Monday, 20 November 2006

CONTROLLING ECONOMIC IMMIGRATION

Robert Key says...

I warmly welcome this cool and considered approach to a long-standing problem that has been made infinitely worse by this Government's failure to control both immigration and the deportation of illegal immigrants.

Salisbury has a small, economically active ethnic and immigrant population. They contribute much to our economy and community. It is in their interests as well as ours that people do not lose confidence in the ability of the Government to keep the relationship across the UK stable and positive.

Today, David Davis and Damian Green are publishing a pamphlet entitled ‘Controlling Economic Immigration’. The central argument of the paper is that Britain does benefit from some immigration, but not from all or any immigration. In particular:

• A socially responsible immigration policy requires proper controls to build public confidence;
• Asylum policy should be separated from policy on economic migration.

Principles

1. To maximise net benefit to the UK economy (in terms of per capita GDP) by the use of objective criteria rather than simple quotas to control immigration.

The use of these criteria, which can be changed over time to cope with the demands of the labour market, will enable the Government to ensure that each immigrant admitted to the UK from outside the open labour market of the EU has a very high chance of contributing both to the growth of per capita GDP and to the net fiscal position.

2. To control immigration with regard to the wider effects on society, in particular:

• the overall competitiveness of British-born workers;
• the ability of the public services and infrastructure to cope with new arrivals at both a national and local level; and
• the environmental impact of a rapidly rising population.

Proposals

• A two-stage process for deciding which applications should be successful. The first stage would be to make eligible for admission those who will benefit the economy. The second stage would be to control the numbers admitted with regard to the wider effects on society.

The expected result of this process is a positive level of net immigration in most years. The exact figure would only be calculated after an annual consultation exercise with a number of bodies, including local authorities and housing and public service providers.

However, it is envisaged that the annual figure would be significantly lower than the current levels of immigrants admitted from non-EU countries.

• To make this approach work, we need better enforcement methods. This means creating a new force, as part of the Serious Organised Crime Agency, which would both be a specialist border force and the main point of activity to deal with over-stayers. This force would also be the specialist arm of the police in the battle against people trafficking.
• All of this should be put in the context of a proper national debate about demographics, population levels and the distribution of population.

The full pamphlet can be viewed here.