The Scottish government says Scotland will lose up to one in ten social care workers if the UK government continues to regard them as unskilled and refuses to include staff from abroad in its Health and Care visa programme.

In a response to a consultation by the Migration Advisory Committee on the UK 'Shortage Occupation List', Scotland’s Minister for Public Finance and Migration, Ben Macpherson, says he finds it “mind boggling” that the UK government’s post-brexit immigration policies “bizarrely continue to exclude and disregard the huge contribution of social care workers”.

The submission by the Scottish government says, if they are not eligible for a health and care visa, social care workers must instead be added to the UK’s Shortage Occupation List of roles deemed by the UK government to be difficult to fill with just British-based workers. Employers are able to recruit international workers to jobs on the list on a salary of £20,480 or more instead of having to meet the skilled worker threshold of £25,600.

Mr MacPherson says he finds it odd that the Health and Care visa, intended to show Britain’s gratitude to front-line workers, excludes most care workers:

“I urge the UK Government to do the right thing and include care workers as eligible for the recently announced Health and Care visa, so that people who make and have made such an important contribution to our society, particularly recently, can benefit from reduced fees, a fast-track application service, and exemption from the Immigration Health Surcharge.

“This report, responding to the Migration Advisory Committee’s call for evidence on the UK Shortage Occupation List, shows how the UK government’s ending of freedom of movement, and no replacement general route for what they have wrongly and offensively deemed ‘lower-skilled’ migrants, will be damaging to social care provision and key Scottish sectors of the Scottish economy.”

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