Former Tory Minister says Sunderland workers would be 'flipping hamburgers' if it wasn't for Nissan

A former Tory Cabinet Minister has raised eyebrows after stating Sunderland workers would be ‘flipping hamburgers or unemployed’ without Nissan’s investment in training in a debate in Parliament on migrant workers.

Speaking in Parliament, Lord Lilley highlighted the investment by Nissan in training at its car plant in Sunderland, arguing that without it thousands of residents in the city - which saw the dismantling of its mining and ship-building industries under the Thatcher Government - would be “flipping hamburgers or unemployed”.

The comments came as he argued breaking a “national addiction” to migrant workers is the only way to tackle home-grown skills shortages.

The Conservative peer said the future import of labour from abroad should only be permitted if agreement was reached on training up a domestic workforce at the same time.

He made his comments during a debate in the House of Lords on the importance of skills to the UK economy and for people’s quality of life.

Lord Lilley said: “The skills problem in this country is of longstanding.

“The roots lie in a sort class prejudice which attributes prestige to a subject in inverse proportion to its practical and commercial value.

“The more academic it is the higher prestige, the more practical and commercial the lower prestige.”

He told peers: “There are only two ways to increase the supply of skills in this country.

“One is to increase the skill levels of the domestic population and the other is to import skills from abroad.

“My thesis is unless and until we break the national addiction to importing skills from abroad we won’t ever seriously tackle the lack of domestic skilled people.”

Lord Lilley added: “Since Tony Blair opened our borders to the import of skills from abroad – this isn’t a party political point because it was sadly followed by the coalition government and by Boris Johnson – spending on training of people at work has declined and the time people at work spend on training has declined.

“And that was absolutely predictable.”

Stressing the importance of training by the Japanese carmaker in Sunderland, he said: “If Nissan had been able to or inclined to follow the belief that the way you got skills was importing them from Europe, there would be 7,000 workers in Sunderland who would be flipping hamburgers or unemployed instead of being the most productive workers in the Nissan network.

“So we have got to break this addiction.

“Unfortunately we have convinced ourselves, at least for specific skills shortages, we must import workers from abroad.”

Lord Lilley went on: “If in future we say there is a specific shortage and for a while we are going to have to import people from abroad or allow it, that must be accompanied and only permitted if there is an agreement between the employers, the educators, the Government that they will train more people in that sector within a specific period of time.”

Former BBC chief Lord Birt pointed to the large number of unfilled workforce vacancies.

He said: “In most sectors of our economy shortage of skills is a crucial factor.”

The independent crossbencher added: “We lack an appropriate balance between vocational and academic education.”

Former chief executive of the Vote Leave campaign Lord Elliott of Mickle Fell, who was made a peer by Liz Truss in her controversial resignation honours list, noted he was making his maiden speech on Europe Day, although he said he would not be talking about Brexit “at least today”.

The Tory peer argued that business was a “force for good in delivering skills and training opportunities” as well as creating prosperity.

Lord Elliott said: “The business community is essential to the skills debate, whether through the provision of training, the establishment of schools or the payment of taxes that fund our public services.

“But on top of this businesses are also a powerful engine for social justice.”

He added: “I look forward to working with members across the House to make sure that more people have access to these opportunities in life and to ensure we support businesses to do even more good in the local communities they serve.”

Welcoming Lord Elliott to the House, Conservative former minister Lord Harrington of Watford said: “He’s showed skills in so many things that he’s done.”

However, from his own perspective, ruefully wished “he’d used his skills in a rather better direction” back in 2016 at the time of the EU referendum.

Responding later to Lord Lilley in her summing up of the debate, education minister Baroness Barran said: “We must move away from reliance on migration to fill skills gaps and towards investment in the skills of our domestic workforce.”