皇冠体育app

yesterday evening, the minister said that Britain has always benefited from immigration, 鈥榖ut it will only continue to do so if it is properly controlled.鈥�

鈥楾his means that the unsustainable levels of net migration seen in recent years must be brought down,鈥� he continued.

Decisions based on evidence

He said the government is determined to make decisions based on evidence - which is why it has just released new research called .

For the first time, it gives evidence about the behaviour of immigrants coming聽to the UK聽through all managed routes apart from the visitors鈥� routes.

It reveals that the largest group in the study were students, with around 186,000 granted visas in 2004. More than a fifth of those were still in the UK five years later.

鈥榃e need to understand more clearly why a significant proportion of students are still here more than five years after their arrival. And we also need a system which can scrutinise effectively, and if necessary take action against those whose long-term presence would be of little or no economic benefit,鈥� said Mr Green.

Skilled people for skilled jobs

He said there is also some evidence that not all those coming in under the highly skilled route for work are doing specialised jobs.

He has been 鈥榮truck鈥� by some of the individual applications he has seen under the skilled worker category: 鈥榩eople running take-away restaurants and production line workers on salaries in the low 拢20,000s. 皇冠体育appse are not the sort of jobs we talk about when we think of bringing in skilled immigrants who have talents not available among our own workforce or the unemployed.鈥�

皇冠体育app minister asserted: 鈥榃e will not make Britain prosperous in the long term by telling our own workers 鈥渄on鈥檛 bother to learn new skills, we can bring them all in from overseas.鈥濃��

Relieving pressure on services

While planned changes to the immigration system - which include an annual limit on workers from outside the EU - may be 鈥榗ontroversial鈥�, they are necessary.

He continued: 鈥業f we do not create public confidence in our immigration system we will remain vulnerable to those who want to find scapegoats for social problems.鈥�

鈥榃e absolutely need sustainable immigration levels. This will relieve pressure on public services, and stop immigration being such a delicate political issue.鈥�

鈥榃e must be confident enough to say Britain is open for business and study to those who will make this a better country, and a more open society.鈥�