Curry restaurants in crisis as immigration rules keep out chefs

David and Samantha Cameron enjoy a curry. They tucked into chicken korai and saag paneer at Manchester’s Saffron Lounge during the Conservative party conference in October – it wasn’t quite as spicy as the chilli-hot specials they ordered at the Paprika Indian restaurant in Birmingham the previous year.

The prime minister even pledged to protect the struggling £4.2bn curry industry, which employs 100,000 people, at the British Curry awards in 2013. He said he would “get the skilled Asian chefs you need” to the UK, while the home secretary, Theresa May, has admitted that curry chefs are a shortage occupation.

This shortage has been caused by increasingly tough immigration rules, so that restaurants are unable to hire the skilled chefs they need. This makes it difficult for these businesses to grow, while restaurants are unable to provide adequate customer service levels or fulfil orders.

If the problem was acute when Cameron made that pledge, it is now a full-blown crisis. Around 600 curry restaurants have closed in the past 18 months, while there are fears that a further 4,000 – about a third of the industry – could shut.

The shortage of chefs means they demand increasingly high wages. Dr Wali Uddin, who owns the Britannia Spice in Edinburgh, says a chef’s pay packet has doubled in the last two years, and is now up to £700-800 a week.

“Usually I had seven chefs, but now just three,” says Uddin. “There are not enough chefs, so we can’t grow.”

Alun Sperring, owner of the Chilli Pickle in Brighton, says chefs are now demanding free accommodation, which is “totally unfeasible”. He adds that bringing over a highly trained chef from Asia for a short stint adds “authenticity” to the cuisine and inspires the other staff.

Imam Uddin, president of the Guild of Bangladeshi Restaurateurs in Staffordshire, said Indian restaurants were closing down at a rate of one or two a week in the West Midlands. “There are lots of restaurants up for sale, but nobody’s buying. It’s pretty bad. They can’t deliver the service they intend to, which ultimately leads to under-trading and, eventually, closure.”

Restaurateurs, led by the British Curry Awards founder Enam Ali, are now pushing the government to ease immigration restrictions.

A 75-page document, seen by the Guardian, that Ali and his supporters have submitted to Cameron, May, the employment minister Priti Patel and business secretary Sajid Javid, is now urging them to introduce a one-year visa for chefs from sub-continental Asia. If this plan isn’t adopted, warns Ali, it could hurt the Conservatives in elections.

Until 2005 there was a sector-based visa scheme that let curry restaurants fly in skilled staff, but this was closed amid allegations that it was abused by immigrants who wanted to settle in the UK permanently.

Current immigration rules stipulate that a chef from outside the UK must be paid £29,570, after deductions for accommodation and meals, which is too expensive for most curry restaurants. Moreover, the jobs cannot be in a restaurant with a takeaway service, which most curry houses rely upon.

Ali’s submission states: “We propose a tightly controlled, temporary work visa scheme where expert chefs from outside the EU are allowed to enter the UK on very strict employment terms. These terms would limit their employment to a maximum of one-year with no right of return, no chance of residency or out-of-work benefits.

“Employment would be restricted to the sponsoring restaurant only and would require the employer to provide private health insurance. The employee’s dependents could not be brought to the UK and this means there would be no burden whatever on the welfare state or the British taxpayer. This type of short-term visa is similar to those used in the USA, Germany and the Middle East.”

But there appears to be significant opposition within the government to relaxing the rules. In a recent letter to his fellow MP Stephen Hammond, the immigration minister James Brokenshire stated: “The restaurant industry, like others, needs to move away from an unsustainable reliance on migrant workers.”

A Home Office spokesperson said: “We continue to welcome the very top chefs who promote innovative and authentic cuisine here in the UK — and these type of skilled cooks are on the shortage occupation list.”

The minimum required salary for chefs on the shortage occupation list is £29,570.

However, the spokesperson added: “We want to nurture more home-grown talent and encourage young people in this country who want to pursue a skilled career. This means the restaurant sector offering training to attract and recruit resident workers to meet their staffing needs.

“The industry is starting to make progress in this area, recruiting and training more chefs in the UK, and this needs to continue.”

Ali warns: “People right across the country are angry about this – and the Asian community will very genuinely show that at the ballot box.”

The industry changed dramatically around the turn of the millennium. The first generation of Asian families who set up businesses in the 1960s and 70s were not always skilled chefs, but had spotted a gap in the restaurant market.

Jalf Ali, who pioneered Indian street food in the UK, owns two restaurants in Newcastle and says it took decades for the British palate to “mature”. Restaurateurs then hired chefs skilled in more sophisticated cuisine.

“The British were ready for real Indian food rather than the bastardised rogans and we had to get these chefs who had the knowledge and regional cooking understanding,” says Ali.

The government is wrong, he adds, to insist that Indian restaurants should rely on domestic or EU labour. Ali points to a Slovakian he trained who, even after four and a half years, only had the skills to work in one area of the kitchen where he would marinate tandoori dishes and make bread.

“I would never think about opening another restaurant because what’s the point? I can’t build the team,” says Ali.