Government Needs To Manage Immigration Better

12.30.00am UTC (GMT +0000) Thu 29th May 2008

Commenting on this week's government figures showing a drop in immigration from new EU accession countries, Liberal Democrat Parliamentary spokesperson for Saffron Walden, Peter Wilcock said: "These figures confirm that the pattern of EU migration is like a turnstile, as people come in and out to fill gaps in our country's workforce. Thanks to the abolition of exit controls under the Conservatives, Britain lacks control of its borders because we don't know when people with temporary visas leave our country.

Commenting on new figures showing record number of people have been granted British citizenship, Peter Wilcock added, "This rise in citizenship must go hand in hand with a real effort to integrate immigrants into our society. Government cuts to English courses will not help such integration."

Commenting on a drop in the number of failed asylum seekers deported, Peter Wilcock said "These figures show the lamentably slow progress that the Labour Government is making in clearing the backlog of asylum applications, some of which have now been pending for years."

Peter Wilcock concluded "The real challenge is to identify pragmatic, progressive policies to make immigration work for all of Britain, and for all its communities. Instead of more rhetoric, we need new thinking on our border controls so that we know who is coming in, and who is leaving, the country. We need better planning to predict new demand on public services.

"We need an overhaul of the way that money is transferred from Whitehall to areas like ours. Uttlesford is experiencing sharp population changes and has a major border at Stansted Airport. We have a significant number of new immigrants working in our area - particularly at Stansted Airport - and we need to understand that they need help and support to integrate with the local community."