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Points-Based Immigration System

I think that the hon. Gentleman would find, if he did some research, that certainly the Huguenots came to this country, fleeing persecution, and made a distinctive contribution, but it was not on the scale of the migration that we have seen in recent times. None of the previous migrations—whether Jewish, Huguenot or any other group—caused migration at the level of the past 10 years. I believe that the Government have a commitment to migration. They believe that migration is good; they are ideologically committed to high migration; they believe that there is an economic case for it. That case has been demolished, but the Government continue with migration nevertheless. That has been reflected in the migration that they brought about as soon as they took office, with the increase in the number of work permits that were issued to workers form outside the European Union. Since then, they have continued with high migration, sometimes through policy errors, as in the case of the accession eight countries, but more through the issuing of work permits and other means. The interesting point about work permits—I would appreciate the Minister's answer on this—is that, even when it became apparent that Ministers had got their predictions completely wrong in 2004 and that far more people were coming from the accession eight countries than the Government had predicted, they still continued to issue work permits to workers from outside the European Union at an increasing rate.