On 12 March 2025, the Home Office published its first Statement of Changes to the Immigration Rules in 2025. There are a number of changes in this statement, on different areas of the immigration rules. 

This short blog outlines the key changes introduced, and provides links to further reading. 

What is included in this Statement of Changes?

In this Statement, the Home Office introduces a visa requirement for visitors from Trinidad and Tobago, which has immediate effect. This means that nationals of Trinidad and Tobago must apply for a visa before visiting the UK, and will not be eligible to apply for an Electronic Travel Authorisation (ETA). 

There are also changes to the Ukraine Permission Extension Scheme, and Homes for Ukraine Scheme. There is more detail on these changes in the Home Office’s Explanatory Memorandum here, and in this blog here. 

There are also changes to the EU Settlement Scheme, including that a person with a pending administrative review of an EUSS decision who has not left the UK will not be removed from the UK. There is more detail on these changes to EUSS in the Home Office’s Explanatory Memorandum here. 

What are the changes relating to care workers?

These changes attempt to protect care workers on the Health and Social Care Visa.

This comes in response to the huge numbers of people reporting problems with exploitation and abuse on this visa route. The issues that people experience are multiple, and often begin before people arrive in the UK, when they are charged huge amounts in ‘sponsorship fees’.

When workers on the Health and Social Care Visa have arrived in the UK, they often encounter more problems, including (but not limited to):

• Poor pay, conditions, insufficient hours, accommodation and breaches of work rights
• Problems faced by exploited workers who want to switch visa sponsors 
• Workers whose visa sponsors have lost licenses and need to find alternative employment and sponsorship 
• Workers who have had their leave curtailed and are looking for new sponsors 

In this Statement of Changes, the government is attempting to introduce measures which mean that employers will have to prioritise the recruitment of existing care workers already in the UK before hiring from abroad.  

From 9 April 2025, employers will have to follow a new procedure when recruiting for care roles. 

Employers who want to recruit a new worker from overseas will first have to prove that they attempted to recruit an existing worker in England who needs new sponsorship. This change will require sponsors to work with regional partnerships to identify suitable candidates from the existing pool of workers who are seeking new employment, rather than recruit from new immigration routes or overseas. 

This will only apply in England, and it is unclear how the process will work in other regions of the UK.

There are also increases to the minimum salary for non-new entrants from £23,200 to £25,000.

These changes aim to protect workers on the Health and Social Care Visa already in the UK, which is a welcome acknowledgment that the system of tied visas and sponsorship has been disastrous for the rights of individuals on these visa routes. This change might offer some help to those who came to the UK with job offers for Health and Care roles in the UK but found that their sponsors had no job to offer them. 

What is unclear is whether this change will go far enough to protect workers against the myriad forms of work exploitation that can occur, even when a worker retains their sponsor.