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News Articles for September 2011
September 27, 2011
Miliband still in denial on Labour’s immigration failure – they didn’t “see it”, they caused it
September 1, 2011
Immigration is a Major Factor in the Housing Shortage
Full Text of Press Release : September 2011
Miliband still in denial on Labour’s immigration failure – they didn’t “see it”, they caused it
Net foreign immigration under Labour was over three million yet their leader’s only reference to immigration in his Conference speech was a single sentence:
“And we have seen immigration policy which didn’t work for the people whose jobs, living standards and communities were affected”.
“They didn’t see it. They caused it”, said Sir Andrew Green, Chairman of Migration Watch UK. “The only question is whether it was deliberate or simply incompetence or both. It is shameful that this is all Miliband now has to say about Labour’s most lasting legacy to our society, despite the widespread public concern about mass immigration.”
Meanwhile, the shadow Home Secretary Yvette Cooper has been making lame excuses on the Today Programme. First she implied that the problem was due to East European migration when at most only a fifth of Labour’s three million immigrants came from Eastern Europe. Then she said that Italy and Spain had recently seen much higher net migration than the UK. This is simply a red herring. What she failed to mention was that both those countries have a very low birth rate so their populations would fall without immigration. By contrast, in the UK our population would be roughly stable without immigration while at presently projected levels it will take our population to 70 million within 20 years, equivalent to seven cities the size of Birmingham, with two thirds of the increase due to immigration. Nor did Ms Cooper mention that youth unemployment in Italy is now 28% and in Spain it is over 40%.
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Immigration is a Major Factor in the Housing Shortage
A study published by Migrationwatch today (Briefing Paper No 7.13), finds that immigration was responsible for almost 40% of the growth in households between 2001 and 2008.
Looking ahead, 36% of new households will, according to official projections, be a result of immigration so we will have to build, on average, 200 homes a day for the next 25 years just to house the extra population arising from immigration.
Even if house building were to increase by 25% over the current level to 200,000 a year, there would be a shortage of around 800,000 homes by 2033 - equivalent to the number of homes in Leeds, Manchester, Newcastle and Nottingham combined.
Commenting, Sir Andrew Green, Chairman of Migrationwatch UK, said:
"As we saw earlier this week political correctness has dictated that the construction and planning industry should not refer to the massive impact of immigration on housing. It is not, of course, the only factor in household formation but it is a major factor accounting for 36% of new households over the next 25 years. It is also one of the few factors that the government ought to be able to control. It is high time that we faced up to the huge impact of immigration on housing and to the severe consequences for our environment of continued mass immigration".
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