Simon Wolfson, the chief executive of clothing and homeware retail Next PLC (LSE:NXT) has called on the government to make it easier for foreign workers to enter the UK and said this is “not the Brexit I wanted.”
The conservative peer and Brexit supporter said the government was blocking much-needed workers from entering the UK, even though firms were desperate for labour.
“We have got people queueing up to come to this country to pick crops that are rotting in fields, to work in warehouses that otherwise wouldn’t be operable, and we’re not letting them in,” Lord Wolfson said in an interview with the BBC.
He said: “In respect of immigration, it’s definitely not the Brexit that I wanted, or indeed, many of people who voted Brexit wanted.”
Wolfson said most people in the UK had a “very pragmatic view” of immigration and urged the government to take a “different approach to economically productive migration.”
“Yes, control it, where it’s damaging to society, but let people in who can contribute,” the Next chief executive added.
Wolfson said it was still worth incentivising businesses to hire local workers in the UK, and said this could be achieved by making sure firms pay a 10% tax to the government on salaries of foreign hired labour.
“It would automatically mean that businesses never bought someone into the company from outside if they could find someone in the UK,” he said. “But if they genuinely can’t, they’ll pay the premium.”
“We have to remember, you know, we’re all stuck in this Brexit argument. We have to remember that what post-Brexit Britain looks like, is not the preserve of those people that voted Brexit, it’s for all of us to decide,” Wolfson said.
Wolfson’s remarks follow similar comments from JD Wetherspoon boss, and prominent Brexit supporter, Tim Martin who bemoaned a shortage of staff in his pubs.