Comment on Building Britain's Future

Comment on "Building Britain's Future"

Government needs to build one new home every five minutes

for future immigrants and their families

Commenting on proposals contained in "Building Britain's Future", the Co-Chairmen of the Cross Party Group on Balanced Migration, Frank Field MP and Nicholas Soames MP, said:

"We welcome changes to the priority lists for social housing, but this is only one aspect of the housing crisis. The Government's own figures, released last week, show that we need to build a new home every five minutes for the next twenty years for future immigrants and their families. What a huge majority of British people, both long established and new citizens, want is a radical reduction in the present massive levels of immigration."

Points to note:

1.         Official figures released last week showed that the projected number of households in England will rise from 21.52 million (2006) to 25.44 million in 2021. This is a rise of almost 4 million households in 15 years.  According to Government forecasts, 70% of the population increase up to 2031 will be due to immigration. The largest single reason for household formation is immigration, which will account for almost 40% of all new household formation in England. The release can be found here

http://www.balancedmigration.com/pressreleases/Pressreleaseonregionaltrends240609.pdf

2.         Building Britain's Future claims that the new Points Based System will

a) help the Government "do more to put British workers first" (paragraph 35 onwards). However, research released yesterday by the Cross Party Group shows that, looking at people of working age, all jobs created in the private sector under the Labour Government have been filled by foreign born workers. The number of UK born workers in the private sector actually fell by nearly 90,000 between the first quarter of 1997 and the first quarter of 2009. Furthermore, the Labour Force Survey has shown that the employment of UK born workers has fallen by 450,000 between Q1 2008 and Q1 2009 while the employment of non-UK born has increased by 130,000. Yesterday's release can be found here: http://balancedmigration.com/pressreleases/BritishjobsreleaseRev3.pdf

b) control overall numbers of immigrants (paragraph 36). While the proposal to control the number of people gaining settlement is welcome, it needs to be kept in perspective. If the population is to stay below 70 million, net migration - all those who come here, minus those who leave - must be reduced from 237,000 (2007) to 50,000 a year and held there. To date, the Government's measures would achieve a 5% reduction compared to the 75% reduction needed.

Notes to editors:

1.         For media enquiries, please contact Patrick White on 020 7219 6636.

2.         The Rt Hon Frank Field MP and The Hon Nicholas Soames MP are Co-Chairmen of the Cross Party Group on Balanced Migration. The Group's Vice-Chairmen are Lord (Bill) Jordan CBE (former President of the Amalgamated Engineering and Electrical Union) and Daniel Kawczynski MP (Conservative, Shrewsbury & Atcham). Other members include Tobias Ellwood MP, Roger Godsiff MP, Peter Kilfoyle MP, David Taylor MP, Robert Key MP, Lord Ahmed, Lord Anderson, Lord Carey (former Archbishop of Canterbury) Baroness Cox, Field Marshal Lord Inge KG, GCB, PC, DL, Lord Skidelsky and Lord Wakeham.

3.         For more information, please visit www.balancedmigration.com

Date added: Tuesday 30th June 2009
Latest updated: Friday 5th March 2010