Lawyers welcome Home Office reversal on right-to-work rules

Immigration law specialists have welcomed a u-turn on Home Office guidance requiring employers sponsoring migrant workers to conduct right-to-work checks on anyone they 'directly engage'.

In the past three months there have been three updates to the Home Office guidance about whom sponsors should conduct right-to-work checks on - the latest, published on 20 May, could bring much relief to employers with licences to sponsor workers.

There had been much consternation and confusion among immigration legal specialists and companies, about whether Home Office policy published in March and April would mean sponsoring employers now had to conduct a right-to-work check on anyone they engaged - even a window cleaner or a plumber called out in an emergency. Failure to conduct a check would lead to sponsor licences being withdrawn.

Specialists at Vanessa Ganguin Immigration Law told Personnel Today that, along with other firms, they had written to the Home Office explaining how asking sponsors to check the right-to-work of anyone they "directly engage" could mean mass confusion for HR teams and a huge expansion of their duties.

All the complaints appear to have resulted in a U-turn with the Home Office this week reversing the situation to its pre-March advice, which will be welcome news for teams on companies with sponsor licences.

The wording in the guidance on checking anyone they directly engage has been removed - at least for now. The new wording states: "You must check that any worker you wish to sponsor (including a worker who is not your direct employee), or any worker you otherwise wish to employ (whether sponsored or not), has the appropriate immigration permission to work in the UK and do the work in question before they start working for you."

The previous guidance, from April, stated: …or any worker you otherwise wish to employ or directly engage …

The backdrop to all this is an expanded right-to-work regime expected to come into force later this year, following the Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Act 2025. The legislation included right-to-work checks and the hefty financial penalties they protect businesses from, expanding to now apply to employment "and other working arrangements".

The UK government's consultation on how a new right-to-work code would include "other working arrangements" ended in December, with no official timeline yet for implementation.

Vanessa Ganguin Immigration Law said it expected all employers would have to comply with a new code perhaps as soon as this autumn when the relevant provisions of the legislation commence.

Senior client manager at the firm Ross Kennedy said: "In March the update to guidance for employers with a sponsor licence was very unclear leaving sponsoring businesses confused as to their right-to-work duties. The Home Office clarified the guidance in April by insisting employers with a sponsor licence must conduct right to work checks on anyone they "directly engage" - even non-employees. That left businesses potentially liable to have to check the right to work of self-employed plumbers called out to fix a leak.

"Under the previous wording sponsors were at high risk of losing their sponsor licence if they were not checking the right to work of people they were not even responsible for. You weren't employing or sponsoring them - they were third parties and yet you were the one at risk."

He said that the penalties for non-compliance were potentially business-critical: "Losing a sponsor licence means losing the ability to recruit international workers and losing the international workers you currently sponsor along with all the employment law consequences that may entail."

Kennedy added: "This reversal takes the guidance back to the situation before March, which will be a massive relief to personnel teams. Sponsors now only need to do right to work checks now on people they do employ and anyone they sponsor."

Chetal Patel, head of Immigration at Bates Wells commended the Home Office for "doing the right thing."

She said: "April's guidance risked creating a significant and unworkable expansion of sponsor duties overnight.

"This reset restores some much-needed common sense. Sponsors can continue to focus on employees and sponsored workers, rather than navigating a blurred and ill-defined category of 'directly engaged' individuals.

"That said, this is not a signal to relax. Enforcement is only going in one direction, and with wider reforms expected later this year, organisations should be using this window to get their house in order - reviewing processes, tightening controls, and preparing for what's coming next."