Katie Lam

That is an important point because, as I am about to talk about, we have double contribution conventions with other countries, but not with other countries with economies like India’s where so many people—well north of a billion people—would be happy to do these jobs for much lower salaries than our workers at home would expect. As I say, it is true that we have double contribution conventions with other countries. These aim to simplify intracompany transfers for international businesses. However, these agreements are usually struck with countries that have compatible economies, similar educational outcomes and comparable social security systems, such as Japan or Canada. India stands alone as by far the largest and least wealthy country on the list. In exchange for a deal with India, this Government have chosen to sell out skilled British workers who have worked hard to get where they are by allowing Indian firms to undercut them. We will see highly skilled British workers in cutting-edge fields, such as engineering, priced out by Indian workers. Given the relative markets and educational systems in the UK and India, we should not expect that always to be a like-for-like swap in terms of talent. We have already seen this model take hold in the United States. There, Indian consultancy firms lease their workers to American companies, who are then able to pay an Indian worker far less than they would need to pay an American. The result has been a massive expansion in the number of lower-cost Indian workers at the expense of American workers. Most other countries are perfectly happy to strike trade deals without forcing us to undercut our own workforce. This Government should have expected India to do the same.