Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown asks the Government what is being done to ensure that there will be no staff shortages in the social care sector when we leave the EU given that 10,000 EU citizens work in the sector.
Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown (The Cotswolds) (Con)
Nearly 10,000 EU citizens work in the social care sector, caring for some of the most vulnerable people in society. What steps is my hon. Friend taking to ensure that there will be no shortage of people working in that sector once we have left the EU?
Stephen Barclay
My hon. Friend has raised an extremely important point. The Home Secretary recently announced a settlement scheme to enable those staff from the European economic area to remain. However, it is also important for us not to scare EU nationals, and to point out that there are now 4,500 more non-UK EU nationals working in the NHS than there were two years ago, at the time of the referendum. There is often a sense that there are fewer, but that is not the case.