BBC Breakfast’s Charlie Stayt skewers Tory minister during EU care workers debate

A BBC Breakfast presenter has expertly laid out the inconsistencies with how the government treats EU care workers.

Interviewing care minister, Gillian Keegan, Charlie Stayt trapped her into admitting that care work is a skilled profession, despite it not being included in a government list of skilled workers - a list which determines which EU workers can enter the country.

He asked: “Is a care worker a skilled worker?”

Keegan replied: “Absolutely”.

“You have just reclassified care workers into a category in which you could employ people from the EU. That puts them into a special category of people who can come and work here,” he replied.

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Keegan implied Stayt was manipulating language to make a point and said that was not what she was saying at all.

“They are skilled workers,” she said.

But “if you asked me the question, are they under the definition of our immigration system skilled workers, I would have answered the question no.”

Keegan then trotted out the party line about the need to invest in UK workers rather than use migrant labour to plug labour shortages. She did, however, admit that there are labour shortages in the country.

Awkward.