Memorandum submitted by Kaman Tsang
My name is Kaman Tsang and I have been involved
in the takeaway and restaurant trade for the past 30 years.
I feel very strongly regarding the new immigration
bill, which takes effect from this coming autumn and felt the
necessity to write to you personally.
I live and have businesses in Eastbourne and
was recently invited to a migrant watch meeting set up by the
government in Liverpool. I have also attended many meetings with
my fellow compatriots in the restaurant and take-away industry.
I have also written to my local MP, which appears to be to no
avail.
I am a vice chair of Confederation of Chinese
associations UK and also the chairman of Eastbourne Chinese Association
and give a lot of my spare time to participating in the well-being
of this community to harmonise our position and respect within
this country. I am aghast at the despair, hopelessness, anger
and frustration within our industry that I am seeing on a daily
basis due to this immigration bill. In a stroke this government
has destroyed the ethnic take-away and restaurant trade which
has taken generations to build up, and one of which we feel that
the British has been proud of the achievements of the ethnic minority.
(There are two dishes that are unique to Britain—chicken
tikka masala by the Indians and chop suey by the Chinese). The
implementation of this bill has already put a lot of families
in a position of hardship and real difficulty and the entire market
is starting to crumble and could eventually collapse.
My parents came to Britain to work and through
their hard work and endurance managed to start up a little business.
As we grew up, we also became involved in the business (which
involved long hours of work) and so when our parents retired it
was our duty to carry on the family business. Unfortunately (but
fortunately), today, our children aspire to bigger and better
life styles and this has meant that many owners of businesses
throughout the country cannot pass on their knowledge and businesses
to their children. Thus, these businesses need to employ outside
staff just to keep the businesses running. Already take-away and
restaurant businesses are closing down due to the difficulty and
near impossibility to employ native people to work in a trade
that is not suited to British chefs.
As an example, one of our members purchased
a shop 20 months ago and placed an advert for chefs in the local
and surrounding area job centres. There has not been one applicant
for the positions available, the shop is still laying empty due
to the application for chefs from overseas being refused.
Another of our members is a couple in their
late seventies who faced the same predicament and have had to
come out of retirement to work. These are just a mere two examples
of the problems we are facing at present.
It was inevitable, through this legislation,
that Chinese staff employed in this country would start to see
"poaching of staff" occur. This, unfortunately, has
already commenced and will lead to a free for all of who can get
the best wages, who can pay the best wages and ultimately this
will also lead to a lot of closures of establishments as employers
will not be able to compete on a level playing field.
The disaster that occurred at Dover port when
58 illegal immigrants were found dead in the back of a lorry will
surely one day come back to haunt the government.
For your consideration, I would like to put
forward the following solution for everyone to consider regarding
this hardship that faces all of our community:
1. Grant migrant workers a two or three year
working visa with an employment contract with no benefits attached
that the worker, after having completed their two or three year
employment, must return home.
The employer would be responsible for all of
the welfare rights in this country of the employed staff, ie any
translation and other needs that would need to be sorted would
be paid for by their employer.
To this end, everyone would be a winner.
The employer would be free to employ providing
that they take up the requirement responsibility.
The government would win on two fronts:
1. This will stem the flow of illegal immigrants.
2. They would all pay their taxes in this country
without the benefit of a pension.
I trust that this letter will not fall on deaf
ears, will be read, noted and evaluated by the committee to gain
a realistic view of the difficulties that are being faced by all
of the hard working families that totally depend on this trade
to literally survive.
July 2008
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