AN Oxford MP has called on the Government to help hospitality businesses recruit staff from abroad with special visas as the end of lockdown draws near.

Layla Moran called for a 'Covid recovery visa' to be created so that businesses which are struggling to recruit service and kitchen staff can find workers from other countries.

Ms Moran, the Lib Dem MP for Oxford West and Abingdon, was speaking at Prime Ministers Questions on Wednesday.

She spoke about a hotelier in her constituency who said he would be unable to run at full capacity due to 'chronic staff shortages' and called on the the Government to do more to help hospitality businesses like his.

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Ms Moran said: "Local staff are leaving the industry because of the uncertainty caused by this governments bungled handling of this pandemic.

"The EU staff have already left because of the botched handling of Brexit.

"And he cannot recruit from abroad because of the damaging new immigration policy."

In response, the Prime Minister Boris Johnson said he was open to a 'flexible approach' to recruiting people from abroad.

But he also said: "It is absolutely true that as we open up our economy there are more vacancies and that is great but we also have large numbers of people in this country, large numbers of young people who need jobs, and large numbers of people who are still furloughed.

"And what we want is those people coming forward to get those jobs."