Immigration Points-Based System
24 Apr 2008
Ms Abbott: Returning to the subject of ethnic restaurants, the Minister said that second-generation south Asian young people could be trained to do catering and cooking, but I have to say, with respect, that that is a real McKinsey consultant’s point of view. The point is that second-generation Bangladeshi young people do not want to be restaurateurs in the same way that second-generation Jamaican girls, of whom I am one, did not want to be nurses and second and third-generation Irish young people did not want to be labourers. Communities move on, which still leaves our ethnic restaurants requiring skilled labour to meet the demand for the delicious food we all enjoy so much. Mr. Byrne: I was never good enough to work at McKinsey, Mr. Deputy Speaker, but my point was not about second, third, fourth, fifth or sixth-generation people; my point was about people who did not have a job, and we have to accept that there are some city communities in which the unemployment rates are very high.
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