Home Office under fire as 208 fined firms stay on visa sponsor register

The Home Office is facing criticism after it emerged that 208 companies fined for illegal working practices, with penalties totalling nearly £10 million, remain on its visa sponsor register. The register lists employers that are licensed to sponsor migrant workers, so inclusion allows a company to recruit staff from overseas.

Investigative journalist David Shipley said the companies had been caught breaking immigration rules, including employing people who did not have the right to work in the UK or did not have the right to do the job in question. He said the firms paid their fines but were allowed to carry on sponsoring visas. He argued that employers which break employment law should not be trusted to bring in migrant workers.

The motives are not uniform, he said. Some cases point to firms being set up or run mainly to sell visas. He cited small businesses, such as corner shops or car washes, that had sponsored implausibly high numbers of visas over the years. Others, he said, employed people illegally to avoid national insurance and minimum wage obligations, and to suppress British workers' wages.

The interview also examined how the Home Office could tighten enforcement. Shipley said the rules already give officials the power to remove sponsor licences after a fine, but the department often chooses not to use it. He called for greater use of AI to identify anomalies in large data sets, including companies sponsoring unusually high numbers of visas or those that have been fined. He described these as sensible steps.

Recent revocation figures were also highlighted: the government revoked 3,299 sponsor licences last year alone, compared with just 347 in 2023. Since the election, 6,662 revocations up to April this year were reported, against 6,272 between 2012 and 2024. The discussion also heard criticism that the Home Office had been described as not fit for purpose decades ago, and that Whitehall performance and public sector productivity remain problems. The rules exist, and some failures may be administrative or IT-related rather than deliberate, it was noted.

It was also argued that importing workers for jobs such as corner shop or car wash roles is ludicrous, and that the government has cut more than 100 occupations from visa eligibility, including in vape shops and takeaways. The broader point from the coverage was that firms fined for illegal working should face clear consequences, including removal from the sponsor register, and that the Home Office must enforce its own rules more consistently.