Nearly 200 care providers have been given government licences to bring foreign nurses to the UK despite having previously violated labour laws, according to a study that highlights widespread employment problems in the social care sector.

The report by the Work Rights Centre shows 177 companies in England have been given licences to sponsor carers, even while publicly available information shows them to have violated workers’ protections in the past.

The study gives further evidence of major gaps in the government’s oversight of its foreign carer regime, under which hundreds of thousands of nurses and carers have travelled to Britain for work, only for many to experience exploitation and poor working conditions.

It will now prove an early test for Labour’s new employment rights enforcer, which the government has promised as part of its workers’ rights package.

Dora-Olivia Vicol, chief executive of the Work Rights Centre, said: “Our research finds that breaches of employment rights are endemic in the care sector. This cannot come as a surprise to the Home Office, which granted licences to companies with a history labour violations.

“For those who have been exploited, the fear of retaliation from their sponsor employer is enough to force them into silence. On top of this, working conditions are barely tolerable, with work schedules either all-consuming and exhausting, or so sparse that they do not provide enough income to make ends meet.”

The previous government turned to...

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