Reform MP Lee Anderson has hit out at a new proposal to plug labour shortages in a fiery rant on GB News.
It comes after Work and Pensions Secretary Mel Stride set out plans to give training to benefits claimants for roles in key sectors facing shortages including hospitality, care, construction and manufacturing.
Anderson told GB News’s Patrick Christys that so-called ‘bootcamps’ are not the answer, and firmer measures should be in place.
“Let’s be clear, bone-idle dole scroungers should be made to work and if they don’t, they should have their benefits stopped”, he fumed.
“This bootcamp is a load of nonsense. It’s carrot and stick.
“If you don’t go to work, you don’t get benefits and you have to fend for yourself. It’s absolutely ridiculous.”
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Asked by Patrick as to whether a bootcamp might be a “good idea”, Anderson was not willing to entertain any suggestion this could be the case.
He told the GB News star to “stop being ridiculous” as he continued his rant about Stride’s policy that has raised eyebrows in Parliament.
“We need fruit and vegetable picking in the fields, we don’t need a bootcamp to teach people how to do that. It’s absolutely ridiculous”, he added.
Stride told GB News earlier today that migration coming down could force Britain to address the issue.
“Now that migration is coming down and will be coming down quite dramatically, it’s an opportunity to get British people into those domestic jobs”, he said.
In a speech at a Jobcentre in central London, the Cabinet minister said the UK has relied on foreign labour “for too long” as he vowed to “unleash Britain’s hidden army of talent”.
It comes after the Home Office announced a raft of restrictions aimed at cutting the number of people entering Britain and ahead of official net migration statistics set to be published on Thursday.
The measures include a ban on overseas care workers bringing over family dependants, a drastically increased salary threshold for skilled workers to £38,700, and reforms to make it harder for Britons earning less than the national average to bring over foreign spouses.
Stride acknowledged that the rules, which aim to reduce the number of people arriving in Britain by 300,000 a year, present a “recruitment challenge” for employers but insisted the Government is building a new economic model “based on British talent”.
“I know this presents a recruitment challenge for some employers in certain sectors, particularly those that have relied more on migration in the past, but this is also a huge opportunity for the thousands of jobseekers within our domestic workforce to move into roles that have previously been filled by overseas workers.”
The minister added: “I see no reason why a British worker cannot be a care worker. And I hear too many people saying ‘Oh, well, those jobs aren’t the jobs for the domestic labour market.'”
