Overview

• UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak is under pressure from within his cabinet to reduce legal migration, particularly through a crackdown on visas for foreign NHS workers.
• Immigration Minister Robert Jenrick is proposing a five-point plan to reduce migration, including raising the minimum salary needed for a work visa and capping health and social care work visas.
• Net migration into the UK in 2022 reached a record-breaking figure of 745,000, despite the Conservative Party's 2019 manifesto pledge to reduce numbers.
• Jenrick's plan includes a ban on foreign social care workers from bringing in any dependents and increasing the minimum salary threshold required to qualify for a work visa from £26,200 to at least £35,000 a year.
• Home Office figures show 143,990 health and care worker visas were granted in the year ending September 2023, more than double the 61,274 for the year to September 2022.