Episode 1 Nick and Margaret: Too Many Immigrants?

There's too many people in the country end of story.

It needs to stop now.

Immigration's had a great effect on Britain.

As far as I'm concerned, we're only lodgers now.

We can't fit everyone in. We are too small a nation.

The number of immigrants in the UK has hit a record 7.9 million.

According to a recent survey,

three quarters of Britons want to reduce the numbers coming in.

The country has never been so divided.

Immigration has brought many benefits.

We can only take a certain amount and I think we've gone beyond that.

In this experiment, we've come to London,

which has the highest percentage of immigrants in the country,

to bring both sides of the debate together.

Five sets of UK-born citizens will challenge five sets of immigrants

all living and working legally in the capital.

'They've come from all over the world.

'Each will be paired with a Brit who has strong views on immigration.'

Margaret and I have got THE crunch question.

'After spending time together,

'will the UK-born think the immigrants

'are a gain or a drain on Britain?'

It's judgment time.

'Before deciding, they'll judge their impact on work...'

We was born in this country

so therefore we should get a look-in first.

I can't take on someone who doesn't know nothing about the job.

'How they live.'

So it's a big house. We are 20 to live here.

'They'll look at the impact on healthcare...'

Do you have any idea of the cost of this operation?

'..and schools.'

I wouldn't send my children to a school as diverse as this.

'And they'll take a look at social integration.'

We just feel we've outgrown this area. We don't belong here any more.

I'm Nick Hewer.

And I'm Margaret Mountford.

We've come to London to explore the impact of immigration

on the ordinary man in the street.

In our lifetimes, immigration in Britain has grown dramatically.

And this rapid rate of growth has ignited a national debate.

People in our country are concerned about the pressures and the

amount of immigration in recent years and I share that concern.

We need to show we can act on people's concerns about immigration.

All the main political parties now say

they want to control immigration.

We've got to control the quantity and the quality

of who comes to Britain.

Every day we read about immigration in the papers, don't we?

But there are very different views about the impact on jobs,

public services and communities.

Surely an issue that has sharply divided the country and,

over the last ten years, massive consistent immigration,

but what's the truth about that immigration?

Is it a gain on the country

or simply a drain?

'With more immigrants in the UK than ever before,

'we've come to crunch the numbers with political scientist

'Dr Scott Blinder.'

So who are the immigrants in Britain and where are they coming from?

The leading countries of origin are India still.

Poland now number two.

And actually, Pakistan.

About 13% of the population of the UK as a whole was

born in another country.

And where have they settled? Where's the sort of spread?

The vast majority, over 90% are in England.

So how many migrants are in the UK at the moment?

It's just under eight million.

-Most people come for either work or study.

-Scott, you're an American.

What was your intention? How long did you plan to stay?

Well, I had a four-year fixed-term contract,

so I planned to stay three to four years.

And here you are nine years later?

Yes, I never envisioned staying here for this long.

-Typical migrant, Margaret.

-Yes.

SHE CHUCKLES

In the UK, Margaret, one in seven is an immigrant.

In London it's higher than that.

There's three million immigrants here. That's one in three.

-So we're in the right place then?

-Certainly are.

I think we're going to learn a lot in the next few days.

We've paired five sets of UK-born Brits,

all highly critical of immigration, with five sets of immigrants.

In the first part of our experiment our Brits are going to

look at the impact of immigration on housing,

what it means to be British

and jobs like those in the UK's construction and building industry.

My point of view is the foreign lads are coming in and basically

taking all our jobs and undercutting us and stuff like that.

The first Brit is 21-year-old Jamie.

Since he left school,

he's been working on short-term contracts in the building industry.

He lives at home in south-east London with his father, Andy,

who is also a builder.

We've got a problem with immigration, haven't we?

We all know that. The Government's let the floodgates open

and there's a lot of immigrants in the construction industry.

The charity starts at home first before letting other foreign

countries come into this country and take jobs off English people.

-Hello there.

-Hello. Are you Jamie?

-I am indeed.

-Margaret.

-Nice to meet you.

-Nice to meet you.

'Jamie has ambitions to specialise in carpentry.

'He currently does contract work

'but feels he can't get the training he needs to further his career.'

So, the building trade. What's it like at the moment?

Fairly hard because all the foreign lads are basically coming in

-and taking the jobs, as it were.

-The foreign lads?

-Yeah.

-From where?

-Eastern Europe.

-Why are they getting the jobs rather than you, then?

Say for instance the rate is £15 an hour,

they'll drop it to £11 an hour and the company's laughing all day.

They're making as much money as possible.

There's quite a few foreign companies out there

at the moment that basically just employ all foreign force.

All the Polish lads will stick together.

You have words with them, get on with them, say hi and hello,

but they're mainly always talking in their own language.

You don't understand.

I-I don't really like it to be honest, no.

Just have a stab at what the percentage on a building site

is made up of in terms of migrant workers.

Maybe 75 to 85.

So the skills that Jamie and his generation will, in a sense,

almost die out...

because there's nowhere for them to work if it's 75%-80% foreign.

Do you feel there is a real connection between the number

of foreign workers coming in

and the fact that you can't get out and get your own flat?

I basically want to move out with my girlfriend this year, but it's hard.

They're taking the jobs, they're taking our places in flats

and rentals, as it were,

and we just don't get a look-in.

It's a joke.

Jamie is going to be paired with 41-year-old carpenter

and business owner Mariusz,

one of over half a million Polish-born now living in the UK.

England was the dream.

All of my friends and me as well like to come to England

because there's a better life in England.

Mariusz came over ten years ago.

With no English, he started at the bottom as an unskilled labourer.

From the beginning, working very hard, so our salary was very low.

Every night I'm thinking that maybe it's a wrong idea coming to England.

Six years ago, he was joined by his younger brother, Kris,

who had no skills in building work.

Everything what I know now of the building, I learn in England, yeah.

Mariusz is now joint owner of a bespoke carpentry

and furniture business in south London.

All four of his employees are from Poland.

So what will Jamie make of Mariusz?

He thinks he's losing out on jobs in the building trade, so the

first thing he wants to know is why Mariusz only employs Polish workers.

'I've come here today basically to get some answers.

'I feel very strongly about my point of view from a young

'construction worker, British-born and trying to get a job.

'It's very hard out there and obviously

'I want to see what this fella's got to say for himself really.'

-You must be Mariusz?

-Jamie.

-Nice to meet you, fella.

-You too.

-This is Rafa. He's a specialist of the wood.

-Specialist.

Nice to meet you. I'm Jamie, mate.

So how long you been over here, Rafa, then?

MARIUSZ TRANSLATES

-Six month.

-You've only been here six months?

-Yeah.

So you're the wood specialist, as it were, yeah?

MARIUSZ TRANSLATES

Yes, professional specialist!

THEY LAUGH

Are you finding it hard to learn English?

MARIUSZ TRANSLATES

Nyet.

-No.

-No?

-No, no.

'He was having Mariusz translate to me, so that says it all.'

Obviously, to come to this country, you should at least have some

sort of inkling to understand English or British, you know.

But obviously it does piss me off.

I've got one more person to introduce.

This is my very good friend from Poland.

-He's the teacher of the spring.

-Right.

'Meeting Mariusz, he's a nice guy and that,

'but obviously, he's only got Polish workers working for him.'

From my point of view, that's not good.

In this country you've got to have some sort of British-born

working for you

because it's not fair.

How comes you haven't employed any English workers, basically?

For instance, Rafa is a wood specialist.

How come you had to go all the way home to Poland

to get a wood specialist?

Is there not any good wood specialists locally

or in England, no?

The job have to be perfect and the finish,

so I can't take on someone who doesn't know nothing about the job.

So I take my brother. I take my friends what I know.

From my point of view, we was born in this country,

so therefore we should get a look-in first.

That's what I'm trying to say, cos it annoys me...

Yes, that is the free market.

Yeah, obviously I understand that,

but you've got to see it from the company's point of view.

If they can get someone for £10 an hour, £5 less than what I'm getting,

and work like a horse and get spoken to like a piece of crap

by the foreman, and obviously that makes us look bad.

When I am starting my carpentry company,

my salary weekly was 151.97 on the beginning.

What about you, Kris? Did you...

I come to England seven years ago.

I get 5.55 per hour.

-That was the lowest money you can get.

-Minimum wage, yeah.

What I'm saying is lads come in from Eastern Europe

and actually undercut us, cos I've been on loads of different jobs,

different firms, yeah, and undercut us and basically take our jobs.

'Although Mariusz started off below minimum wage,

'he now pays his workers the going rate.

'But, for Jamie, it's not just about the money.'

I think that's just crap, to be honest, that he can't find

no-one young and English willing to learn.

There's loads of people out there.

I'm one of them

and I've got loads of mates who are willing to do stuff like that.

It's just trying to get the opportunity to get it sort of thing.

'Is Jamie right? Are immigrants taking jobs?'

What are the big worries for the ordinary guy on the street?

Partly economics.

Just the straightforward downward pressure on wages.

It's just economic common sense.

If you have a million people coming in, as we did after 2004

when we opened up to Eastern Europe, many of them

aiming to do quite basic, low-skilled jobs,

even though many of them

are quite well qualified, there is some job displacement.

Obviously, a lot of people who come here,

create jobs that wouldn't have been created otherwise.

They complement existing workers.

It's not all a bad story by any means.

Are we building up some pressure that's going to cause us

trouble in the future?

One of the problems with large-scale immigration

and the choice that it provides to employers,

small, medium-sized and large,

is that it tends to encourage

some of the worst tendencies in the British economy.

Short-termism, lack of investment, lack of investment in training.

You know, why train a difficult school-leaver when you can just

pluck off the shelf somebody who may already have the qualification?

You see this in the health service.

40 miles from London in Southend-on-Sea, ex-Londoner

and retired court clerk John has had personal

experience of immigrant health workers in the health service.

I think overall immigration is a bad thing for this country.

When my mother was in hospital,

she had a lot of problems with people who were clearly migrants,

from all parts of the globe,

who...had a different approach to care.

Who sometimes came across as brusque, no understanding

and, quite apart from the language barrier,

and she felt like she was in an alien world.

Filipino Rommel came to London 13 years ago

when, as part of an ongoing recruitment programme

between the UK and the Philippines,

his wife Cherry was employed as a nurse to work for the NHS.

There was recruitment done in the Philippines for registered nurses,

so my wife came over and started working in a care home.

Rommel was able to come to the UK as a dependant on his wife's

skilled worker's visa.

I was working for a congressman in the Philippines

and giving up my job to come to the UK was a risk and it was scary.

Rommel now works in a home for people with

epilepsy and special needs,

one of the 60% of care workers in London who are foreign-born.

I did not imagine myself to be working in the healthcare sector

but I would say most of the Filipinos, we are caring by nature.

What will John make of Rommel?

Will he think he's a gain or a drain?

Quite looking forward to meeting this gentleman I'm going to see.

Don't know what to expect, but I've got a few ideas.

I mean, I approach a lot of these things in a very generic way,

which is, mainly because of the media, I suppose, um,

people are here to take and not to give anything.

Rommel and his family live in Norbury, south London.

Clearly it's an area that's got a population of

very diverse backgrounds.

Multicultural certainly.

Services that are for all different religions, backgrounds.

Obviously, it's not an established English area, if you like.

Rommel's home is part of a shared ownership scheme

of which he owns half.

-Oh, hi, hi, hi. Welcome, welcome, welcome.

-Hello.

So, Cherry, what made you come to England in the first place?

I love to travel.

Yeah, and then when this opportunity came I just grabbed it.

So was there not jobs in the Philippines?

No, I was working there as a head nurse

but the salary's not the same as here.

15 times more. More than 15 times.

'She communicates very well.'

If you have people who we rely on, you've got to be able to communicate

with them and especially if you're in hospital when you're vulnerable.

Especially if you're dealing with old people who are vulnerable.

I'm very interested in what you would

think I think about immigration.

That migrant is going to take all our jobs, is going

-to be a burden to the healthcare industry.

-Yeah.

How do you think it is in reality then?

Talking about, um, migrants getting the jobs.

We were recruited so that means there was really a shortage here.

If indigenous British are really keen of doing healthcare,

you know, hotels, there are jobs there.

What you're saying is you're taking jobs that people aren't

prepared to do?

-Yes.

-Yeah.

-They don't like dealing with blood.

They don't like wiping bums.

They don't like nothing about personal care.

Well, there is that,

but my point is that there is a lot of people coming here,

a LOT of people coming, and we're basically,

if you put it crudely, we're full up.

'John is using migrant workers'

as a scapegoat to what is happening in our society.

John wants to see what Rommel does at work.

The care home provides support to enable people with epilepsy

-and learning difficulties to lead independent lives.

-Oh, right, OK.

-So what are we doing here, Mel?

-Cutting garlic bread.

-Right, OK.

Mel lives in Brighton.

I would say Mel is so proud of it that she is now travel-trained

to go to Brighton, to travel to Brighton on her own.

It would take even years just to achieve one goal.

-Do you like it here?

-Yes, I do.

-Are the people nice?

-Yes, thank you.

-Is that OK if I borrow John for a sec?

-Yes.

-Yeah?

-Thank you.

Here we are. Jane.

So how do you find it here? Do you like it here?

-Very good.

-Thank you very much, Jane.

Rommel is a great member

who I rely on a lot.

With the work that we do, we always make sure that, when we're talking

to our service users, it is done not in a threatening way,

so we don't do it like that. We are trained as a specialist service.

It's always eye-to-eye contact,

-so the service users are able to relate to us.

-Yeah.

'When I see myself that one or two of our service users'

are living independently because of the work that I did,

because of the that work migrant workers did, you know,

I feel like an overwhelming feeling

I have contributed, you know, to society.

# Happy birthday to you... #

For this type of work,

someone in Rommel's position gets on average £19,000 a year.

You've come from a different part of the world.

Did you have precisely the same training that would suit you to this

work in precisely the same way as somebody

in the United Kingdom would have had that training?

One of the reasons why they prefer hiring migrants to come

and work in the UK is

because of the skill set that is already available to these people.

It's really top-notch.

In my case, for example,

I have completed my university in the Philippines

and coming to the UK it's not like I'm going to start from scratch.

There's another issue here and that is language.

My mother was in a hospital very seriously ill

and I had a lot of trouble communicating with the senior

people in the ward and the nurses who had language problems.

But worse than that, I saw her medical notes

and I saw what was written down and I had to get it corrected.

It would just be the same.

There would be, you know, you know, indigenous British who would

make those mistakes.

People in the UK can not even spell,

you know, correct English.

I certainly learned a little bit more about Rommel as a person

through seeing where he works. Very interesting to see where he works.

Not an environment I'm particularly familiar with,

but I have been in similar places with my own relatives,

parents, grandparents, that sort of thing.

Um...

I haven't really changed my views in any way at all.

22-year-old waitress Marilyn left France a year ago to find

work in the capital.

-Here's your portion of chips.

-Thank you very much.

-You're welcome.

Marilyn is one of a growing number of immigrants who make up over

half the workforce in the restaurant and hotel trade in London.

I leave France because firstly I wanted to learn English

and learn the culture of English people and English ways.

As well cos sometimes you need to learn to be independent.

Marilyn works around 45 hours a week and earns £7 an hour plus tips.

If you really want to work hard you can find a job like this

cos there is shop and fast food and bar everywhere.

I think they need people to work.

Marilyn will be paired with 24-year-old Michael from Romford,

east London.

He's been out of work for two years

and receives Jobseeker Allowance and Housing Benefit.

Not being in work is properly boring.

Searching for a job so much now, it is draining.

I've tried going for warehouse work.

There's nothing there.

I've gone for gardening. I tried going for painting.

If ever they do get back to you, they say,

"Oh, sorry, you didn't fit the criteria."

I do voluntary maintenance.

I'll just go in there and I'll just look for things to do that

don't really need doing, just so I'm not bored.

Then it's the walk home,

go to bed and then the really boring day starts again.

I do think immigrants will get a job faster than me

because of how much they charge.

I don't know how immigrants can work for such a little wage.

Michael is also frustrated about the living conditions

immigrants are prepared to put up with.

I know, as a fact, immigrants cram themselves into a house.

There's too many groups taking the properties that should be

left for the British people for when they want to move out.

Marilyn lives in a shared house in north-west London

with 19 other immigrants.

Yeah, in this kind of sharing house,

you have to share almost everything here. You have to share the kitchen.

The kitchen. The living room, where we spend most of the time.

That's my room.

To save money, Marilyn shares her bedroom with her best friend Abel.

For our clothes, only this.

Yeah, only one wardrobe for two so it's like all my shoes.

It's half and half. We try and make it practical so we live in two beds.

And this one on the floor like this. We don't have choice!

-It was not difficult to find a job.

-For you, no.

-For me, one week.

It's like a football match.

At home.

And the away team's come here with a fantastic plan,

and it's just complete and utterly paid off for them.

That's what it sort of feels like.

You know, if I can't even win at home, where am I going to win?

'Michael is one of 334,000 unemployed living in London.'

Well, thank you.

'So how did Marilyn find work?'

-Did you find it easy to get a job when you arrived?

-Yeah.

More or less, yeah.

I was looking for in my speciality, in the shoes shop.

My English was not so good for do it here.

Then I went to find a job in, like, a waitress,

in a tourist place like this, and then I find really quick.

-But you were flexible, then?

-Yeah.

Because you wanted to work in a shoe shop, you wanted to work in shoes,

-but when you couldn't find that you tried something else.

-I try a waitress.

It's interesting, isn't it, Marilyn, that you found a job pretty quickly

and yet there are a lot of young English unemployed people who struggle.

-Yeah.

-Who say they struggle.

-There is no...

-Why?

What's the secret of getting a job as quickly as you did?

I think the secret is, like, really want to work, and...

If you really want to have a job,

-you can make sure you will find quick.

-Thank you.

That's the famous Yorkshire pudding.

'Marilyn's boss has thoughts of his own.'

English people don't want to work in the catering trade.

If you go in any hotel,

any restaurant in central London, I think you...

Difficult to find someone that's English.

Do you not get any British applications?

-I think, in 27 years, maybe 10 people.

-That's all?

-And how many...

-How many did I employ?

-Yeah.

Probably three or four.

What would you say to a young English person

who said, "Oh, I can't get a job, I've tried and I've tried,"

what would you say to them?

Try harder.

Try harder. Go around,

go around with CVs, walk in and say, "I need a job,

"here's my number, here's my address."

That's what all the others do.

She's prepared to live in a house sharing with 19 others,

so it's not exactly a luxury lifestyle, but...

She's young, Margaret.

She's young, she's a 22-year-old kid, and all the others

are youngsters, and actually that's what young people do, that's

part of the fun and the excitement of living in London, I guess.

She's not complaining, is she?

No, she's not complaining, but then why don't we see groups of youngsters

who are from other parts of the UK coming and doing that?

Good question.

With rents in the capital now averaging £1,500 a month,

Michael wants to know how Marilyn can afford to live in London.

What I don't understand is how immigrants can come to Great Britain

and live for less, which is enabling them to work for less.

So it's a big house, we are 20 to live here.

And people from all around the world.

Right now it's quiet cos everybody working.

Most of the people in the house are waiter,

are working, like, Pret A Manger...or Pure.

You know, this kind of shop.

The first thing he wants to find out is how much rent she pays.

So how much would one of these rooms sort of cost?

I live with my best friend so we share the price every week,

so it's 55 each.

I have to pay... 180 a week.

-It's expensive, it's more expensive than...

-It's a lot expensive.

Michael believes many immigrants happily work for less than

the minimum wage, so next he'll quiz Marilyn about her pay.

Because your rent is so low, does that enable you to, like,

-work for less wages?

-I work a lot and I get paid normally.

-So how much would you earn, say, in a week?

-300.

So on 300-plus a week I could probably live where I'm living

and still live life as I'd most probably want to.

Is that the same throughout the house?

Yeah, all of us starts for the minimum wage.

Cos I was more or less under the assumption that, you know,

immigrants come over, they work for less,

and you automatically think that...

they might just live for less as well.

I get a normal pay and... I've got a normal rent here.

I've got to go, due to a government scheme,

work programme that I'm on, trying to find work.

-And me go at work.

-And you've got to go to work!

I was expecting her to either be on minimum wage or just below it,

but the fact that she's earning money that...

the same money as jobs that I've applied for,

you know, the...it's really weird,

the fact that she can...

I mean, she must have loads of savings, cos...

she's only paying like £55 rent a week.

I mean, I couldn't cram myself into a house

and then just pay minimal rent.

That's a little bit wrong, at the end of the day.

But it's not just jobs and housing that matter,

it's also the way we live.

The rapid transformation of communities

when new groups come in is a huge cause of concern for some people.

You can see it's difficult for people

if their area is swamped by immigration, can't you?

A large group of people from one particular ethnic group come in

-and the nature of the area and the community changes.

-Yeah, absolutely.

They've grown up there,

suddenly the neighbours are all actually not mixing with them,

the shops change, the schools change,

and they feel sort of dispossessed, and what they always thought

they would grow up with suddenly changes, sometimes late in life.

Retired couple Ted and Margaret have lived in Ilford,

north-east London, for more than 40 years.

Well, you do wonder what they are, don't you?

How would you set about cooking those?

Their borough is the fourth most ethnically diverse

local authority in the country.

We've been here 40-odd years.

It's changed dramatically.

When we first moved here the road was predominantly

indigenous white people.

There was probably five or six, er, immigrant families, and

since that period the numbers have gone completely the other way round.

I think we're at saturation point. There's not been enough integration.

There's no part for us here.

You eventually come to the decision that you're going to have to

join the white flight, and move out.

-Hello.

-Hello.

-I'm Margaret, you're Ted?

-Yes.

So what does immigration mean to you?

What do you think about immigration?

I think it's changed our way of life.

Used you to feel there was a community here, and has that changed?

Yes, obviously it has.

We've got fine neighbours, I mean, we all get on well,

but it's difficult to hold conversations with them

because a lot of them don't speak good English,

other than the pleasantries of "good morning" and "how are you?"

But what does being part of a community mean to you?

Well, for instance, I wanted to start singing in a singing group

and for this part of Ilford there would be nothing for me.

When we came here there was a dance studio, there were billiard halls.

I think the billiard hall's gone. Erm...the dance school's gone.

So in a sense, then, your community's been taken away,

-strangers in your own land?

-Well, you've got nowhere to go to meet...

-Your neighbours.

-..your friends and your neighbours, yeah.

It's about age as much as anything else,

because here they are, in the sort of final chapter of their lives,

feeling that they don't belong any more

and that they've got to move into a community like in the old days.

Ted and Margaret wanted to integrate but they felt they couldn't

because of language and customs, and they're probably right,

it probably isn't integrable in the sense that they mean.

It's not that there is a community that they're excluded from,

it's just that there's no community.

The largest migrant population in their local area comes from Pakistan.

All right, you are behind the cyclist.

SHE SPEAKS SOUTH ASIAN LANGUAGE

To further her career in education, Naseem, a former school principal,

came over from Pakistani in 2009 on a Highly Skilled Migrant visa.

To this bright, sunny, fabulous...

This visa allowed husband Rahat to join her three years later.

Back in Pakistan I was a principal of a school and it was a school

from primary to GCSE, so there were more than 800 children at that time.

There were two, three reasons to bring me here.

Number one, my spouse, my wife was here,

and she was struggling alone, and in Pakistan there are several problems.

Politically I'm a person of a peace mind

and I would like to embark in this country,

to live and explore it as well,

so these were the reasons to...brought me here.

SHE SPEAKS SOUTH ASIAN LANGUAGE

Now they've invested all their savings into starting up

a business, running an adult education college

teaching, among other things, English for speakers of other languages.

They live and work just a short distance from Ted and Margaret.

-What number again?

-28 to 42.

Well, it's interesting,

because this isn't the only language school down here.

We're passing one here, there's another one further down.

Ted and Margaret feel ESOL, or English-language schools,

just encourage more immigrants to their area.

Well, we have had mixed reports about language schools.

Erm, some of them, erm, may...

Well, I believe they have quite large government grants

given to them, and some of them aren't all above board,

and there's been fraudulent dealings going on,

so we will be interested to see what's happening here.

First they want to know what exactly is being taught at the school.

Just reading out the English courses,

there's Life in UK Course and there's Citizenship Course.

Well, it seems to me that this is all orientated around

people coming to stay,

and I'm not sure that the level of English

that they're going to teach to

will be sufficient to integrate into our way of life.

-Hello.

-Hello, hello. Nice to meet you.

-Good afternoon. Welcome, sir.

-I'm Ted. This is Margaret.

-Hello. Good afternoon.

Next, Ted and Margaret want to find out how the school is being funded.

The students that are here for citizenship knowledge,

they pay a fee.

Now, is that self-funded or comes through a government grant?

No, it's self-paid by the individual who take this test.

Er, I believe there is no category that they are supported

by the...public fund or the Government.

Well, the only source of income is from preparing people

for their citizenship qualification.

That's paid for, erm, privately, which I didn't understand,

I thought that was the Government.

I will show you my ESOL class. Yes, yes.

Yes, please.

Hello.

Although the majority of classes are paid for by the students...

So today our topic is My Family.

..Rahat and Naseem also provide conversational English lessons

free of charge to immigrants from a variety of countries.

So we are very interested to know about your family.

My parents are in Albania, my two brothers are in Albania.

-Yes, Rubina, introduce yourself.

-I came from Saudi Arabia.

-So why did you move in this country?

-After married I'm, er, coming here.

-To practise my job.

-Because of education.

It's really important to repay your country

as a contribution as individual.

Therefore, we have started English classes for those whom you can say

they can't pay.

And where is your in-laws live?

-Er, they lives in...

-"They live in..."

-..in UK.

Well, our main concern is that these establishments,

these English schools,

are here predominantly to enable people to stay

by getting them through the citizenship qualification,

and this just means that they're compounding the problem that we've already got.

There's sufficient people here

without using the system to bring even more in.

Unemployed Michael thinks immigration

has made it harder for him to find work.

It's almost like they've all got to be invited over.

It's weird, it is like... rolling out a carpet. It's too easy.

But French waitress Marilyn doesn't think he's trying hard enough.

For me there is a lot of job in London

and probably...he's a bit lazy to find a job.

To prove to Marilyn how tough it is, Michael has invited her

to Romford where he lives

to show her just how much effort he's putting in to find work.

So that's Seetec over there, the big building there.

Michael does almost all his job searches through Seetec,

a government-funded welfare-to-work and skills-training programme.

So which kind of job did you apply for?

I'm basically sort of just applying for the warehouse.

So within two weeks you're doing, like, 60 applications.

You pump yourself up, you think, yeah, let's go,

I can apply for that. Sounds really good.

But then, three weeks later, you still haven't heard nothing.

Why don't you try to apply...another job, be more flexible like me?

Like, I used to selling shoes and luxury shoes in France

and I never been waitress. Now it's easy for me.

I tend to find when I make myself more flexible

I get more opportunities to come up

and then...they just sort of never happen.

You do only online.

It's better for a shop that you go

and show this yourself directly with the manager or the boss.

What do you think, if you try to apply in this kind of shop...

You know, I don't know nothing about these sort of shops,

I don't know nothing about these sort of organisations or businesses.

I don't want to be inside, closed in. You know?

And I start to understand...why he don't get job,

it's because he looking only in his...speciality

and he don't want to get any job anywhere.

-Did you already try in this one?

-Yeah, yeah, let's try that one.

When Marilyn came to the UK she got her first job through an agency.

-She wants Michael to try the same thing.

-Hi, Michael.

-WOMAN:

-Want to come and take a seat?

Hi, what can I do for you?

Erm, my friend Michael looking for a job.

That's lovely. And what sort of work is it you're actually looking for, Michael?

-Warehouse work.

-Warehouse work?

-Yeah.

-Have you been to agencies?

Erm, I used to be on an agency but...it was no good.

Just one agency?

You live locally, so one would assume that

if you're sort of really proactive in looking for work

you would have registered with all the recruitment companies

rather than...you said you just registered with one.

It may be that, you know, you're not being as proactive locally

as perhaps you could be being.

You know, like, we're here

and you've not registered here before today.

I mean, I've never really noticed this agency, like, the doorway.

I'm not usually looking up...

Michael think that...immigrates gets advantage for get a job

here in London. Is that true?

With immigrants, they're perhaps, erm...

more eager and perhaps a bit more flexible.

I think you can probably learn some stuff from Marilyn and it's a good thing that you've met, I think,

because, you know, she has had to get off her backside and just do it for herself

because there is nobody else here to help her to do that.

I mean, I think you have a bit of a confidence issue, to be fair.

-I do, yeah.

-I think that somebody needs to grab you by the collar and sort you out.

It was slightly embarrassing just to think, well...

..if she can do it, why can't I? You know, what am I doing wrong?

Makes me feel a little bit silly as well in a way.

Concerns about the pressure on jobs

isn't the only thing that worries some.

In south-east London, 21-year-old Jamie thinks immigration is

also putting the squeeze on housing.

He's desperate to move out of his dad's

and into a place of his own with girlfriend Bex.

That's my bedroom and obviously this is Dad's bedroom,

and as you can see it's very close together,

so that can be a factor, obviously,

why we want to get out of this house and underneath my father's feet.

With London attracting more immigrants than anywhere else

in the UK, they feel competition for housing has increased.

London is overcrowded.

I think where a lot of people come over to the UK,

because obviously it is the land of opportunities,

but that leaves people who are from London in a massive problem,

because the people who are landlords, and I don't blame them,

it gives them the right to put up their rent,

because they know that there's automatic desire to

live in those areas and they know that they'll get the rent.

But is Bex right?

Jamie, who lives out in south-east London, has come

to upmarket Fulham near the centre of town.

He wants to check out the flat which Polish carpenter Mariusz

rents in the area.

Seems quite posh round here, to be honest.

Erm, the perception I got on Eastern Europeans

wouldn't live in such nice areas, I thought they lived in, sort of,

ghettos, as it were, in... all crammed together and...yeah...

It seems rather nice round here.

-This is your...

-Have a seat.

-There's my wife... Barbara.

-Hi. Nice to meet you.

Nice to meet you, I'm Jamie.

MARGARET: Mariusz, his wife and three-year-old son have lived

in their one-bedroom flat for three years.

-This is little...

-Jan's... Jan's room. Yes.

-It's nice.

-So this is the kitchen?

-This is the kitchen.

-It is big enough.

-So, what do you do for a living?

If you don't mind me asking?

Er, I work two days a week.

-I'm a cleaner so I'm self-employed. I pay the tax and everything.

-Yeah.

No, that's bang on the money, I really think that's a good...

-good thing. So, obviously, this is your living room?

-Yes.

And you say it's a one-bedroom flat. Is this where you sleep as well?

Yeah, we sleeping on the sofa. It's very easy.

Make the bed very quick, like that.

And that's it, that is the house bed.

So, how much a month do you pay here, then?

-It's around £900.

-£900. It is expensive then, yeah.

So, regarding the way Mariusz lives... He's 40

or 40-plus. He lives in a one-bedroom flat,

he sleeps in the front room with his wife,

while, Jan, obviously, has the bedroom

and they pay...to me, what I think is quite extortionate, £900.

I wouldn't do it. But, obviously where he's...from another

country he has to deal with it.

So, is the readiness of immigrants to pay for whatever accommodation

they can get to blame for rising rents and housing shortages?

You've been doing some research into the impact of immigration

-on housing in the UK, is that right?

-Yeah, no, that's right.

Immigrants come in from Eastern Europe...

they, obviously, need somewhere to live,

that demands housing... and you know,

if you don't increase the supply there's going to be

pressure from that.

I mean, the housing situation problem is more acute in London.

But I think that's being caused primarily not by immigration here,

it's just been a failure to build enough houses.

The population of London the last 20 years has increased by 15%.

But, you know, we've been struggling to build enough housing to

really keep pace with that so prices keep on spiralling up and,

you know, everyone finds it a terrible struggle.

It's Michael's last day of the experiment with Marilyn.

He wants to experience the work she does before deciding

if she's a gain or a drain on Britain.

I will introduce you to my boss.

First, he's going to meet Marilyn's boss.

-Mr Boss, this is Michael.

-Hello, Michael.

-How are you?

I'm nervous but I'm also really excited about it. Don't want to mess it up.

Michael, have you ever tried to get a job in McDonald's or

-Kentucky Fried Chicken?

-I've got it into my head if I'm going to

-McDonald's now...

-Yeah...

I'm so over qualified... I'm worth more than that.

Don't worry about that.

I don't think you're over qualified. Because you think you're

over qualified you'll never get a job cos you'll think you're too

good to work there

and I think, some of these girls here,

they've been here for six months or a year or longer - they've got

degrees, I've had others here that are trainee doctors so don't...

I wouldn't say you were over qualified.

-OK, we've got the machine here... we need to wash by hand first.

-Yeah.

So, you know how to wash, I guess?

Michael hasn't worked for over two years. He feels he lacks confidence

and gets nervous when dealing with customers

so he starts with the basics.

Don't break anything, please.

But soon gets promoted to front of house.

OK, do you want to come with me at the front?

So, I know you could be nervous to go with customers

so you can see how I do.

Hello! You OK?

Are you ready to order?

A large coke, sure. A large Fanta.

-Oh, Coke, right here, thank you very much.

-Cheers, mate.

Would you like...? Yeah, sure.

We just come here to find a job. We work hard

and he can work hard like us. He can... Only the confidence problem

and now he saw himself he can do it.

Yeah.

-Sausage and mash?

-Yeah.

-Is that yours? Sorry about the wait, sir.

Great.

In two minutes you get more comfortable with the people

so that's really nice.

So, are you proud of yourself? Are you happy or...?

I'm very proud of myself, yeah.

I didn't think I was going to be as interactive as I was.

Definitely going to try and go for it with this sort of work now.

Go and get changed, Michael, go on, you've done all right.

I think before, I thought that immigrants were a drain on...

society, if you like but now I've met Marilyn and I'm

seeing how she has to live her life

and the fact that I've learnt more about it...

I definitely think that it's a gain.

In all honesty, I don't see any problems with it any more.

-See you later.

-See you later.

Michael may have changed his views but John continues to think

immigration is a drain.

And it's not just the influx if migrants taking jobs

that concerns him. He thinks it's threatening the British way of life.

Does it always tastes better when you're having fish and chips

-on the seaside?

-Yeah.

-Why is that?

It's all in the mind. It's all in the mind! It just does!

John wants to show Rommel what he thinks it means to be British

so he's invited him to his hometown of Southend.

With fish and chips it's traditionally...

English by the seaside.

The other things you have, you know, a pint of beer.

Also, funfairs, for us it would be typically English.

And walking along the front.

What we say "the promenade".

I mean, all of this...

..the pier, the way coming out here. Seeing what we're seeing,

looking at the old buildings, is a typical English, sort of, scene.

And it's that sort of thing that I want to preserve

and you feel that with all the things we've been talking about

that is under threat, it's going to change

and I don't, necessarily, feel that that's a good thing.

You know, we talk about being British...

I'm just thinking... You know, let's say football.

We think football is like an English, you know, game

but it's not. It is a Chinese game that was, you know,

brought to us in the UK.

Prince Philip, husband of the Queen of England...

-Greek.

-Greek.

Well, he wasn't the same as every average citizen coming in.

-I'm thinking of the tea.

-Tea? Yeah, absolutely.

-China.

And all things from all the areas that we were involved with

all round the world...

form the society we've got today. That doesn't mean

-that I think that change is good for change's sake.

-Yeah.

Tea...by itself...

..coming to Britain, you have no problem with that?

No, not at all, no, of course not.

But when we equate tea as Chinese people coming to the UK...

-..you won't like it?

-Well, I don't mind a few.

-Yes, yeah.

-I don't mind a reasonable number.

-Yeah.

But my objection to it is the scale and the effect it's having.

When I was still in the Philippines I have friends who have come

to London.

When they learned I would be coming to the UK, instantly, you know

what they said?

"Don't go there. Why, why go to London, why go to England?

"It's such a racist country."

When I came over here that completely changed.

What I see in Britain is completely embracing, you know,

multiculturalism.

Yeah.

See, this is where...

..people like myself feel...

we're not really understood...

because I don't disagree with...

..the multicultural influence.

In fact, you could argue, if you didn't have it,

what a boring place we would live in.

Erm, I'm not suggesting we live like we lived in the 1920s, 1930s...

I'm not saying that.

What I believe is that we have to...

make sure things aren't under threat.

I think it's interesting, Rommel's view...

about diversity affecting Britain

and erm...

He seems to be very keen on change, thinking it's all a good thing

Well, maybe it's my background and my experience

but I don't think it is all a good thing and I've said that all along.

Er, I think that's our main difference, really.

John is one of...

..the minority of

the British-born people who are having these views but

I am really hopeful that, you know...

..before we end this, you know, this experiment,

that John would have changed his views on migrants.

In Ilford, north-east London, retired couple Ted

and Margaret are showing Naseem and Rahat

the changes to their high street.

This is the last of our English shops.

-It's been here since we come... about 40 years.

-40 years?

..they've been here.

There was bakers, there was

a couple of baker shops down here, greengrocers.

Now, this, this selection of vegetables we'd find it

-very difficult to know what to do with them.

-Yeah.

We don't recognise your vegetables. Most of the vegetables that are

-sold in the stores...

-You don't recognise.

We wouldn't know how to cook them.

Yes, some of them I don't even recognise!

LAUGHTER

-Have you ever been inside the shop?

-No, never.

-No.

No, we wouldn't venture...

Well, this is the first time I've ever been in a store

quite like this.

Really? Did you know all these things? What are they?

No, we wouldn't recognise any of those and this

is the problem that we've got

that we don't feel that there's anything here

that we recognise.

Yeah, look, halal meat and fish and poultry.

Well, we wouldn't choose to buy halal, truly,

it would be against our principles. That's the only meat

sold round here so we, we just wouldn't be meat eaters

so, we just feel...

..that we've outgrown, this area, we don't belong here any more.

We would like to integrate and especially

we would say, that how the Asian shops are here...

..equally, there should be a few of the shops for...

the local, native Britons as well.

But we really understand their concern and we really understand

their feelings. I think it's really hard for us to listen to this

type of conversation from the natives.

We're halfway through this experiment now - we've looked at

jobs and housing and we've started to explore what it means to be British.

Yes, and we've seen Michael already change his mind

on the question of immigrants taking jobs.

But do you think the others are going to change their minds?

Jamie and John still seem pretty convinced

that immigration is a drain on Britain.

But they've still got to look at schools, NHS

and the whole question of religion, so it's a long way to go

before they can take a decision.

Next time we meet Kiran and Mohammed.

We won't accept the bad parts of the British culture, we won't take it.

The Brits investigate the impact of immigration on the NHS.

The system is all wrong. I can't see how we can keep doing this.

-They look at schooling.

-I wouldn't send my children

to a school as diverse as this.

And they delve deeper into what it means to be British.

I have a big issue with people who teach their children

-another language as a first language.

-I disagree with that.

In the end, will the Brits think immigration is a gain or a drain?

It's judgment time.

THE crunch question...