Call for immigration to be balanced with numbers leaving UK

Published on Sunday 7 September 2008 21:02

THE number of immigrants to the UK must be balanced with those leaving the country to prevent Britain's population soaring by 20 million in the next 50 years, leading politicians warn today.

This would involve capping the number of non-European Union migrants entering the country and forcing other international workers to return home after four years.

In its inaugural report, the cross-party group on immigration – the first to be formed at Westminster – says that immigration exploded in the mid-1990s. Before Labour took office, net immigration was about 50,000 a year. It peaked at 244,000 in 2004, and has fallen back to about 190,000 a year.

This has placed huge strain on housing waiting lists, the NHS, schools – there are now 1,338 where the majority of pupils do not have English as their first language – and the "cohesion of society".

Scotland has been relatively unaffected, with only an extra 2,000 foreigners arriving between 1993 and 2006 – compared with more than a million in London.

The report said it was "simply not the case" that Scotland needed a large influx of migrants because it had a declining and ageing population.

It said that even allowing for the differences in populations, the flow of immigrants to England had been six times higher than to Scotland.

The report said: "Scotland's population is not declining. Its population has been about five million for the past 50 years and will remain at that level for the next 25 years, even without net migration."

Net international immigration is projected to be 4,000 a year and internal migration, mostly from England, will be 4,500 a year.

Frank Field, the former Labour minister who co-chairs the group, said the UK working class had been the biggest losers from immigration.

His group wants immigration to become "substantially lower" over time until it is close to the level of emigration. It promised to "ensure that the voice of working class people is heard" in what is regarded as an "immensely sensitive and difficult issue".

Mr Field said immigration had "undoubtedly" brought gains to some sections of the community. But he added: "One group that has disproportionately borne the cost of such immigration, through pressure on wages, longer waiting lists for decent housing and increased demand for public services, has been lowed-paid black and white Britons."