Foysol Choudhury, general secretary of the Bangladesh Samity Association in Edinburgh hit out at the new legislation which requires immigrants to speak English and carry an academic qualification.

 

Speaking at the protest, Choudhury said: "Our chefs don't need to speak English. Their curry talks. Whoever comes into my restaurant for a job will have to start as a kitchen porter and then he will have to climb the ladder. A kitchen porter gets minimum wage. Someone with academic qualifications is not going to accept that."

 

He added: "The Indian restaurant industry contributes £3.2billion to the British economy. What is the British government doing to save this industry? Half of the restaurants will close and we'll lose the food quality. Eventually this industry will die."

 

First Minister Alex Salmond did acknowledge that the problem is serious and told the demonstrators outside Holyrood: "If people can't get the skilled staff then they can't operate their restaurants, and if they can't operate their restaurants then that's damaging for the economy and the social life of Scotland. It's something we feel very strongly about. Ideally, the new system shouldn't have discriminated and prevented people coming in with key skills."

 

There are about 9,000 Indian curry houses in the UK, employing an estimated 70,000 staff, which serve 2.5million customers every week.