Uncontrolled immigration damages UK quality of life, warns Cornerstone Group
Unprecedented levels of immigration are damaging the quality of life of millions of Britons, according to a new paper published by the Cornerstone Group of socially conservative Tory MPs.
Rocketing house prices, shortages of water and creaking infrastructure can all be linked to the explosion in numbers of immigrants in the last decade. Long working hours and high levels of family breakdown are being exacerbated by the high mortgage and rent payments driven by housing shortages.
Britain is already one of the most overcrowded countries on Earth and simply cannot cope with a population influx on the current scale.
The Cornerstone paper calls for curbs on immigration starting with a radical tightening of the system for issuing work permits.
The paper, written by Conservative MP Julian Brazier, draws on a wide range of official surveys and other data to highlight the scale of the immigration crisis and the misery it is inflicting on millions of people.
It applauds David Cameron’s decision to put quality of life at the heart of the Conservative agenda and argues that an understanding of the impact of soaring immigration on national well-being for people of all ethnic groups is essential to creating a winning policy framework.
It points out that, in 2004, gross immigration into Britain stood at nearly 600,000 and that, in Europe, population density levels in the UK are second only to the Low Countries. England, hardest hit by the pressures created by record immigration, is more crowded than the Low Countries, China and India.
The Government estimates that the vast bulk of the projected 7.2 million growth in the UK’s population over the next generation will arise from immigration. The paper warns this will further undermine people’s quality of life, especially those on low incomes, and many people from ethnic minority backgrounds.
Meanwhile, official suggestions that Britain will have to double its rate of house building to curb rising property prices have to be seen in the light of the impact of immigration on housing demand. Ministers claim that only one third is attributable to this source, but Mr Brazier criticises the Government for focusing on net immigration figures when emigration is soaring too. Mr Brazier calculates that most of the demand for new housing stems from gross immigration.
He declares: “Overcrowding is a key cause of many of the factors which are destroying quality of life: mortgage slavery, overdevelopment, congested roads, water shortages, flooding and overstretched public services.
“We should do everything we can sensibly - and fairly - do to reduce the level of immigration to well below the level of emigration. The first and easiest step in this direction would be to return to a much smaller number of work permits (issued to non-EU citizens), as occurred under all previous governments. We should also restrict them, as was always the case before, to highly skilled people.”
Mr Brazier’s paper, Rising Pressure: Immigration, Population Density and the Problems of Overcrowding, can be viewed on www. Cornerstonegroup.org.uk. It is being submitted to the Conservative Party Home Affairs team consultation on immigration announced earlier in the month.
NOTES TO EDITORS: Cornerstone publishes papers as worthy of public discussion. The views are those of the author, not necessarily every member of the group. Julian Brazier MP can be contacted on 0207 219 5178 or (text only) 07725 789021. Further information from Nick Wood of Media Intelligence Partners on 07889 617003
Read the full paper at: http://conservativehome.blogs.com/torydiary/files/immigration_paper.pdf
