The claim
“As we work hard to break welfare dependency and get young people ready for the labour market we need businesses to play their part and give them a chance, and not just fall back on labour from abroad”
Iain Duncan Smith MP, speech in Madrid, July 1, 2011
FactCheck checks it out
Iain Duncan Smith wants to stem the flow of immigrants into Britain’s workforce, to give young Brits a better chance on the jobmarket.
The Government has already capped the number of non-EU foreign nationals allowed to work in Britain, but there’s nothing it can do about EU members.
As part of the European Union, our borders are open to EU nationals coming to live and work in Britain.
This has seen the number of EU immigrants rise from 26 per cent of all immigrants in September 2000, to 34 per cent in September 2010.
The graph below shows that after a brief dip during the recession, the rise in immigrants from the EU has returned – and there’s nothing the Government can do about it. Bosses are free to “fall back” on labour from abroad if it suits them.
EU immigration to Britain 2004-2010
(Key: pink = immigration, green = net migration, blue = emigration. Source: ONS)
Yet the director general of the British Chambers of Commerce, David Frost, said employers were taking on foreign workers because they were better qualified and had a stronger work ethic than young British job applicants.
“They expect young people to come forward to them who are able to read, to write, to be able to communicate and have a strong work ethic,” he said.
“Too often that is not the case and there is a stream of highly able Eastern European migrants who are able to fill those jobs.
“They are skilled, they speak good English and, more importantly, they want to work.”
Pimlico Plumbers in London told FactCheck that they find foreign workers are often better trained and motivated than their British counterparts.
The plumbing group employs 150 plumbers, 10 per cent of whom hail from Australia, New Zealand and South Africa.
Stephen Joynson, a British plumber at Pimlico Plumbers, told FactCheck: “The climate at the moment is very difficult and has been for the last few years. I have found that the customers that we work for are constantly looking for cheaper prices and there’s a lot of competition from Europe, Eastern Europe in the trades especially.”
Charlie Mullins, founder of Pimlico Plumbers, told us: “The reason that we are not actually employing more British workers at the moment is that the training isn’t set up for them. There’s no facility there for them to be trained no longer. And the second option is we have to look abroad for them. You’re finding that they’re fully trained and they’re certainly more keener to come to work. They don’t want to sit on their backsides.”
Even if they wanted to, employers can’t put the brakes on hiring EU nationals in favour of British nationals – because of the legal right to free movement in the EU.
In 2004, a treaty was drawn up to give EU residents the right to move and reside freely within EU member states.
The graph above shows the effect of this act on EU immigration to the UK.
But Mr Duncan Smith said the issue goes beyond the EU. “In the years 1997-2010 around half of the rise in employment accounted for by foreign nationals was accounted for by those from outside the EU,” he said.
And he’s right. FactCheck ran through the stats with the Office for National Statistics (ONS) – non-EU workers accounted for 54 per cent of all foreign workers in 1997 and 53 per cent in 2010.
During that time, the number of foreign workers more than doubled to 2.4m in 2010.
Official stats published this week show the UK population grew by 470,000 in 2009-10, pushing it up to 62.26m. Net migration accounted for almost half of the rise.
But lawyers have warned that employers who discriminate against foreign workers could also be in danger of breaking the Equalities Act.
Paul Griffin, the head of employment law at the law firm DBS, said: “Any favouring of British workers above those from the EU or anywhere else if they have the right to work here, could make an employer liable for a claim for direct race discrimination under the Equalities Act.”
IDS can plead all he likes with businesses to hire Brits but there are plenty of legal and financial reasons why they’ll choose not to.
by Emma Thelwell
