Labour Immigration Shambles

1.5 million foreign-born workers have come to work in Britain in the past 10 years.

52% - or 1.1 million - of new jobs created had gone to migrants.

When 10 further nations, including eight former communist states, joined the EU in 2004, the UK adopted an "open door" policy – which simply allowed unfettered access to labour markets here, while failing to make any attempt to accurately count migration.
As a result when the government predicted 15,000 migrant workers would arrive each year. Instead 600,000 arrived in two years.

Speaking after the Government had to correct its own figures twice in a week, Shadow Home Secretary David Davis said: "It is not good enough for the home secretary to apologise.
"The government should be open about telling the truth before they are pressurised into it.
"Immigration policy has been out of control for a decade and, if you can't count migration, you certainly can't control it."

The UK population is projected to increase by 4.4 million by 2016. This increase is equivalent to an average annual rate of growth of 0.7 per cent.If past trends continue, the population will continue to grow, reaching 71 million by 2031.

sources http://www.statistics.gov.uk/ http://news.bbc.co.uk

UK Economic Competitiveness Flagging

The UK has slipped from 19th in the world ranking of GDP Per capita PPP (purchasing power parity) in 2004 to 28th in 2006. Data source CIA, The World Factbook

GDP per capita gives an indication of the nation’s wealth per person. Though the absolute value has risen from $29,600 in 2004 to $31,800 in 2006, this increase is rather marginal when inflation is applied to the figures. The slipping in the world rankings means that other nations have increased their wealth per person at a faster rate than the UK.

There a many factors that can account for this, such as the cost of new regulation, however in the UK we have seen a recent acceleration in the growth of the population.
Figures released in November 2006 revealed population growth of more than 300,000 for the second successive year, and statistics issued by the Home Office on 22 August 2006 showing that 447,000 people from the EU accession states registered to work in the UK from May 2004 to June 2006. Including self-employed workers, total immigration from these eight countries was an estimated 600,000. (Opitium Popluation Trust)

Such evidence of the UK’s flagging competitiveness would seem to be contrary to the assertion that the recent immigration is unequivocally beneficial to the UK economy. If growth in GDP is only just ahead of the rate of increase in the population, in effect there is less growth in wealth per person than expected and therefore a reduced growth in money to spend on public services per person than expected. Though the total GDP may be higher we may not be as well off per person as perhaps we might be, or thought we were going to be.

Immigration Figures Released

The Department of Work and Pensions has revealed that it issued 713,000 new National Insurance numbers in the last year to foreign workers, with over 2.5m since 2002.
These figures obviously only include those who are here legally, with the government being quick to point out that some will have returned home.
Shamelessly Immigration Minister Liam Byrne is quotes as saying “from next year we will start counintg people in and out of Britain”, at the opening of The Migration Impacts Forum 21 June 2007. Oh well there's an idea, how on earth did he come up with that?
Source Home Office website
http://press.homeoffice.gov.uk/press-releases/forum-migration-impacts

Such rapid increases in the population clearly puts strain on all sections of our public services and not least on our housing stock, increasing yet further the demand for new builds.