Immigration ‘out of control’ insists Howard
Leader of the Conservatives, Michael Howard, has defended his focus on immigration during the general election campaign, insisting it is a major issue.
Mr Howard called for greater controls on both asylum and economic migration and denied he was appealing to the core Conservative electorate.
Mr Howard’s comments came before delivering his first speech of the election campaign in Telford, focussing on immigration.
The Conservative Party have said they would introduce quotas for asylum seekers and economic migrants. They promise reduced levels of immigration and a points system to allow migrants into the country who could fill skills gaps.
Speaking on ITV’s ‘The Sunday Programme’, Mr Howard defended his focus in the matter, saying: “It’s a very important subject.”
He continued: “It’s long been regarded as a taboo subject and I am determined that it shouldn’t be treated as such.”
However, he stressed that he was not anti-immigration, saying: “Britain has benefited from immigration. We are a stronger, richer country because we are more diverse. But immigration today is out of control.”
“It’s tripled since Mr Blair came to office. Asylum numbers were coming down when he came to office, they have gone up since.”
The Conservative leader outlined his areas of concern.
“If we are to continue to have good community relations I believe that it is essential that we have firm but fair immigration controls. It’s of concern for our national security. It is concern for the future of our public services.
“We think it is something which a government needs to get a grip on”.
As such, Mr Howard promised: “We would have Parliament set an annual limit on the number of people who could come into the country.”
Regarding economic migration he said: “There is a place for economic migration and we would introduce a points system as they have in Australia, which would certainly allow people with the skills that we need who want to come in the country to work to do that.”
Finally, Mr Howard denied that he was playing to the core Conservative vote with this focus in immigration, insisting it was an issue of concern throughout the population.
“If everyone who was interested and concerned about immigration in our country was part of the Conservative core vote we would be very happy about that.
“That’s of course not true. Immigration is of very great concern to many people of all Parties.”
Speaking earlier on the same programme, Mr Howard faced strong criticism from both parties over the issue.
The president of the Liberal Democrats, Simon Hughes, said: “There is actually no fundamental difference between the three parties on immigration. We all say there need to be controls on immigration so why make a big thing of it because it’s not an issue? Let’s fight on the real issues.”
Leader of the House of Commons Peter Hain insisted immigration was an important problem, but attacked Mr Howard for: “Shamelessly using this issue . without proposing any workable solutions.”
