Government's immigration White Paper will be published tomorrow and establish 'whole new approaches to migration'
The Home Office has announced that the long-anticipated White Paper on immigration will be published tomorrow, marking what it describes as a fundamental overhaul of the UK's immigration system.
Image credit: UK Government According to a press release issued this morning, the White Paper will outline sweeping reforms across key areas of migration — including work, study, and family routes. The Home Office characterises the proposals as introducing "radical reforms" and setting out "whole new approaches" to migration grounded in the principles of control, economic contribution, and community cohesion.
Among the most significant changes is a tightening of the skilled worker visa criteria. The Government plans to raise the qualification threshold to RQF Level 6 — equivalent to a UK bachelor's degree — in an effort to curb rising numbers of lower-skilled workers entering the country. Corresponding salary thresholds will also be adjusted to reflect the elevated skill requirement.
For roles that do not meet the new skill level, access to the immigration system will be strictly limited. Visas will be issued only where there is compelling evidence of shortages vital to the UK's industrial strategy. In such cases, employers will also be expected to put forward workforce plans to boost domestic recruitment and skills development.
The Home Office stresses that the UK will remain open to the best of international talent, but skilled work for migration purposes "must truly mean skilled work".
"Employers will first need to develop domestic training plans to boost British skills and recruitment levels – increasing productivity and living standards for working people in the UK," the press release explains.
In another significant development, Home Secretary Yvette Cooper told Sky News and the BBC this morning that the care worker visa route will be closed for overseas recruitment. She said the immigration rules would be changed this year to prevent the care worker visa being used to recruit from abroad.
Speaking to the BBC's Laura Kuenssberg, Cooper explained: "We will allow [care companies] to continue to extend visas and also to recruit from the more than 10,000 people who came on a care worker visa, where the sponsorship visa was cancelled. Effectively they came to jobs that weren't actually here or that were not of the proper standard. They are here and care companies should be recruiting from that pool of people rather than recruiting from abroad."
Yvette Cooper added that the visa change would be brought in alongside a new fair pay agreement for care workers.
The UK's membership body for homecare providers, the Homecare Association, warned that the decision would have "devastating consequences" for the care sector. The association's CEO, Dr Jane Townson, commented: "International recruitment is a lifeline for the homecare sector, enabling us to provide vital support to older and disabled people in their own homes. Care providers are already struggling to recruit within the UK. We are deeply concerned the Government has not properly considered what will happen to the millions of people who depend on care at home to live safely and independently."
When asked by the BBC's Laura Kuenssberg if the Government's approach would be to cut immigration whatever the costs might be, including to sectors such as care homes and universities, the Home Secretary responded: "We do need to bring net migration down. That huge increase that we had is not sustainable. We do believe it needs to come down further, but the issue is we're doing this in a way that also supports the economy by saying there has got to be requirements for training here in the UK as well."
The Home Secretary stated in today's Government press release: "We inherited a failed immigration system where the previous government replaced free movement with a free market experiment. Employers were given much greater freedom to recruit from abroad while action on training fell. Overseas recruitment soared at the same time as big increases in the number of people not working or in education here in the UK. … Under our Plan for Change, we are taking decisive action to restore control and order to the immigration system, raise domestic training and skills, and bring down net migration while promoting economic growth."
Cooper told the BBC that the skilled worker and care worker visa changes would come in this year in a step-by-step, managed approach. She said the Government expected the changes to result in a reduction of up to 50,000 fewer lower-skilled visas over the course of the next year.
In a comment piece published in the Independent today, Professor Jonathan Portes, a leading expert on migration and labour markets, said that the measures will likely undermine the economy. He warned that "knee-jerk policymaking" to reduce immigration will lower not only overall economic output but also average household incomes and living standards. Citing Office for National Statistics data, he noted that migrant workers tend to earn more and see faster wage growth than their UK-born counterparts, contributing positively to per-capita GDP.
Portes also challenged claims that recent growth has been driven largely by low-skilled migration, pointing to evidence of wage progression among newer arrivals. He further criticised cost estimates circulated by some think tanks, suggesting that correcting key errors in their modelling would show a substantial fiscal benefit from migrant settlement.
Getting immigration down, Professor Portes warns, will also 'get growth down'—with consequences that could be felt in closed universities, under-resourced care homes, and increasingly strained public services.
Foreign criminals to face faster deportation
The Home Office announced in a second press release today that the White Paper will also introduce significant changes to the UK's deportation and removal rules, aimed at speeding up the removal of foreign nationals who commit crimes. Under the current system, the Home Office is generally notified only of individuals sentenced to more than 12 months in prison. The new measures will broaden that scope, ensuring officials are informed of all convictions involving foreign nationals, regardless of sentence, and enabling earlier intervention through expanded removal powers.
The reforms will prioritise crimes such as violence against women and girls, knife crime, and other street-level offences. Under expanded removal powers, individuals who commit offences shortly after arrival in the UK will face fast-tracked removal. Individuals on the Sex Offenders Register will automatically be deemed to have committed serious crimes—excluding them from asylum protections altogether. The Home Office says these measures are part of a strategy to "restore control" and raise standards within the immigration system.
Yvette Cooper said the current framework for removing foreign criminals has been "far too weak for too long," and stressed that public trust requires clear and enforceable rules. She noted a 16% increase in removals since July 2024, with over 3,500 foreign criminals deported, but argued that more decisive action is needed to protect communities and uphold the rule of law.
Alongside these changes, the Home Office will update immigration refusal and visa cancellation rules. Foreign nationals on short-term visas who commit offences will be automatically refused future applications, and new mechanisms will enable swift cancellation of existing visas.