Carmichael condemns “crippling” visa restrictions on fishing workers

Orkney and Shetland MP, Alistair Carmichael, has today condemned “crippling” language requirements on fishing deckhand workers in a Home Office statement on immigration in Parliament. Mr Carmichael highlighted the challenges found by the fishing industry since the Home Office imposed a B1 English language requirement for workers earlier this year.

Speaking in the House, Mr Carmichael said:

“Since the crew for fishing vessels was added to the Shortage Occupation List by the government only a handful of visas have been granted. That is not because of the income threshold, because most would meet that requirement comfortably, but because of the requirement for the English language test at level B1.

“Why does the Home Secretary think that B1 is an appropriate level for someone working on a fishing boat?”

Responding, the Home Secretary James Cleverly MP said:

“An inability to speak English would hamper anybody and it really is something which I think is entirely reasonable to expect of people who are coming here to work.”

Reacting after the exchange, Mr Carmichael said:

“We are not talking here about any inability to speak English – we are talking about barring people whose valued skills have nothing to do with language on the basis of their ability to talk about Shakespeare.

“The Home Secretary and his henchman Robert Jenrick are completely clueless of the needs of island communities. For the sake of a newspaper front page today they risk crippling the fishing industry for years to come.

“The Conservatives have trashed both our immigration system and our economy in the past few years – they cannot be trusted to fix either.”