to degree level
- Migrants must be here for 10 years before applying for citizenship
- Right to stay earned
- Visas linked to training in UK
