Firms vow to fund worker bids to stay in UK after Brexit

Chief executives from the retail, pubs, property and airport sectors on Tuesday told the Evening Standard their firms would give financial help to EU workers looking to remain here after Brexit.

Their firms, which collectively employ over 2600 from the Continent, will pay a £65 application fee for each worker seeking “settled status”. If successful it would allow the recipients to continue to live and work in the UK after December 31 2020.

Among the larger employers offering support is MAG, which owns Stansted and Manchester airports.

It said “reassurance and certainty” is important for the 400 EU nationals among its 6000-strong workforce.

Pubs groups Young’s and The City Pub Company also said they would help employees.

Patrick Dardis, the boss of Young’s which has 1800 EU national staff, said he will open weekly clinics to help colleagues complete paperwork.

Dardis added his firm would “do whatever we need to do to continue making staff feel welcome".

In the property sector, agent Lambert Smith Hampton’s Ezra Nahome said he will look to assist a number of staff, and glasses designer Tom Davies will fund applications for 20 workers “partly because I know Brexit has upset them and I’d want to minimise the upset”, and “partly because training replacements would cost significant amounts of money”.

On the High Street, baby clothing retailer JoJo Maman Bébé will help the permanent EU nationals it hires, currently around 50.

Founder Laura Tenison said: “Finding quality employees is never easy and we have benefited hugely from the free movement of people.”

The commitment from the businesses comes a day after Heathrow airport said it would offer EU nationals financial help. Pubs giant Fuller’s is already funding applications.