IDS blasts bosses ‘for not even bothering to find British workers’
SENIOR Tory Iain Duncan Smith yesterday clashed with business chiefs accusing them of not even trying to find British staff before they hire EU nationals.
The Brexiteer and former party leader urged employers to pay staff enough to stop them needing top-up state benefits – a big “pull factor” for EU immigrants.
The MP launched his broadside after the Confederation of British Industry called on the Government to reform the immigration system for the post-Brexit era.
CBI bosses want ministers to drop the “blunt target” of cutting net immigration to under 100,000 a year from the current level of 280,000.
They said borders could be both “open and controlled”, with new EU arrivals required to leave after three months if they are not studying, working or self-sufficient.
It should also be made easier for firms to hire foreign staff.
Ex-Work and Pensions Secretary Mr Duncan Smith told the BBC: “A lot of employers simply have not even bothered to try and find UK people to work.
“I think the best thing to do is work with what we have got and make it work for everyone around the world.
“You basically extend the work permit process across the EU and the rest of the world.
“People can come here for work but they need to have work to come to and that work needs to have been agreed.” He said it should be accepted that there is not a person in the UK that could do that work and has the skills to do that work.
He also claimed the availability of welfare benefits skewed the jobs market.
Mr Duncan Smith said: “In the last year figures were available, more than £4.1billion was spent on people from the EU who have come over here getting tax credits, child benefits, housing benefits. That’s one of the great pull factors.”
But CBI deputy directorgeneral Josh Hardie said the suggestion businesses do not bother to look at British workers was “wholly detached from reality and needlessly provocative”.
He said: “We need to build this model from facts, not fantasy.”
Richard Tice, co-chair of the pro-Brexit group Leave Means Leave, accused the CBI of a nicely-worded con trick who wanted “a continuation of unlimited low-skilled immigration to keep working class wages low”.