Emailed in by Ralph M:
David Blunkett, 13 November 2003:
"There is "no obvious limit" to the number of immigrants who could settle in the UK, the home secretary has said. David Blunkett agreed some people felt swamped by new arrivals, but said legal migrants brought economic benefits. He said Britain had always been "crowded", and the current net inflow of 172,000 a year was sustainable."
David Blunkett, 26 October 2010 (in Financial Times, Letters to the editor):
"Sir, ...The government has just announced that it intends to set up a cross-departmental identity fraud unit, targeting what it rightly describes as a growing problem. I welcome this initiative.
However, the paradox is the government’s decision not simply to do away with identity cards and the associated identity register (which would have given us, for the first time a clear idea of who is legitimately in the country and on what basis), but with second-generation biometrics for passports as well."
Jammy
2 hours ago
2 comments:
Counting the number of departures and the number of arrivals would be a good start and extremely easy. Each transport company sends in its figures weekly. It would not be necessary to know the names of those departing or arriving, or the purpose of their jouneys. Obviously this wouldn't tell us the number of people/immigrants in the country but it would at least tell us accurately the population relative to that on a particular date, eg Jan 1st 2011. I'm sure this must have been suggested before. I suspect that no Government would go with it as hundreds of websites would display the running total each day.
If you are going to keep tabs then checking that those who have entered also leave again when their stay is up would be a good start. IIRC we did do this but it was scrapped although I can't recall who by or why.
Post a Comment