Strong Feelings On Immigration In Beckenham
I have been tackled more and more on the subject of immigration. But yesterday I had a very long conversation about it with three people in Hayes. They were extremely worried about the numbers of people arriving and staying in Britain. They are right to be.
Of course we can benefit from immigration but certainly not uncontrolled immigration. We must reduce the number of people coming into the UK and also ensure that those who arrive are really needed in our labour market. Labour’s open door immigration policy has seen the largest rise in immigration in our history. Immigration is now three times higher than when Labour came to power. In 1997 net migration – the number of people who came to settle here, minus the number who leave – was 48,000. In 2008 it was 163,000. I strongly support Conservative Policy to reduce net immigration to tens of thousands a year, instead of hundreds of thousands a year under Labour.
Wednesday 21 April 2010