Part of 1. 1. Questions to the First Minister – in the Senedd at 1:40 pm on 13 June 2017.
I read, of course, the Government’s White Paper on Brexit, which, effectively, isn’t in favour of border controls at all in any meaningful sense. My interest in this is on the impact of unskilled and semi-skilled labour being imported in uncontrollable numbers and the effect that that has upon working class wages. Now, the Bank of England has published a substantial report on ‘The impact of immigration on occupational wages: vidence from Britain’, the conclusion of which was that a 10 per cent rise in the proportion of immigrants is associated with a 2 per cent reduction in pay in the semi- and unskilled services sector. I struggle to understand why the Labour Party, of all parties, is prepared to countenance a situation where working class wages are driven down so that, for many people, the minimum wage is the maximum wage.