---

Points-Based Immigration System

I have taken up enough time. I am sure that the hon. Lady will have a chance to make other points later in the debate. In some ways, the points-based system is a step forward, but there are individual issues and it is nothing like enough to meet the scale of the problems. It will not be a particularly radical change. There will be many individual problems, but more to the point, the correct feeling in the country that there is a lack of control will continue. That is why we need an annual limit and a genuinely radical change in our immigration system. Over the past 40 or 50 years we have seen that immigration is a big political issue only when it is felt to be out of control. It is not one of the issues, such as the economy or the health service, that is for ever at the top of people's political anxieties, but it is at present, because it has been out of control for so long. It is possible to run an immigration system that is firm and fair, which allows into Britain those who will benefit our economy, without allowing our public services to be put under intolerable pressure by unplanned numbers of new arrivals, and which lets in the right people and the right number of people. That is what a Conservative immigration policy will look like. In the mean time the British people will have to put up with the current failing Labour policies. The points-based system is a mild improvement on what came before and can be used as a base for the more sensible policies that we would introduce. However, it is not a radical improvement. Indeed, for some groups it is already making life worse. Most importantly of all, it will not transform the public's correct impression that immigration policy has been and remains one of the great failures of the Government.