Nicola Sturgeon would back companies that refuse to publish list of foreign workers

Nicola Sturgeon - Image credit: Scottish Parliament TV

The First Minister, Nicola Sturgeon, has made it clear she will support companies in Scotland that refuse to publish lists of foreign workers.

It had been suggested by Home Secretary Amber Rudd that British companies could be named and shamed for employing foreign rather than British workers.

During First Ministers Questions yesterday Sturgeon said, she would stand “four-square” behind Scottish companies who refused to supply such information.

In response to a question by Green MSP Ross Greer, Sturgeon said: “I would absolutely stand four-square beside any company that refused to comply with any request to publish details of foreign workers.

“What I find particularly offensive is the idea that companies will be named and shamed for the foreign workers that they employ, as if there was something shameful about employing workers from other countries. It is absolutely disgraceful.”

She added: “I think that it is about time that the Tories stood up and said that it is something that they definitely will not ever do because it would be downright disgraceful and disgusting, and this Government would have absolutely nothing to do with it.”

Brexit was a key theme of a number of yesterday’s FMQs.

Scottish Liberal Democrat leader Willie Rennie also raised the issue of Trade Secretary Liam Fox’s comments that the status of EU workers currently in the UK could be used as a bargaining tool in the Brexit negotiations.

Rennie said: “We have heard the Conservative International Trade Secretary branding European citizens working here as “cards” in an EU negotiation.

“We have heard the Conservative Home Secretary advocating listing of foreign workers.

“Those “cards”, those foreign workers, are our neighbours and our friends.

“They are our families. People who voted for Brexit across the United Kingdom did not vote to send their friends home.”

Sturgeon replied: “I hope that I have the backing of every single member in this chamber when I say this—to call on the UK Government to stop using human beings as bargaining chips and to give them the guaranteed right to stay where they belong, which is here in Scotland.”