VISAs for Care Sector

Labour must ditch its hostile approach to immigration. Since July, Westminster has closed the social care worker route to new overseas applicants, and Health & Care Worker visas have collapsed—down 88% year-on-year for caring roles. Front-line leaders are sounding the alarm: the Royal College of Nursing warns the new rules risk accelerating an exodus and damaging health and social care.

At SNP conference, the First Minister set out a practical Scottish response: the Scottish Government will directly sponsor visas for hundreds of overseas care workers, committing around £500,000 to help fill critical vacancies—because care needs can’t wait for Westminster to change course.

Commenting, Martyn Day said:
“Scotland’s services are being hamstrung by Westminster’s damaging immigration rules. We need the skills and compassion of international staff, and we should be making it easier—not harder—for them to care for our communities. Labour should scrap these harmful measures or devolve immigration powers so Scotland can do what’s right for our NHS and social care.”

This is the choice before us: persist with a broken Westminster system that starves our services of staff—or back a Scottish approach that recruits the people we need and treats them with dignity.