Shropshire Star comment: Britain reliant on unskilled migrant labour

The government has outlined its vision for the future shape of immigration as Britain seeks to make its way in the world having left the EU.

And its message to the low-skilled workers from abroad is that they are not as welcome as they have hitherto been, and the emphasis will switch to attracting those with the special skills and talents that the nation wants to tap into and benefit from.

So the poor workers from the EU who are offering hard work for low pay are going to struggle to get visas under the new points-based system.

EU and non-EU citizens will be treated equally after free movement ends on December 31.

It sounds fair, and for Britain to seek to access international skills to benefit our services and economy sounds reasonable – in theory.

Yet if you talk to, say, farmers, about the practical consequences of the plans, they may counter with inconvenient reality. If migrant workers from the EU are not going to do so much hard, vital, work, who is?

While the government may lambast employers for relying on “cheap foreign labour” rather than investing in the domestic workforce, it is successive British governments which have facilitated that economic model over many years, thanks to them signing up to EU freedom of labour rules and then massively underestimating the impact the open door policy would have.

Britain has become so reliant on unskilled migrant labour in some sectors that there is a real fear that without it crops will go unpicked, old folk will go uncared for, hotels will have no staff to change the bedsheets, and so on.

Willing Britons to take on these roles cannot be wished up. Indeed, you will find employers who say that the very reason they employ foreign labour is because, for whatever reasons, Britons do not come forward in sufficient numbers to take on these roles.

Given time, the workforce balance can be adjusted, and market forces will gradually take effect in a competitive jobs environment.

Given no time, the country may prove woefully unprepared for such a major change.

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Businesses and homeowners who have been hit by the terrible floods over the last few days have suffered heartbreak and misery.

And as the floodwaters subside and the news agendas move on, it isn’t over for them, but has only just begun as they try to recover.

Drying out, repairing the damage, and replacing that which has been lost, is going to be a process which takes weeks and months, and that is assuming, hoping, that the floods will not return any time soon, which is something nobody can guarantee.

The financial cost of this natural disaster, both collectively and individually, is going to prove enormous, so while the £500 emergency grant announced by the government to affected homeowners, together with an exemption from paying council tax, is a welcome gesture of practical support it is, so to speak, a mere drop.

Far better if these homes and businesses did not flood in the first place.

Achieving that means looking to see what more can be done in the way of flood defences – and avoiding storing up trouble for the future by not building homes and businesses in areas which are liable to flood.