Downing Street Says » Immigration

» Wednesday, April 18, 2007

Immigration

Asked what the Prime Minister’s view on Liam Byrne’s view was about the damage that mass immigration had done to society, the PMOS replied that this had to be put in context. Migration had also been of huge benefit to the UK in terms of providing skilled labour and that had been backed up by employers organisations. If people looked at the job vacancies in the labour market, they remained very much part of the context of this.

What we also had to do was to recognise where there were pressures which were caused by migration in certain areas, and deal with those, and that was the balance that we had struck in terms of what we were doing. That was why on the one hand, we had published a points-based system to ensure that we got the right skills in terms of migrants, and on the other hand, we had set up the Migration Advisory Committee which would advise on that. The PMOS said that the flip side of the coin was that we had set up the Migration Impact Forum where we could look at the effect that migration had in certain areas, and then deal with that. The aim should not be to cut off the supply of skilled migrants who were of benefit to this economy, but rather, to make sure that any adverse impact it might have on local communities was dealt with.

Put that if the Immigration Minister was admitting that there had been an adverse effect, then surely, that was a mistake by the Government in terms of policy, the PMOS said that people had to recognise that there were side effects in terms of impacts in the community that had to be dealt with. People also had to recognise that if they simply took an anti-immigration stance, then that would actually harm the UK economy, and that was something that the Government clearly did not want to do.

1 Comment »

All Labour MPs sound like rabid Sun and Daily Mail reader -apart from J. Cruddas

well done! The whole country is sacred and shaking, right now –> you might win the next election
Comment by viz — 18 Apr 2007 on 7:07 pm | Link

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Immigration

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