Immigration: Channel crossings hit record highs

Local TV

More people have crossed the English Channel in small boats during the first four months than in any previous year. Opposition parties have called for tougher action.

Transcript

00:00Immigration is a really difficult topic insofar as of course we want immigration of people

00:06who bring particular skills.

00:08Of course, what the main focus tends to be on are those who are coming from countries,

00:14particularly Africa, and they may have very legitimate reasons for so doing.

00:19Of course, if they arrive here without the correct credentials, i.e. that they are legal,

00:24then of course we get into a whole issue of what we do with them in the process, which

00:27becomes pretty expensive, and of course we hear stories of hotels being sort of turned

00:31over to sort of to put these people up. Now, of course, there's a whole set of economics

00:37that go with it, but undoubtedly where you've got sort of mass immigration, that takes, you

00:42know, a while if you like to sort of work through.

00:43Well, the latest figures on migration reveal that in the past year the UK recorded around

00:491.2 million immigrants, while roughly 500,000 people left the country. That means net migration

00:57stands at around 700,000. Meanwhile, asylum applications have surged to 108,000, nearly

01:05double what they were in 2021. Of those, 37,000 arrived by small boats, but far more entered

01:13the UK through other irregular means or arrived on visas before claiming asylum.

01:18It's a sort of really difficult topic which, of course, creates controversy. The Conservatives,

01:24if you like, they sort of won the Brexit election on the basis that they're going to get this

01:28done and reduce immigration, but of course we've not seen that. For particular consequences,

01:34Ukraine, we've had a lot of people coming in, and also of course the situation in Hong Kong,

01:38Hong Kong Chinese who sort of effectively forced out. So of course that's bumped the numbers

01:42up. But exactly, we do want the right sort of people because they are good, and indeed

01:46we have, if you like, a sort of a crisis in terms of a very ageing population, and what

01:51you need is younger people coming in to sort of work to do the sort of jobs which are going

01:55to sort of be essential, and also to sort of provide the economic sort of wealth through

02:01taxation which are going to keep the system sort of going. So there's very good sort of

02:05reasons, but unfortunately it gets polluted by the sort of the very controversial stance

02:10that some people have taken it. And reform is, if you like, into that space as it were,

02:15because they are certainly saying the sort of Conservatives failed, and they may never

02:19be forgiven in the sort of the short term. Eventually people do forget about these things.

02:22And Labour of course sort of came in promising they were going to sort of do something about

02:25it, but hey, so far it remains to be seen.

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