Immigration Controls

In parodying the hon. Gentleman, I was taking over his normal role, and I apologise for that. I became interested in the issue of immigration not primarily because of the economic, social or other consequences, but because I was puzzled about the constant rise in the targets for new house building imposed on my constituency. When I looked at the figures, I found that the driver was net immigration into this country which, according to the numbers to which the Government have admitted, will account for a third of the expected population growth and household formation. If we allow for the increased projection in immigration, the figures show that more than 40 per cent. of new housing in the UK is required to accommodate the net inflow from abroad. That is absurd. If we had a more balanced migration policy, with those coming to live, settle and work here roughly balanced by those returning home or emigrating, we would not have the same unmanageable pressures to build new homes in the south-east and on the green belt. It is not unreasonable in a country—England—that is now the most densely populated country in Europe, even more than the Netherlands, for people to be concerned by and worried about that fact. Most of them are not motivated by bigotry or hostility to incomers, many of whom are their neighbours. If those people are members of the upper middle classes, as the right hon. Member for Birkenhead said, they have personally benefited from the availability of relatively cheap servant labour. Indeed, it constantly puzzles me that in this House, an issue that is essentially a class issue—the desire of the upper middle classes to have an unlimited supply of labour—is supported more by the party that is supposedly the party of the working class than it is by those on the Opposition Benches. We need to know whether the Minister is changing policy or not, or whether he is simply making outrageous statements to get publicity, as has been done so many times by Home Office Ministers. The right hon. Member for Sheffield, Brightside (Mr. Blunkett) deliberately used the word ““swamped”” to get controversial headlines. His successor, the right hon. Member for Norwich, South (Mr. Clarke) talked about driving out people who are a burden on this country. His successor, the right hon. Member for Airdrie and Shotts (John Reid) said that foreigners come to this country and steal our benefits. We have had all those statements, which get good headlines and create the impression that policy is being changed, but policy is unchanged and the number of people who are allowed to come here, to settle and to work in this country increases inexorably. Last year, there was a gross inflow of more than 600,000 people to this country. That is far larger than anything that has been experienced, both proportionately and in absolute terms, by this country in the past. It is time that we changed the policy, as the Minister said that he would before he subsequently appeared to change his mind on the radio, backtracked and rode away from the idea.