Join barrister Adam Pipe of No.8 Chambers and solicitor Gemma Tracey, immigration partner at JMW Solicitors, for analysis of the first Statement of Changes to the Immigration Rules of 2025, HC 733 which was laid before parliament on 12 March 2025. The video focuses on the changes in respect of care workers and the skilled worker route.
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Hi, and welcome to this latest immigration law conversation video. I'm once again joined by Gemma Tracy today. Gemma is an immigration partner at JMW Solicitors.
Gemma is a returning guest, so thank you, Gemma, for coming back today. We're going to talk about the first statement of changes to the immigration rules of 2025. That's HC733, which was laid on the 12th of March 2025. But before we get into the details of that, Gemma, tell us a bit about you and what you do.
Hi, Adam. Thank you so much for having me back. It's great to be here. So I'm a specialist UK inbound immigration solicitor. I've been working in immigration for more than 10 years now and have been a qualified solicitor since 2017. I'm currently working for JMW Solicitors, and we're a full-service law firm with offices in Manchester, Liverpool, and London. I sit within the employment team at our Manchester office.
That's fantastic, Gemma, and again, thank you so much for coming back to talk to me today. So today, we're going to focus on this first set of changes to the immigration rules for 2025, which was laid on the 12th of March. Before we go into specifics, just give us some headlines of what's going on.
Sure. So I'd say that the key headlines include several changes to the skilled worker route, adding Trinidad and Tobago to the visa national list, and there are various other changes too, including some changes to the EU Settlement Scheme and the Ukraine scheme. We'll be having a look at some of the changes today, but it is worthwhile seeking advice in relation to whether the changes could impact a future application.
No, absolutely. There's lots of little tweaks that people need. We're going to focus on the big changes today, but do keep abreast of those little tweaks because they could impact your casework.
Certainly. So over the last couple of months, Gemma, care workers in the skilled worker route have had a lot of attention. What specific changes are there in relation to care workers in this new statement of changes?
They have. The care industry has seen a lot of immigration changes recently. The skilled worker route is heavily used by the sponsors of care workers, and the route has seen some abuse in terms of offering roles that aren't genuine and requiring workers to pay their employer money for sponsorship. So the government is trying to crack down on this abuse. They are actively undertaking compliance visits, and last year a requirement that care workers can no longer bring their dependent family members to the UK was introduced. That was an intention really to focus on the government's initiative to cut net migration.
The recent statement of changes imposes further changes to the care industry, and in particular, care workers that are being sponsored under the skilled worker route. Due to the high number of care workers and senior care workers in the UK without sponsorship, sponsors looking to recruit such workers must try to recruit from the pool of workers whose sponsorship has already ended in the UK before sponsoring a new recruit from other immigration routes or overseas. Now, this pool of workers are essentially workers who are without sponsorship. It could be because their previous sponsor has lost their sponsor license or has been unable to provide the worker with the required hours to meet the skilled worker salary requirements.
The government have set up something called regional partnerships, and they've been set up to essentially support care workers who are without sponsorship. It's these partnerships that will be able to provide sponsors with confirmation that there are no suitable workers available to take vacant roles, and that would then enable the sponsor to recruit talent from elsewhere. Now, it's important to understand that this requirement only applies to those working in England, and it won't apply to those who have been working for their proposed sponsor in accordance with existing visa conditions for a period of at least three months. So there are some exceptions to bear in mind.
Another change relates to the general salary threshold. The £23,200 per annum or £11.90 per hour threshold will be increased to £25,000 per annum or £12.82 per hour, and this will apply to care workers, those who are undertaking specified health or education occupations, and it will also apply to some of the workers who were sponsored before the 4th of April 2024.
That's really helpful, Gemma. As you said, the government has been targeting care workers in terms of enforcement as well. Just as you were saying that, it caught my attention. I quickly looked up, and there's been a recent Court of Appeal case people need to be aware of. A lot of the sponsor license judicial reviews have been in relation to care homes and care providers. Just on the 11th of March, so the day before this statement, or sorry, two days before the statement of changes press came out, in the Court of Appeal. So do have a look at that. It's 2025 EWCA Civ 184, and that looks at the whole approach to whether there needs to be a global assessment before revoking a sponsor license.
And where you talk about these local regional partnerships, I think I was trying to look as you were saying that. I think it's on something like Care England's website. There are links to how people can find these regional partnerships to access this pool of workers. So that probably is definitely a helpful change. What other changes are there to the skilled worker route that are worth taking note of from this statement of changes?
Yep, so there's quite an important one that relates to deductions from sponsored workers' salaries that will also be implemented. The statement of changes confirms that deductions from salaries or loan repayments for business costs, immigration costs, or investment will be subtracted from the skilled worker's salary when considering whether that salary complies with salary requirements under immigration rules.
Now, this is to ensure that sponsorship costs which are paid by the sponsor are not being passed on to the worker or the applicant. It's also to guarantee that sponsored workers cannot pay their salary to their employer by way of an investment in their sponsor's business.
This change is a little bit up in the air at the minute because, at present, we don't really have a definition of immigration costs. We have seen some changes to sponsor guidance late last year, but right now, since this statement of changes has been announced, we don't know whether loans relating to visa application fees or immigration health surcharge fees will need to be taken into account when calculating a skilled worker's salary. Myself and various other immigration lawyers in the UK are eagerly Definitely, we can see a common thread through these changes, and I think with the Labour government, since they've come in and their changes to the immigration rules, in terms of tackling abuse and enforcement, and particularly with these skilled worker changes and the passing on of costs to skilled workers and recruiting from this pool of care workers, that they're really targeting where there's been abuse of the system. So we can see this common thread.
We said there were quite a few changes in this statement of changes. Some are more trivial and we won't cover them, but are there any other specific things you want to highlight, Gemma, in terms of changes to the immigration rules?
Yeah, so there's a couple I would highlight today. So, as mentioned earlier, Trinidad and Tobago has been added to the visa national list. This essentially means that such citizens will need to secure a visit visa before visiting the UK. This change has been implemented because UK Visas and Immigration, or UKVI, alleged that nationals of Trinidad and Tobago often breach immigration rules by undertaking activities that are not permitted as visitors, and there has also allegedly been an increase in asylum claims from such citizens.
Another change is one that relates to British National (Overseas) citizens. So these individuals have been removed from the electronic travel authorization list, or the ETA list, and that just means that British National (Overseas) citizens no longer require electronic travel authorization before traveling to the UK.
There have also been a few changes to the EU Settlement Scheme, which have been helpfully summarized by your earlier LinkedIn post, Adam. But these essentially relate to non-EEA nationals now being able to use UK-issued biometric residence cards or permits, which have expired by up to 18 months, as proof of identity and nationality. So that can be quite useful for those.
Further amendments will also be implemented, some of which relate to those that have a pending administrative review and a couple of tweaks to the suitability grounds for those who may have undertaken criminal activities or potentially just conduct more generally before the end of the transition period. So they essentially mean that an application could be refused on suitability grounds even if a deportation or exclusion order hasn't been issued for that conduct.
No, that's helpful, Gemma. It's useful to give those sorts of headlines for the EUSS without having to go into it in any detail, because the EUSS makes your head hurt whenever you read it.
Yeah, we don't want to go there.
I think, again, common themes—if you look at the statement of changes last year, we saw Colombia being brought onto the visa list, and Jordan as well. And so we now see it with Trinidad and Tobago. We're seeing these changes with electronic travel authorization and with that being rolled out now to all nationalities, including Europe. Representatives need to be aware of that.
I know the Home Office is doing some free events on Teams, which people can join and get access to these resources. And with the change you mentioned to the EU Settlement Scheme, that relates to e-visas. And again, there's been a postponement there and allowing people to rely on expired biometric permits. So representatives—there's this common theme again with countries where they think there's been a lot of asylum claims from being moved onto the visa national country list, and then these changes in terms of electronic travel authorization and e-visas.
Just in terms of dates, Gemma, we're recording this at the end of March. When is all this coming into force?
So the majority of these changes will be coming into force on the 9th of April 2025, although the change in relation to Trinidad and Tobago being added to the visa national list came into force immediately on the 12th of March 2025. So that was the day the statement was announced.
Yeah, often with these changes, with the countries being added, that seems to happen straight away. For everyone else, we've got a bit of time. And for those who advise those with sponsor licenses, there's a bit of time to be aware of these changes coming in on the 9th of April.
That's really helpful, Gemma. In terms of people—if people want to get in touch with you, perhaps need some advice and assistance from you and your firm—how do people reach out to you?
So, as mentioned earlier, I work at JMW Solicitors from our Manchester office. My email address is gemma.tracey at jmw.co.uk, and I'm sure that Adam will link my profile below if anyone has any questions or wants to reach out by phone.
Yeah, absolutely. I'll put Gemma's details, her contact details, and her LinkedIn profile below this video. I'll also put links to summaries of the statement of changes and the resources such as the explanatory memorandum if people want to go into this in a bit more detail.
Gemma, thank you for that summary—really helpful, really clear—and thank you again for coming back and chatting to me.
Thank you so much for having me, Adam.
awaiting further guidance on this requirement so that we can provide advice to our clients in terms of calculating salary.
There's one further amendment as well, which is just to the new entrant definition under the immigration rules. The new entrant requirements help to reduce the general salary threshold to certain workers in the UK. The change now requires that those who are relying on training towards a recognized professional qualification must be working towards a UK qualification as opposed to a qualification more generally.