Miliband: Foreigners are 'locking out' UK workers

UK Political Editor

Friday 22 June 2012

ED Miliband will today set out Labour's tough new approach to immigration, promising fresh measures to prevent British people being "locked out" of jobs by cheap foreign workers and forcing firms to declare if they employ high numbers of immigrants.

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MICHAEL SETTLE UK POLITICAL EDITOR

The party leader will take a clear swipe at his predecessor Gordon Brown, saying voters have legitimate fears about overburdened public services and community cohesion, and that expressing them "does not make them bigots, not in any way".

Mr Brown was humiliated over his comments about Rochdale voter Gillian Duffy before the 2010 General Election. He said Ms Duffy was "bigoted" when she raised immigration.Mr Miliband, who made re-connecting with party supporters on the subject a central plank of his leadership campaign, will rule out a Brown-style "British jobs for British workers" approach."But we do need to offer working people a fair crack of the whip and set out a new approach to this issue which can offer real ways of addressing their legitimate concerns," he will say in a speech to the left-leaning IPPR think-tank in London.However, last night a Home Office insider said Mr Miliband had fallen into the same trap as Mr Brown.The source said: "Ed Miliband says he is not going to promise British jobs for British workers but he seems to have fallen into the same trap as Gordon Brown. He still opposes everything the Government is doing to cut and control immigration and still isn't offering a single credible immigration policy of his own."Nearly one in three businesses (28%) in Scotland employs migrants and thousands of eastern Europeans earn a living in farms, factories, processing plants and hotels north of the Border.Immigration has been a thorny subject for Labour, and Yvette Cooper, the Shadow Home Secretary, admitted the last government "didn't do enough to address people's concerns".The politically sensitive subject is more associated with Conservative manifestos.However, Prime Minister David Cameron's pledge to get annual immigration numbers down from more than 250,000 to tens of thousands by 2015 still seems ambitious, as the latest net migration figures for May were 252,000, a fall of just 3000 on the previous year.Mr Miliband's proposals to stop firms using cheap foreign labour to undercut job-seekers include banning overseas-only employment agencies and an early-warning system to highlight areas where locals are "dominated" by an influx of labour.He also wants job centres told of all firms where more than one in four staff is from overseas, and the introduction of stricter enforcement of minimum wage laws, with a doubling of fines to £10,000.Mr Miliband will say: "Immigration from eastern Europe has collided with a labour market in Britain which is too often nasty, brutish and short-term. "If we are to address people's concerns, Labour must change its approach to immigration. But we will only be able to answer people's concerns on immigration if we change our economy too."He will say there is "nothing wrong with anyone employing Polish builders, Swedish childminders or French chefs".However, he will add: "The problem we need to address is in those areas and sectors of the economy where local talent is locked out of opportunity. The idea that in core sectors of our economy – industries like construction or agriculture – you can get recruitment agencies who boast all their workers are Polish or denigrate the talents who are living locally, is deeply wrong."It's not the right way to extend opportunity. It's not the right way to guarantee people a fair chance of a job. And it's not going to help us rebuild our economy."Instead of paying higher wages, too many companies are forced to compete by paying lower wages. Not enough are encouraged to offer good training."Mr Miliband hopes to shift the debate on immigration from border controls and what he claims are ineffective government caps on arrivals towards the impact on people's lives.While he will say restrictions on arrivals, including caps on those from any new EU member state, were necessary, reforming the jobs market is as important. The Migration Advisory Committee would gather data to alert Whitehall and councils to areas becoming "dominated by low-wage labour", he will say.The Labour leader will say: "This is not about imposing quotas. It is not about stopping firms hiring foreign workers. It is not about demanding employers fill in dozens of new forms. It is about improving the information we collect, enabling job centres to identify where there is a high dependency on foreign labour and see if there is better training that can be offered to help local workers fill the gap."

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Miliband: Foreigners are 'locking out' UK workers

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