Thousands of migrant workers are at risk of exploitation because of multiple failures in the government scheme that allows them to come to the UK, a report has found.

The way the Home Office has set up the employer sponsorship system to replace freedom of movement after Brexit has prioritised immigration control over workers’ rights, according to the report, Systematic Drivers of Migrant Worker Exploitation in the UK, from the Work Rights Centre...

“The exploitation of migrant workers is not coincidental but the outcome of a system, an inadequate and increasingly hostile national policy environment,” the report said.

Some workers are scammed in their home countries by agents who charge them tens of thousands of pounds to organise their visas to the UK and secure an employer sponsor to give them a job. They can find themselves in a catch-22 situation where they pay a vast sum of money for a visa and a job package but when the promised job fails to materialise they are fearful of reporting the employer to officials in case the employer’s sponsorship registration is cancelled by the Home Office – leading to their visa being voided. Some, therefore, feel they have no alternative but to accept being exploited or to take on risky and precarious cash-in-hand jobs...

The report authors recommend reforming the system to end migrant worker dependency on a sponsor, introducing a single enforcement body that migrant workers can safely report abuse and exploitation to, and appointing a migrant commissioner to develop a welfare strategy for migrant workers.

Dr Dora-Olivia Vicol, chief executive of the Work Rights Centre, said: “From the perspective of migrant workers, sponsorship is akin to bonded labour. It hands employers the power to exploit migrants, knowing that it will be very hard for them to leave. We have seen many tragic cases where people come to accept exploitation. The work-sponsorship system needs urgent reform to prevent even more migrant workers being exploited.”

The Home Office has been approached for comment.