Iain Duncan Smith basically says British jobs for British workers

Iain Duncan Smith, the UK government's Works and Pensions Secretary, has opened another can of worms. Not one to shy away from causing controversy he has revealed his thought son the UK job market and foreign workers.

In what has been seen as a provactive request, he has urged British companies to "give our young people a chance" before employing foreign born staff. On the face of it this sounds inflammatory and against good working practices. However, a relative of mine, born in the UK, who now lives in France tells me this is common pratice there. As he is retired this does not affect him. However, he has said that "if a French person and a foreign person both went for the same job, the French person would always be the one who was employed".

Of course these days we have employment legislation in the UK that should prevent this. It no doubt happens much of the time though, with employers choosing either a foreign or British person, on the strength of their nationality rather than their skills.

Some employers will opt for a foreign worker as they may assume they will be harder working or that they can pay them less, in spite of minimum wage laws in the UK. Others may opt for a Brit as it is can be easier if there could be language problems otherwise.

Of course, the UK tends to forget about its past history of UK workers working abroad. Take builders in Germany some years back and oil field workers in the Middle East.

The UK will be unable to prevent EU workers from seeking employment in the UK and currently that is where most of our legal immigrants and migrant workers come from.

The director-general of the British Chambers of Commerce was suitably unimpressed with Duncan-Smith's words saying that many young school leavers cannot compete with,  "the stream of highly able Eastern European migrants who are able to fill those jobs. They are skilled, they speak good English and, more importantly, they want to work."

The CBI Director for employment policy added, "Employers should choose the best person for the job. The challenge is to ensure that more young Britons are in a position to be the best candidate."

Employers have been warned that they could face discrimination claims, if they favoured British candidates over foreigners entitled to work in this country.

For many, Duncan-Smiths plea has been seen as a way to get his government off the hook. He has in effect laid the responsibility for high unemployment at the door of migrant workers and immigrants. This will add fuel to those in the UK who are so inclined already. It could add to hate and racial tensions.

The Works and Pensions Secretary made his plea as part of a speech saying, "Controlling immigration is critical or we will risk losing another generation to dependency and hopelessness. As we work hard to break welfare dependency and get young people ready for the labour market we need businesses to play their part and give them a chance, and not just fall back on labour from abroad."

Fine words and postive on the surface I guess, but perhaps not practical or non discriminatory.