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Controlling Migration

My hon. Friend is right about the need to ensure that people in the UK are skilled enough to take up the work available. The figures show that EU-UK immigration and emigration numbers have broadly balanced out, and that net migration is coming predominantly from outside the EU. Our immigration policy has to fit in closely with the skills agenda that my right hon. Friend the Business Secretary announced last week. On occasions, however, there will be highly skilled workers with a specialism that a British company needs—in areas such as the energy sector, for example—and it is right for Britain to be open for business, and for us to allow companies to grow by introducing those workers into the UK.