Widespread exploitation of carers recruited from abroad is the “the number one priority” for the agency that investigates criminality affecting workers in England and Wales.
The Gangmasters and Labour Abuse Authority (GLAA) told Sky News that the Health and Care Worker visa system is being abused by criminals, leading to “a constant stream of allegations” of fraud and modern slavery.
GLAA Senior Investigating Officer Martin Plimmer said there are more than 30 ongoing investigations into care agencies operating illegally and that his organisation still “doesn’t know the full extent” of the problem.
“It is our number one priority at the moment,” he said. “It’s the one area, the sector of business – because we deal with labour exploitation – where we have the most intelligence coming into us. Care is by far the number one issue for us as an agency.”
He explained: “Two years ago the care sector wasn’t on our radar at all”, adding that cases shot up since February 2022 when the government added care workers to the country’s Shortage Occupation List allowing people to be recruited from overseas. Carers now account for two in five of all skilled work visas.
Image: Gangmasters and Labour Abuse Authority senior investigating officer Martin Plimmer
Mr Plimmer said there are companies established nationwide with the intention of exploiting workers desperate to come to the UK.
“The sole purpose of these criminals is to use these people as cash cows. They are running businesses at a much reduced cost because they’re not paying them what they’re supposed to. They’re also charging them excessive fees.”
Some of those illegal recruiters are based in Britain, operating fake and fraudulent care agencies.
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‘Mary’, not her real name, told us she began looking for work in the UK in order to support her sick husband and teenage son. She was working in the Philippines but thought she could earn more here.
Image: A woman, who we’re calling Mary, told us she began looking for work in the UK in order to support her sick husband and teenage son
She found an online advert for employment with a care agency in the North of England and had a successful interview on Zoom with a director of the company.
She said they then told her to transfer £4,000 – a fee which is illegal for recruiters to charge under UK law. In return she was provided with a certificate of sponsorship, outlining her offer of 39 hours a week as a carer and allowing her to be granted a Health and Care Worker visa.
‘I spent a lot of money and I cannot go back’
Mary said she used all her savings and borrowed money from her sister and a friend, but she believed her salary would provide a “better life” for her family back home.
It was only when she landed at the airport in England in July and was met by her recruiter that he told her there was no job.
Since then she’s been given accommodation in a shared house and a small food allowance but “not a single day” of the paid work she was promised.
As she described her situation she became tearful. “We need money to pay my debt in the Philippines,” she said. “And also I need to support my family because they are relying on me.”
She said she feels trapped. Under the terms of her visa, she is only allowed to work full-time for her sponsor – and any part-time work, limited to 20 hours extra per week, has to also be in the care sector.
“My family doesn’t know my situation here and I don’t know how to tell them,” she said. “They will be upset.”
“I spent a lot of money and I cannot go back,” she added, saying her best hope is trying to find a legitimate care organisation to transfer her sponsorship.
She’s scared to report the agency to the authorities which is why Sky News is not naming the company.
But it is one of several agencies that only began operating after the government changed the visa rules for carers. It remains on the list of government-approved sponsors for overseas hiring.
‘They’ll do a free shift’
Sky News has spoken to several care homes who described being bombarded by calls from new care agencies with names they don’t recognise.
One care home administrator in northwest England said: “We probably get about four or five calls a day asking if we need agency staff and a lot now are phoning and offering that they’ll do a free shift.”
She said they also get migrants turning up at the home asking for work “two or three times a day”.
As Sky News filmed at the care home, a man and woman, wet through from the pouring rain, knocked on the door, hoping to find some work. They were turned away.
Image: Migrants turning up at the home asking for work
The woman, from Pakistan, said in broken English: “We are looking for work permit, like most of the care homes are giving work permits or jobs.”
‘Very close to people trafficking’
Neil Russell runs PJ Care which has homes in Milton Keynes and Peterborough. He told Sky News: “Over the last six to eight months we’ve seen an increase in approaches from care agencies offering staff to cover shifts. Some of the approaches are very desperate, almost begging us to use them.”
“These new agencies feel a little bit fly-by-night. And it’s quite concerning that we could end up with somebody working here who’s not got the clearances, not got the right training and could end up damaging or harming one of our residents that we’re trying to provide care for.”
Image: Neil Russell runs PJ Care which has homes in Milton Keynes and Peterborough
His company offers legitimate Health and Care Worker visa sponsorship, but last year he paused overseas recruitment after discovering an agent he’d paid to find staff abroad had also illegally charged a worker for her visa.
“It’s very, very close to people trafficking,” he said, about a practice he now believes is widespread in his industry.
Asked how much bogus recruiters are charging workers he said: “We’re talking about £15,000 and then we’re paying the same amount.”
“£30,000 to bring somebody over – it’s probably more than the transporters are getting for the rubber dinghies coming across the Channel. And they’re doing less work for it. It’s ridiculous.”
A Home Office spokesperson said: “We strongly condemn offering Health and Care Worker visa holders employment under false pretences.
“The government does not tolerate illegal activity in the labour market and any accusations of illegal employment practices will be thoroughly looked into.
“Those found operating unlawfully may face prosecution and/or removal from the sponsorship register.”
Additional reporting by Nick Stylianou, communities producer.
The actor who played PC Reg Hollis in hit TV series The Bill has been praised by officers after helping them arrest a shoplifter.
Jeff Stewart stepped in when a thief attempted to escape on a bicycle in Southampton on Wednesday.
In a statement, a Hampshire Constabulary spokesman said: “The thief, 29-year-old Mohamed Diallo, fell off the bike during his attempts to flee, before officers pounced to make their arrest.
“To their surprise, local TV legend Jeff Stewart, who played PC Hollis for 24 years in The Bill, came to their aid by sitting on the suspect’s legs while officers put him in cuffs.
Image: (L-R) Jeff Stewart, Roberta Taylor, Mark Wingett, Trudie Goodwin and Cyril Nri celebrating The Bill’s 21st anniversary in 2004. Pic: PA
“In policing you should always expect the unexpected, but this really wasn’t on The Bill for this week.”
The Bill was broadcast on ITV between 1984 and 2010 and featured the fictional lives of police officers from the Sun Hill police station in east London.
Mr Stewart, who was among the original cast, appeared in more than 1,000 episodes as PC Hollis.
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Image: Police released footage showing their pursuit of a shoplifter in Southampton. Pic: Hampshire Constabulary
Image: As the suspect falls to the floor, PC Hollis (aka Jeff Stewart) sits on his legs. Pic: Hampshire Constabulary
In praising Mr Stewart’s actions, the force said: “Long since retired from Sun Hill station – but he’s still got it.”
Police from the Bargate Neighbourhoods Policing Team were alerted by staff at a Co-op store in Ocean Way to a suspected shoplifter on Wednesday.
Mohamed Diallo, 29, of Anglesea Road, Southampton, was subsequently charged with five offences of theft relating to coffee, alcohol and food from the Co-op and two other Sainsbury’s stores on three dates in April and July.
He pleaded guilty at Southampton Magistrates’ Court on Thursday and was bailed to be sentenced on August 29.
It was a cold, typically rainy Manchester evening, October 1993, when Michael Spencer Jones set out to meet a new guitar band he had been commissioned to photograph.
The weather was miserable, he didn’t know their music, wasn’t totally in the mood. “I had to drag myself from home, thinking: is it going to be worth the trouble?”
On the drive to the Out Of The Blue studio in Ancoats, on the outskirts of the city centre, a song he’d never heard before came on the local radio station. “It was like, wow, what is that?” The track was Columbia, by Oasis, the band he was on his way to meet.
Spencer Jones had previously met Noel Gallagher during the musician’s time as a roadie for fellow Manchester band Inspiral Carpets. But not Liam.
“As a photographer, obviously, the aesthetic of a band is massively important,” he says as he recalls that first shoot. “I’m just looking down the camera lens with a certain amount of disbelief.”
In front of him was a 21-year-old, months before the start of the fame rollercoaster that lay ahead. And yet. “I was looking at a face that just seemed to embody the quality of stardom.”
It was the start of a partnership that continued throughout the band’s heyday, with Spencer Jones shooting the covers for their first three albums, their most successful records, and the singles that went with them.
“You work with bands pre-fame and there’s always that question: are they going to make it? With Oasis there was never that question. Their success was inevitable.”
There was a confidence, even in those early days. “Incredible, intoxicating confidence. [They were] not interested in any kind of social norms or social constraints.”
It wasn’t arrogance, he says, of a criticism sometimes levelled at the Gallaghers. “They just had this enormous self-belief.”
Spencer Jones was one of several photographers who followed the band, capturing the moments that became part of rock history.
Jill Furmanovsky, who started working with Oasis towards the end of 1994, a few months after the release of debut album Definitely Maybe, says Noel always seemed aware their time together should be documented.
“An uncanny intuition, really, that it was important,” she says. “I think Noel has been aware right from the start, because for him that’s what he used to look at when he used to buy his Smiths records or Leo Sayer or whatever, he would stare at the covers and be fascinated by the pictures.”
Contrary to popular belief, Furmanovsky says the brothers got on fairly well most of the time, “otherwise they wouldn’t have been able to function”.
She picks one shoot in 1997, around the release of their third album, Be Here Now, as one of the more memorable ones. Noel had shared his thoughts about the band on a chalkboard and “they were having such a laugh.”
But when things did erupt, it became significant. “There were tensions in some shoots but they never started hitting each other in front of me or anything like that. I used to complain about it, actually – ‘don’t leave me out of those pictures where you’re really arguing!’.”
In Paris in 1995, tensions had boiled over. “It’s one of my favourites,” she says of the shoot. “It reflects not just the band but the family situation, these brothers in a strop with each other.”
What is notable, she says, is that they were happy for photographers to take candid shots, not just set up pictures to show them “looking cool”. Pictures that on the surface might sound mundane, showing “what they were really like – tensions, mucking about, sometimes yawning… This was the genius of Noel and [former Oasis press officer] Johnny Hopkins.”
Furmanovsky also notes the women who worked behind the scenes for Oasis – unusual at a time when the industry was even more male-dominated than it is now – and how they kept them in line.
“They got on well working with women,” she says. “Maggie Mouzakitis was their tour manager for ages and was so young, but she ruled. For a band one could say were a bunch of macho Manchester blokes, they had a lot of women working in senior positions.”
This is down to the influence of their mum, Peggy, she adds. “Absolutely crucial.”
Furmanovsky has been working with Noel on an upcoming book documenting her time with the band, and says she initially wanted to start with a picture of the Gallagher matriarch. “Noel said to me, ‘Jill, you do know she wasn’t actually in the band?'”
Touring with Oasis – ‘the journalist had to take a week off’
Kevin Cummins was commissioned to take pictures when Oasis signed to Creation Records, and it “kind of spiralled out of control a little bit”, he laughs.
“I photographed them for NME, gave them their first cover. I photographed them in Man City shirts because we were all Man City fans, and City were at the time sponsored by a Japanese electronics company, Brother. It seemed a perfect fit.”
The early days documenting the band were “fairly riotous”, he says. “They were quite young, they were obviously enjoying being in the limelight.
“I remember we went on tour with them for three days for an NME ‘on the road’ piece, and the journalist who came with me had to take a week off afterwards.
“I dipped in and out of tours occasionally – I’ve always done that with musicians because I cannot imagine spending more than about seven or eight days on tour with somebody, it would drive you nuts. They’re so hedonistic, especially in the early days. It’s very, very difficult to keep up.”
Cummins says the relationship between Noel and Liam was “like anybody’s relationship, if you’ve got a younger brother – he’d get on your nerves.”
During the shoot for the City shirt pictures, he says, “Liam kicked a ball at Noel, Noel pushed him, Liam pushed him back. They have a bit of a pushing match and then they stop and they get on with it.”
Another time, following a show in Portsmouth, “as soon as we got [to the hotel] after the gig, Liam threw all the plastic furniture in the pool. Noel looked at him and said, ‘where are we going to sit?’ And he made him get in the pool and get all the furniture out. So there were like attempts at being rock and roll, and not quite getting it right sometimes.”
Cummins says he has “very affectionate” memories of working with Oasis. “I’ve got a lot of very sensitive looking pictures of Liam and people are really surprised when they see them,” he says. “But he is a very sensitive lad… it’s just he was irritating because he was younger and he wanted to make himself heard.”
All three photographers have yet to see the reunion show, but all have tickets. All say the announcement last summer came as a surprise.
“There was an inkling of it, I suppose, just in the thawing of the comments between the brothers, but I still wouldn’t have guessed it,” says Furmanovsky, who has a book out later this year, and whose pictures feature in the programme. “It’s wonderful they have pulled it off with such conviction and passion.”
Cummins’ work can be seen in a free outdoor exhibition at Wembley Park, which fans will be able to see throughout the summer until the final gigs there in September.
“I think the atmosphere at the gigs seems to have been really friendly… I like the idea that people are taking their kids and they’re passing the baton on a little bit,” he says. “Everyone’s just having a blast and it’s like the event of the summer – definitely something we need at the moment.”
Spencer Jones, who released his second Oasis book, Definitely Maybe – A View From Within, for the album’s 30th anniversary last year – adds: “They really seem to be capturing a new generation of fans and I don’t think a band has ever done that [to this extent] before. Bands from 20, 30 years ago normally just take their traditional fanbase with them.”
But he says his first thought when the reunion was announced was for the Gallaghers’ mum, Peggy. “I think for any parent, to have two children who don’t talk is pretty tough,” he says. “It’s that notion of reconciliation – if they can do it, anyone can do it.
“The fact they’re walking on stage, hands clasped together, there’s a huge amount of symbolism there that transcends Oasis and music. Especially in a fractured society, that unity is inspiring. Everyone’s had a bit of a rough time since COVID, battle weary with life itself. I think people generally are just gagging to have some fun.”
Brothers: Liam And Noel Through The Lens Of Kevin Cummins is on at Wembley Park until 30 September. Definitely Maybe – A View From Within, by Michael Spencer Jones, available through Spellbound Galleries, is out now. Oasis: Trying To Find A Way Out Of Nowhere, by Jill Furmanovsky and edited by Noel Gallagher, published by Thames & Hudson, is out from 23 September.
It was “shadowy” of the government to reveal Angela Rayner warned about the threat to social cohesion in a “readout”, Harriet Harman has said.
On Wednesday, Downing Street released a “cabinet readout” saying the deputy prime minister told ministers the government “had to show it had a plan to address people’s concerns” to defuse community tensions.
She said immigration was having a “profound impact on society” and noted 17 out of 18 places where protests broke out last summer after kicking off in Southport were the most deprived areas in Britain.
This was widely interpreted as a warning that riots could happen this summer.
But Baroness Harman told Beth Rigby on the Electoral Dysfunction podcast that announcing it in a “readout” – given to journalists after a cabinet meeting – was not the way to do things.
“These are quite huge issues – the potential for disorder, social integration, the public mood, and ahead of summer,” the Labour peer said.
“I don’t know whether I’m just a bit old-fashioned about this, but I think it’s better when government are making statements like that they give people an opportunity to ask questions rather than this kind of sort of rather shadowy way of doing it.”
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Essex Police chief denies Farage claims
The former minister added that cabinet meetings are supposed to be secret so that everybody around the table can speak and say “anything they want because there is this protected thing”.
“You don’t say what’s happening at cabinet,” she added.
“And if anybody asks in the House of Commons or anywhere else, what happened in cabinet, the automatic response is ‘we don’t talk about what’s happened in cabinet, it’s private’. And they’ve sort of slightly breached that now.
“So is it now a situation where anybody can be asked, what did somebody say in cabinet?
“Or is it only that the prime minister can say what happened in cabinet?
“It’s a bit puzzling.”
Baroness Harman’s comments came after protests in Epping last week outside a hotel housing asylum seekers turned violent.
More than 1,000 people gathered outside The Bell Hotel in protests over two nights after an asylum seeker was arrested and charged on suspicion of alleged sexual assault of a 14-year-old girl in the town.
Counter-protesters joined, and this week Reform UK leader Nigel Farage accused Essex Police of bussing them in, which the force said was “categorically wrong”.