We all know that immigration here has spiralled out of control. More and more people are waking up to this fact everyday. An interesting, independent and unbiased report hit the media today only adding to the simple fact that it IS time to put a cap on immigration.
The number of immigrants entering Britain should be capped, an influential House of Lords committee has warned. Its analysis concludes that record levels of immigration are bringing no economic benefit to the country. The report says that ministers should urgently review immigration policies as plans to increase the population by 190,000 a year threaten to have "major impacts" on public services and housing. The economic affairs committee - whose members include eminent economists, businessmen and politicians - rebukes the Government for using "irrelevant and misleading" economic statistics to justify the boom in immigration in the past decade.
The report, based on evidence from dozens of officials, academics, business leaders and council chiefs is the most detailed analysis of the economic impact of immigration carried out in the past decade.
It concludes:
- There is little or no economic benefit to Britain from the present high level of immigration. The immigrants are not needed to fill labour shortages or help fund the state pension for retiring Britons.
- High levels of immigration threaten to price millions of Britons out of the housing market over the next 20 years.
- Government statistics on immigration are "seriously inadequate" and compromise the ability accurately to set interest rates and allocate £100 billion in public funding.
- Certain groups, including the low-paid, some ethnic minorities and young people seeking to get on the jobs ladder may suffer because of competition from immigrants.
- Immigrants have an "important economic impact" on public services with some schools struggling to cope with the rapidly-rising number of children who do not speak English as a first language.
The report says immigration has reached a scale "unprecedented in our history".
It says that the net immigration of non-British persons has trebled from less than 100,000 a year in the early 1990s to more than 300,000 in 2006. It contradicts the Government, which has argued that immigration has boosted the economy by £6 billion a year. Ministers have argued that the population may have to rise from 60.6 million to 71 million by 2031 to plug shortages in the labour market. These claims are rejected by the committee, which includes the former chancellors Lord Lawson and Lord Lamont, former City figures such as Lord Turner and Lord Vallance and leading economists including Lord Skidelsky and Lord Layard. Several ministers are members. It said the economic effect should be measured against the impact on the living standards of the existing population - which, it said, was negligible.
Lord Wakeham said: "The argument put forward by the Government that large-scale net immigration brings significant economic benefits for the UK is unconvincing. We have found no evidence to support their position.
"The time is now right for the Government to review the implications of its projection that future net immigration will be 190,000 people a year. Such a high level of immigration, and consequent rise in population, has major impacts in a range of areas from demand for housing to the use of public services. These impacts should be recognised and examined." He said the situation risked stoking social tensions. "If we go on with policies that don't make economic sense it will get worse. There will be tensions - that is for sure."
Full story at
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2008/04/01/nmigrants101.xml
Today is St Georges Day but yesterday certainly was not this Georges day. He was struck by a rubber stress ball while out on the streets of London promoting his nonsense. Surely the only thing that could have happened was that some sense might have been knocked into him. Well done the man who threw the ball, give him a medal and sign him up for the England cricket team.
