OUR CASE
You can download our booklet (275Kb),which sets out the case for Balanced Migration and our proposal, by clicking here. Or you can read individual chapters by clicking on the headings below.
1. The scale and nature of immigration
2. The impact of immigration on public services and community cohesion
3. Does the economy need immigration?
4. Looking ahead
5. The Government's policies
6. Balanced Migration
7. The impact and benefits of Balanced Migration
Questions and Answers
Appendixes
The need for change:
Balanced Migration would:
- According to Government statistics, one immigrant arrives every minute, and a new
British passport is issued every three minutes. In England, a new home for
immigrants needs to be built every six minutes; this will continue for the next
20 years.
- Over the last ten years, almost three quarters of a million British people have left
the UK and nearly 2.5 million immigrants have arrived. This rate of inflow is
25 times higher than any previous period of immigration since the Norman
Conquest in 1066.
- Contrary to public perceptions, most immigrants come from outside the European
Union and asylum seekers are relatively few in number. In 2006, for example, only
one third of foreign migrants were from the EU; and only 3% were successful
asylum seekers.
- Thanks largely to the scale of immigration, England will soon become the most
crowded country in Europe.
- The Government’s own figures show that the annual benefit of immigration to
individuals in Britain is about 62 pence per head per week.
- Looking ahead, Government projections show that immigration will add about
seven million to the population of England by 2031 – equivalent to seven cities the
size of Birmingham.
- The centrepiece of the Government’s major reform of immigration is their Points
Based System for work permits. However, this does not limit numbers.
- We propose that there should be a limit – not on the number of people who come to
work here, but on those permitted to live here permanently.
- This would be a major step towards bringing down the number of immigrants who
are given permission to settle here to approximately the number of British citizens
who are emigrating. That is what we mean by Balanced Migration.
Balanced Migration would:
- Stabilise the population of the UK at about 65 million by mid-century (compared
to 78.6 million now projected).
- Greatly reduce the pressures on our public services, infrastructure, environment and
our society.
- Enable our economy to remain competitive.
- Encourage British firms to train British workers to address long term skills
shortages.
- Greatly improve the prospects for integrating newcomers to our society.
- Reduce the drain of talented people from developing countries which need them
4 more than we do.
