Response to domestic workers consultation
YLAL members who work in the immigration sector have prepared the response, which focuses on the plans for domestic workers. Keeping the route for low-skilled domestic work doesn’t fit with Government priorities on being more selective about the workforce and the proposals include capping how long workers can be here, taking away their right to change employer, and scrapping the route entirely.
We are particularly concerned as these plans would come in alongside Government cuts to legal aid. Low paid workers would no longer get free advice for problems with their employer or about immigration. If they were a victim of trafficking, they would not get legal aid unless they had an asylum claim. Workers could stay trapped in situations of abuse out of fear and the Government has already recognised this would merit free advice in immigration claims that involve domestic violence.