By Dipankar De Sarkar, IANS
London : The multibillion-pound curry industry in Britain is facing ruin because of a crippling shortage of workers in the kitchen fuelled by harsh immigration rules that favour East Europeans over South Asians, a leading immigration body said.
“Despite many meetings with the Immigration Minister who states that he understands the plight of this important industry to the UK, nothing is being done to improve the situation,” said Keith Best, chief executive of the Immigration Advisory Service.
Best, who this week met restaurant owners banded under the Greater Sylhet Development and Welfare Council, said the shortage of curry chefs follows current and proposed immigration rules that make hiring in South Asia difficult.
The curry industry is said to employ some 80,000 people in 10,000 restaurants across Britain and is said to be worth at least 3.5 billion pounds ($6.8 billion) when catering, ready meals and ingredients are taken into account.
Under current rules, restaurant owners cannot bring over trained chefs from non-European countries. Importing chefs is covered under tier-3 of a new Points Based System (PBS), under which employers have to pay a certain amount of money to bring over chefs, who are classed as low-skilled workers.
Best, a former MP, said he has been told the government has no plans to ease restrictions until at least the end of December.
“Such delay and lack of appreciation of the crisis facing the industry could do it irreparable damage and, in so doing, cause disappointment to many British residents.”
“For many low-income families the only chance they have of eating out is to go for a curry. The late (foreign secretary) Robin Cook described the British national dish as chicken tikka masala.”
Best said plans to fill curry kitchens with Bulgarians and Romanians had failed because eastern Europeans have “no cultural sensitivity or understanding” of the curry industry.
“It is a sad comment on government policy that it favours eastern Europeans over citizens of Commonwealth countries such as Bangladesh whose preceding generations have contributed so much to the British economy and continue to do so,” he added.