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Points-Based Immigration System

I have no problem with immigration, still less with immigrants, and I respect the hard work and the contribution that they make. When I refer to immigration, I am referring to the unprecedented, exceptionally high levels that the Government have caused or permitted to take place into the country over the past 10 years. I believe that the Government have a bias in favour of high migration. It will be for historians to determine the real policy reasons behind that. As I say, the economic rationale for the Government's case has been demolished in the debate. The Government have failed to take into account the housing and all the other implications. That view is held by not just myself; my hon. Friend the Member for Ashford was quite right to say that there is widespread public concern, which Ministers from time to time acknowledge and try to address. How has that concern come about? It is because the public can see what the Government are doing. I shall draw my remarks to a close by saying that Ministers can pay lip service to those public concerns as much as they like, they can use whatever rhetoric they want, and they can pretend that a big shake-up is taking place in the migration system and that they will address those concerns, but the real concern of people is that the Government are not listening to their legitimate concern about the very high immigration, and that concern will not be allayed until proper and effective measures are taken to control that high immigration. I commend the measures that my hon. Friend has proposed in the debate.