MP Contests Curry Calamity

01 Apr 2008

Following protests from Chinese and Bangladeshi constituents, Diane was compelled to defend the need for immigrant chefs and restaurant workers to protect ethnic minority restaurants.

Speaking during a debate in the House of Commons, the Hackney North and Stoke Newington MP said:

“Restaurateurs are insisting that to have the delicious south Asian food to which the British people have become accustomed over the years, they must recruit cooks, of which there is a desperate shortage, from that region.

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.”

Hackney North and Stoke Newington is home to many of London’s best ethnic minority restaurants.



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