Indian restaurant owners in UK protest immigration rules

LONDON: Owners of Indian restaurants staged a protest outside the Scottish Parliament in Edinburgh against recent changes to immigration rules that have adversely affected the Indian food industry in the United Kingdom.

The new rules prevent chefs from being recruited from the Indian sub-continent, threatening the existence of thousands of Indian restaurants across the UK. Many have closed down due to shortage of chefs.

After the demonstration on Thursday, the protesters met Alex Salmond, the First Minister, who described the issue as 'really serious'.

Salmond promised the Indian restaurant owners that he would continue to draw the UK government's attention to the matter.

"If people can't get the skilled staff then they can't operate their restaurants, and if they can't operate their restaurants then that's damaging for the economy and the social life of Scotland. It's something we feel very strongly about.

"Ideally, the new system shouldn't have discriminated and prevented people coming in with key skills. I hope there's sympathy for this. I can't believe the Government in London intended this to happen," Salmond said.

"It's a matter of trying to sort out this unintended consequence because there's a lot more folk than me would be extremely disappointed if the restaurant trade and the curry industry in Scotland went into a downturn as a result of an unthinking application of new rules from London," he said.

The Immigration Advisory Service recently made representations to the Home Office to relax rules for chefs from the Indian sub-continent.

The new immigration rules make knowledge of English mandatory for workers recruited from outside the European Union.

Retorted Foysol Choudhury, general secretary of the Bangladesh Samity Association said, "Our chefs don't need to speak English. Their curry talks. The Indian restaurant industry contributes 3.2 billion pounds to the British economy."

What is the British government doing to save this industry?" he asked.

Asked about consequences if action were not taken to tackle the issue, he said, "Half of the restaurants will close and we'll lose the food quality. Eventually this industry will die."

Prominent Edinburgh-based entrepreneur Tommy Miah, said, "We're going to suffer big time. I've been offered a couple of other restaurants to take but I've said I can't do it because I'm struggling with one restaurant."

Bashir Ahmad, first Asian member in Scottish Parliament said with more restaurants open now and new tougher immigration laws, for those outside the EU, "we are looking at a real curry crisis."