‘Deeply unfair’: Ministers urged to expand visa extensions to care workers and low-paid NHS staff

Campaigners brand it ‘unacceptable’ that while frontline NHS workers have been exempt from paying visa fees, lower-paid health staff working to tackle virus are still required to do so – forcing some into debt and hunger

Ministers are coming under mounting pressure to expand their offer of automatic visa extensions for NHS staff to include care workers and low-paid hospital staff such as cleaners and porters.

Cross-party MPs and charities said it was “unacceptable” that while frontline NHS workers have been exempt from paying visa fees, lower-paid health staff working to tackle the virus are still required to do so – which they said was in some cases forcing them into debt and hunger.

Priti Patel announced at the end of March that NHS doctors, nurses and paramedics whose visas were due to expire before October would automatically have them extended, free of charge, for one year. A month later, she updated the offer to include midwives, radiographers, social workers and pharmacists, as well as their family members.

The home secretary said she had taken the decision because NHS staff should not be “distracted by the visa process”, adding that the nation “owed them a great deal of gratitude for all that they do”.

When asked by The Independent during the daily government briefing on Friday why care workers and low-paid NHS staff were not included, Ms Patel refused to commit, saying only that she was “looking at various schemes” and “keeping everything under review”.

Campaigners said the government must “do the right thing” and extend the visa scheme to all non-EU health and care staff whose visas would otherwise expire before the end of the year.

Two Conservative MPs, former immigration minister Caroline Nokes and Tim Laughton, have supported an amendment to the EU Withdrawal Bill, tabled by Home Affairs Select Committee chair Yvette Cooper, which would expand the scheme to include all health and care staff.

It comes after two dramatic U-turns by the Home Office in relation to migrants working in the health service, first extending the bereavement scheme to all health and care workers and the following day agreeing to drop the immigration health surcharge for this group.

Some 8 per cent of social care home workers are foreign nationals from outside the EU, while non-UK nationals are also strongly represented among the ranks of hospital cleaners, porters, security guards and catering staff who are regarded as key workers but do not qualify for the extension.

Tendai Changa, 36, who has worked in a care home in London for three years, is having to pay more than £2,000 every two and a half years for visa extensions, and said she felt the exclusion of care workers from the automatic visa extensions was “unfair”.

“It should apply to everyone else in the care or hospital environment. It should apply to all of us. We’re all looking after patients. We’re all putting our lives at risk. But then when it comes to renewing our visas, we still have to pay, even though we are the ones with the patients for 12 hours. It should be fair, it should be equal,” she told The Independent.

The Malawian national, who has been in the UK since 2004 and has two British-born children, aged seven and four, said that – as she earns just £8.55 an hour – she had to borrow money when she applied for her visa extension last year, and is still paying off the debt.

Ms Changa added: “I’m glad they were able to drop the NHS surcharge. I was thrilled about that. But if they could reduce on the immigration payment it would help. Right now it’s demoralising. We’re underpaid and still we have the extra charges to pay.”

The Home Affairs Select Committee asked the Home Office on 14 April to expand the visa scheme to include “vitally important” lower-paid and social care staff, to which Ms Patel responded by saying that the “disparate nature of the social care sector makes it a unique challenge when making specific immigration offers”. She said the department was keeping the policy “under review”.

A further letter from the committee on 12 May cited official statistics published the previous day showing that the Covid-19 death rate among social care staff was double that of the general working age population, and stated: “In the light of these troubling figures, is the Home Office now able to look again at expanding the fee-free visa extension to cover social care workers?”

However the home secretary’s response on 14 May included no indication that the policy would change.

Yvette Cooper MP said that while it was welcome that the government had agreed to lift the immigration health surcharge and extend the bereavement scheme for care workers and low-paid NHS staff, the fact that this group was still having to pay visa fees was “not fair” and meant they were not being treated equally.

“This means care workers applying to renew their visas along with the NHS surcharge could end up paying thousands and thousands of pounds. Asking them to do this as they stand on the UK front line against coronavirus, caring for and supporting people, and putting their own health at risk feels deeply unfair,” she said.

Karolina Gerlich, executive director of the Care Workers’ Charity, said: “At this point it is unacceptable to not recognise social care workers as being on the front line of all health and social care activities during Covid-19. They are highly skilled people who shouldn’t have any issues around visa extensions, or entry to this country to do the jobs that we are desperate for people to do.

“Care workers often earn £200 to £400 a week – how on earth are they supposed to be paying visa fees, when they’re also working and paying their taxes and contributing to society? The numbers just don’t add up. You shouldn’t be putting them into debt and into hunger because you’re making them pay for a visa to have them stay and fight a pandemic and support the health and care systems.”

Satbir Singh, chief executive of the Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants, said it was “absurd” that the people who’ve been risking their lives to keep the country safe were still having to pay “astronomical fees” to live and work in the UK.

A government spokesperson said: “Right across the immigration system we are supporting health and social care workers, whether it is by expanding the bereavement scheme to cover social care workers and their families or, as we announced this week, exempting them from the immigration health surcharge.

“We are also supporting the social care sector in a number of different ways, including by providing additional funding, and will continue to work to see how best we can support social care workers.”