Home Office gave out 275 care worker sponsorship visas after ‘forged’ application

Published

2 years ago

March 26, 2024

admin

The Home Office gave out 275 certificates of sponsorship for care workers after “forged” documents were used to make an application, a damning report into the department has shown.

The probe, by ex-borders and immigration inspector David Neal, claimed the Home Office had a “limited understanding” of the care sector after it was added to the UK’s shortage occupation list in 2022 – allowing more people to come to the country to fill jobs.

And as a result, it created a system that “invited large numbers of low-skilled workers to this country who are at risk from exploitation”.

Politics live: Sunak asked if he was part of the ‘deep state’ after Truss remark

The report was released on Tuesday afternoon as MPs wrapped up business in parliament for the Easter recess, alongside another into Border Force operations at London City Airport.

In that investigation, Mr Neal highlighted “failings at a local, regional, and national level” over the arrival of private jets, with high-risk flights not being met by Border Force staff.

The figures on how many high-risk flights were met by officials were redacted, but Mr Neal said the number was “shocking” and needed to be addressed “as a matter of urgency”.

Mr Neal was fired by the Home Office last month after he leaked details of the airport report to a newspaper, with the department saying he had “lost the confidence” of Home Secretary James Cleverly.

But the ex-inspector had repeatedly complained the Home Office was too slow to publish his critical reports.

‘Totally inadequate’

In Mr Neal’s report into social care and immigration, he criticised the department’s “underestimation of demand for the care worker visa”.

While the Home Office had predicted between 6,000 and 40,000 would come through this route each year, 146,182 were granted between February 2022 and October 2023.

The report criticised “the inappropriateness” of the regime in place, and said the “mismatch between its meagre complement of compliance officers and ever-expanding register of licensed sponsors” – with one officer for every 1,600 employers – was “totally inadequate”.

In the example of an employer only known as “company b”, an application had been submitted using forged documents and bank statements in the name of a real care provider.

But despite online checks showing the address they provided showed “no trace” of links to a care home, 275 certificates of sponsorship had been secured, with 181 assigned to workers, “none of whom have arrived to undertake genuine roles”.

It took more than two months after the sponsorship licence was granted to the company for Border Force officers to raise their concerns about those arriving on the visas.

Another example included 1,234 certificates being granted to a company that said it had only four employees when it was given a sponsorship licence.

“In just these two examples, up to 1,500 people could have arrived in this country and been encouraged by a risk of hardship or destitution to work outside the conditions of their visa,” said Mr Neal.

‘Reliant on handouts’

The report also highlighted the tough conditions faced by some workers caught up in the system, pointing to a story from Sky News, where a care worker paid £10,000 to an agent in Nigeria only to find there was no job for her when she arrived in the UK.

And it said inspectors encountered migrants with care visas working illegally in two out of eight enforcement visits carried out over three months in 2023.

The report praised frontline staff at the Home Office dealing with care workers and their awareness to the “serious risk”.

But Mr Neal said: “What worries me most is that the Home Office does not appear to have any process to identify the lessons from this debacle and then bring those lessons into core thinking in order that they are not repeated.”

‘Robust measures’

The former inspector called for a full review of the visa route, sponsorship licensing and compliance, as well as the creation of a multi-agency agreement so each part knows what they are responsible for.

A Home Office spokesperson said they had “already intervened to stop the flow of overseas care workers entering the UK where there is no genuine role for them to undertake” and taken “robust action” against exploitation.

They also insisted new measures were already in place to “cut the rising numbers of visas granted and address significant concerns” about non-compliance, worker exploitation and abuse.

But Labour’s shadow home secretary, Yvette Cooper, called both reports from Mr Neal “scandalous”, saying they “expose a Conservative government which has lost control of our borders and our border security”.

Politics

The three key questions about the China spy case that need to be answered

Published

1 hour ago

October 16, 2025

admin

The three key questions about the China spy case that need to be answered

The government has published witness statements submitted by a senior official connected to the collapse of a trial involving two men accused of spying for China.

Here are three big questions that flow from them:

1. Why weren’t these statements enough for the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) to carry on with the trial?

For this prosecution to go ahead, the CPS needed evidence that China was a “threat to national security”.

The deputy national security adviser Matthew Collins doesn’t explicitly use this form of words in his evidence. But he comes pretty close.

Politics latest – follow live

In the February 2025 witness statement, he calls China “the biggest state-based threat to the UK’s economic security”.

Six months later, he says China’s espionage operations “harm the interests and security of the UK”.

Yes, he does quote the language of the Tory government at the time of the alleged offences, naming China as an “epoch-defining and systemic challenge”.

But he also provides examples of malicious cyber activity and the targeting of individuals in government during the two-year period that the alleged Chinese spies are said to have been operating.

In short, you can see why some MPs and ex-security chiefs are wondering why this wasn’t enough.

Former MI6 head Sir Richard Dearlove told Sky News this morning that “it seems to be there was enough” and added that the CPS could have called other witnesses – such as sitting intelligence directors – to back up the claim that China was a threat.

Expect the current director of public prosecutions (DPP) Stephen Parkinson to be called before MPs to answer all these questions.

2. Why didn’t the government give the CPS the extra evidence it needed?

The DPP, Stephen Parkinson, spoke to senior MPs yesterday and apparently told them he had 95% of the evidence he needed to bring the case.

The government has said it’s for the DPP to explain what that extra 5% was.

He’s already said the missing link was that he needed evidence to show China was a “threat to national security”, and the government did not give him that.

The newly published witness statements show they came close.

But if what was needed was that explicit form of words, why was the government reticent to jump through that hoop?

The defence from ministers is that the previous Conservative administration defined China as a “challenge”, rather than a “threat” (despite the numerous examples from the time of China being a threat).

The attack from the Tories is that Labour is seeking closer economic ties with China and so didn’t want to brand them an explicit threat.

3. Why do these statements contain current Labour policy?

Sir Keir Starmer says the key reason for the collapse of this trial is the position held by the previous Tory government on China.

But the witness statements from Matthew Collins do contain explicit references to current Labour policy. The most eye-catching is the final paragraph of the third witness statement provided by the Deputy National Security Adviser, where he quotes directly from Labour’s 2024 manifesto.

He writes: “It is important for me to emphasise… the government’s position is that we will co-operate where we can; compete where we need to; and challenge where we must, including on issues of national security.”

Did these warmer words towards China influence the DPP’s decision to drop the case?

Why did Matthew Collins feel it so important to include this statement?

Was he simply covering his back by inserting the current government’s approach, or was he instructed to put this section in?

A complicated relationship

Everyone agrees that the UK-China relationship is a complicated one.

There is ample evidence to suggest that China poses a threat to the UK’s national security. But that doesn’t mean the government here shouldn’t try and work with the country economically and on issues like climate change.

It appears the multi-faceted nature of these links struggled to fit the legal specificity required to bring a successful prosecution.

But there are still plenty of questions about why the government and the CPS weren’t able or willing to do more to square these circles.

Politics

Trump’s second term fuels a $1B crypto fortune for his family: Report

Published

2 hours ago

October 16, 2025

admin

Trump’s second term fuels a B crypto fortune for his family: Report

The Trump family’s crypto ventures have generated over $1 billion in profit, led by World Liberty Financial and memecoins including TRUMP and MELANIA.

Politics

SEC chair: US is 10 years behind on crypto, fixing this is ‘job one’

Published

3 hours ago

October 16, 2025

admin

SEC chair: US is 10 years behind on crypto, fixing this is ‘job one’

SEC Chair Paul Atkins said the US is a decade behind on crypto and that building a regulatory framework to attract innovation is “job one” for the agency.