Tory immigration plans 'stupid' – Emma Reynolds
Emma Reynolds has hit out at the Tories 'rather stupid' immigration proposals, warning they could leave Britain with a shortage of unskilled workers.
The Prime Minister announced her post-Brexit plans for migrants at the Conservative conference in Birmingham, in a move which will see no priority given to EU migrants, and highly skilled workers favoured.
But Labour's Wolverhampton North East MP Ms Reynolds says the plans are 'seriously flawed'.
"Giving preferential treatment to EU migrants should be a central part of any Brexit deal," Ms Reynolds said.
"It is rather stupid to suggest everyone should be treated the same, when we still export more to the EU and import more from the EU than anywhere else in the world.
"There is also the issue of favouring highly skilled workers... for that to work the Government has got to make sure that we have a local workforce ready to do the jobs of unskilled migrants.
"There needs to be a proper assessment of how many migrants this country might need. I don't think that they have thought this through properly at all."
Ms Reynolds has called for a two-tier immigration system, with low-skilled and semi-skilled EU workers seeing their access to the UK labour market restricted by sector-based quotas.
