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Speaking
at The Guild of Bangladeshi Restaurateurs' Conference and Dinner
"Working for the Curry Industry" at the Hotel Radisson
Edwardian, Docklands, London on Sunday 14 June Keith Best, Chief
Executive of IAS, stated that the difficulties facing the curry
industry (most curry restaurants are Bangladeshi) is not a problem
for the Bangladeshis but for Britain as a whole.
"The late Robin Cook,
former Foreign Secretary, famously coined the phrase that chicken
tikka masala is the British national dish - so any crisis facing that
industry is a national British one about our own cuisine.
"In a time of recession
the Government is looking at restricting immigrant workers yet this
is harming the curry industry. Already, there is no legitimate route
for lower skilled workers to come as kitchen porters from outside the
European Economic Area yet the eastern Europeans are going home so
this pool of labour is drying up and the Government has provided no alternative.
"The Migration Advisory
Committee which advises the Government on skills shortages has
acknowledged that there is a shortage of curry chefs - but the
Government has now asked them to review this situation by September.
This could mean that chefs are no longer regarded as a skills
shortage - despite the reality that restaurateurs cannot recruit them
in the UK. The only persons allowed to enter as workers may be
restricted only to those shortage occupations - but that depends on
chefs still being on the list.
"This is a great
opportunity for the curry industry to gather as much evidence as
possible from restaurateurs and submit it to the Migration Advisory
Committee. I am delighted that the Guild has combined with People 1st
to create a detailed questionnaire which should provide that
evidence. It is easy for Ministers to claim that there is high
unemployment among Bangladeshis and that 60% of females are
economically inactive - yet that may not provide an easy answer.
There are many reasons why such people may not fit into a kitchen
either through lack of experience or living in close quarters as part
of their employment or having to travel many miles to work. I urge
the Bangladeshi community to engage in research on why such persons
are not able to take up jobs in the curry industry and submit that to
the Migration Advisory Committee.
"The people of the UK
will not easily forgive the politicians if they destroy the curry
industry however inadvertently: the Government needs to understand
how the industry works and to be culturally sensitive to the demands."
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