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The UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown has said recently that the UK immigration system is now based on a "controlled and fair" points-based system. Home Secretary Alan Johnson was also present during the speech delivered in Shoreditch, East London.
Prime Minister Gordon Brown also mentioned that unskilled migrant workers from outside the EU will not be allowed entry under the points based system. It should be noted that in many cases dependents and relatives of migrants (who may have gained entry under the points based system) and certain others can work freely in the UK.
The Prime Minister went onto say that better training of British nationals would reduce skills shortages and reduce dependence on immigration of overseas workers. In practice it is frequently impossible to predict future skills needs.
Prime Minister Gordon Brown had the following to say:
'The system we have introduced gives us the ability to secure the skills we need and to secure our borders against those who are not welcome here.
'And I believe the responsible way to debate migration is to debate how we can use this system over the coming years to continue to control migration fairly, to reduce the overall need for migration, while continuing to attract the key people who will make the biggest contribution to the growth of our economy.'
Prime Minister Gordon Brown also said the chef occupation will be removed from the Tier 2 visa shortage occupation list in 2012 and the care worker occupation removed in 2014. It is to be hoped that the Government will reconsider their position on this. Otherwise, both the UK Health Care sector and restaurants could suffer. The UK Labour Party which is currently the ruling Party in the UK has not being doing well in the opinion polls. It remains uncertain whether the Labour Party will still be in a position to decide immigration policy in 2012.
The Prime Minister also said that asylum claims were now to the levels of the early 1990s and that recent figures suggested that net inward migration has fallen from 170,000 in 2007 to 147,000 in 2009.
Sir Michael Scholar UK Statistics Authority chair in a letter to the Prime Minister corrected two errors:
- Mr Brown had said that the net inward migration went down from 237,000 in 2007 to 163,000 in 2008. Mr Brown went on to say that net migration went down to 147,000 in 2009.
- Sir Michael said that net migration in 2007 was 233,000. He also said that using 147,000 as the net migration figure for 2009 was wrong; This was from a different data set that has yet to be adjusted.
- Sir Michael said he hoped all parties would be "careful in their use of statistics" during the election.
