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World Class Skills 2020

Yes. That is a very good point and I shall explain why, but I shall do so only having said first, for the record, that economies do deal with migration in order to meet economic need. They always have and they always will. Economies do draw people in as they have growing labour needs, and people leave when those needs decrease, so I am not prejudiced about the issue, but I take my hon. Friend’s point. This is why it is a profound one. If we examine the profile of immigration to Britain, it would be quite wrong to assume that the bulk of it over, say, the last 10 years—I pick 1997 purely out of the air, of course—has been skilled migration. We have let into Britain a very large number of unskilled migrants, and at a time when the demand for unskilled labour is plummeting, according to the Government’s own figures, I am not sure that that is either laudable or wise.