The Truth About Immigration

It is the dead of night on the choppy waters of the south coast. I

am setting out to solve a political mystery. My journey, like so many

before me, begins on a voyage to Britain. For decades, whether by sea

or by air, millions have come to our shores, making as a nation of

immigrants. But our anxiety about the next wave of arrivals has

reached an all-time high. The question is why. The government is

eager to be seen to be cracking down. Illegal immigrants are being

told to go home. What nationality are you? Politicians are competing

to talk tough. Immigration is too high and I wanted to cut. We need to

have a cap on migration and make sure people who do come here work

hard and play by the rules. Do you want to go back home? No, I don't.

Britain must control its borders. The arrival of people from all over

the world has changed the face of Britain for ever. Polish people came

here to work. They wanted a decent life. Was it part of some secret

plan for Britain. They have deliberately embarked on a policy of

mass migration into this country without asking the people or their

consent and without telling them it was going to happen. Was it a

miscalculation? Addictions were catastrophic and they were wrong by

a factor of ten. There were more predictions of another invasion by

Romanians and Bulgarians, but it is yet to materialise. Some said

Britain has a history of unnecessary panic about immigration. Letting

those panics get out of control, is that it poisons the atmosphere in

the UK and you get generalised prejudice direct it at people from

overseas. Immigrants have helped make Britain wealthy, so could a

backlash damaged the country? They have jobs, work and pay taxes. We

should not fear it, we should welcome it. We should not fear it.

In the past decade people have come to these shores in vast,

unprecedented numbers. It is the greatest movement of people in our

nation's history. How is it a subject that was once Tabuk is now

on every politician's lips. Why is it the doors to Britain were flung

over, and what are the benefits that the perils are now seeking to close

them. What is The Truth About Immigration.

Kick off down the local park. A crunch match in the league. What

could be more British? The answer is quite a lot. This may be the Garden

of England, but the players on these teams come from Romania or Bulgaria.

Here in Kent, there is a whole league of teams like this. 160,000

Romanians and Bulgarians were in Britain before the borders were

fully opened a few days ago. Many came to pick fruit at farms like

this one near Faversham. 140 East Europeans work here. I like the job

here. I like to be outside on the field. People who don't know

Romania, how much better is the money here to the money back at

home? It is much better. You are an accountant and you are here picking

strawberries in England? I make more money here than in Bulgaria. They

own ?150 a month and what do you learn? ?150 a week. No wonder you

are here. The farm is run by Alistair Brooks, he has hired his

workers from abroad for years. Whenever he has tried to advertise

locally, he has been disappointed. The last time we ran an advert at

the beginning of the season, we got 25 applications and 11 turned up. At

the end of the week we had five left, two of which were Polish and

three were Slovakians. Not one Britain? Not one Britain. Where have

they gone? Some of them did not turn up after the second day, some

thought it was a bit hard. They won't come? No, they won't. These

Bulgarians and Rumanian 's came here as part of a special agricultural

scheme and for only six months a year. Now they and all their fellow

countrymen are free to get permanent, better paid jobs. Not,

they insist, something you need to worry about. Do you think

immigration is good for the economy? It is, we have lorries coming every

day, three and four lorries British farmers. They go into the

supermarket. Then they get displayed on the shelf. Who is selling the

fruit, it is the British. That in a nutshell, is the classic case for

what immigrants bring to Britain. Their hard work makes all of us

richer. But it does not look that clear-cut if mass immigration

suddenly comes to your town. This is Sheffield's Page Hall district. It

has hit the headlines thanks to tension caused by in influx of

hundreds of Roma families from Slovakia. Locals complain about

rubbish being dumped in the street, crime and anti-social behaviour. One

Sheffield MP even warned of the dangers of an explosion. It is as if

we have been overtaken. It is out of our control. When Asians moved in we

did not have sofas dumped on the streets, mattresses dumped on the

street, rubbish dumped on the street, televisions dumped on the

street. Some of the things she has highlighted, I don't think the

Pakistani community did that. They did come in large numbers about 30

years ago. My father came here to work. If you got a lot of people

here from Westminster, they say immigration is good for the country,

we all get wealthier. Show me the books. How much do the schools cost,

maternity especially. If I am wrong, it would be a pleasure to eat my

words. Part of the problem is a culture clash. Many Roma have a

tradition of gathering on street corners at night, which some

long-term residents find intimidating. Ivan came here from

Slovakia five years ago. Some people say there will be trouble here

between the Slovaks and everybody else? What is the problem in this

area? Some people don't respect English people. We have respect for

the English people. Please respect English people. But many Roma feel

they have been unfairly demonised. They have come from one of the

poorest communities in Europe, looking for a better life. Here you

can get maybe a job? Job, tax credits, child benefit. Housing

benefit. It is OK, people are happy. Much more than in Slovakia? Yes, it

is good here. Although there are tensions, if you think all the

locals oppose immigration, think again. Most here are proud of the

way immigrants have always blended in. I feel sure if we give time and

these people would come to meetings with us, we could get them to

integrate. It can be a good thing. Immigration can be? Of course it

can, I am not anti-immigration, I am not against anybody. Come here into

an area where the headlines of warned of an explosion between

different racial groups, you would not imagine you would hear people

demanding an end to immigration. But people here know it is a false

choice between immigration good, and immigration bad. They probably know

also, that for years, a grown-up debate about this has proved almost

impossible to have. Impossible, thanks in large part to a single

speech by a single politician, made 45 years ago after the last big wave

of immigration. We must be mad. Literally mad, as a nation. To be

permitting the annual inflow of some 50,000 dependents. The political

elite was completely shocked by the resonance that his speech, rivers of

blood speech had. It is like watching a nation busily engaged in

heaping up its own funeral pyre. Secondly, what he did was to cast

discussion about immigration purely in racial terms. And that is why it

has been difficult to get a proper discussion about immigration for

nearly half a century. For years, the fear of conflict, anger and even

violence held back debate. Those who spoke out found a single phrase

could ignite a political explosion. People are rather afraid this

country might be swamped by people of a different culture. It is

putting fear into people 's minds. She has created more violence.

Political rows often focused on pandering to racism as this poster

graphically shows. If you raise the question of immigration and you are

accused of being racist. There was a deliberate attempt to make it a no

go area. Whether on the right or the left, those who have set out to

limit immigration have found themselves accused of being

inheritors of Enoch Powell's mantel. Immigration was a nightmare. It got

more and more difficult. But now politicians on all sides want to

appear to be getting tough. I think what people have seen is a concern

about the pressures of the number of people coming into the country. It

is those pressures that have led people to feel immigration is an

issue that all additions should be addressing that has not been in the

past. The level and the pace of migration has been too high. It is

important to look at different kinds of migration and the impact they

have as well. One politician claims vindication for daring to go where

others once feared to tread. They tried to say anybody that dared talk

about the subject was a bad person and racist. That is what they tried

to do and this has been going on since Enoch Powell's speech. He was

wrong in the sense that he felt black and white would find it

difficult to mix. But he has been proved to be right because the

numbers coming into Britain have led to segregation, ghettoisation and

significant parts of our cities where people don't even speak

English. Steaming into Southampton harbour is a reminder that Britain

has a long history as a migration nation. Not exactly the Statue of

Liberty, is it? Written does not have a monuments, we don't have the

next script and saying, " bring us your huddled masses". Yet migrants

have settled here, they have prospered and become the new

Britons. Now people are asking if the tide of people coming needs to

be slowed, halted even. They are beginning to ass, is this crowded

island simply full up? In the ten years to 2012, net immigration to

the UK was about 2.5 million people. That influx is roughly equivalent to

ten times the population of Southampton. Like so many cities,

Southampton has been transformed over the past decade. The number

living here who were born abroad has doubled from 20,000, to around

40,000. In one in 12 households, no one speaks English as their main

language. And nowhere illustrates the change more vividly than St

Mark's Primary School. They call themselves an international school,

because only four out of ten of the children are white British. They

speak 42 different languages, including two Zulu dialects. It is

an extra challenges for teachers. But it is a successful school. This

is probably 60% children with additional languages. 60% to 70%?

It's a very, very challenging year group. There are, of course, many

Polish children. So many, in fact, that the school employs

Polish-speaking staff to translate for them.

Demand for places from immigrant families has meant the school's

almost doubled if size in just three years. It's now having to use

temporary classrooms. If somebody said to you this has gone too far,

we can't take this many people, the country's overcrowded how would you

respond? I think it's a tricky question, because I'm not in

Government. As a headteacher I get what comes through the door. We are

full and I think parents coming into the city now need to appreciate that

they can't pick and choose any more. That schools in the city are full to

bursting. That's a warning the local Labour MP

asked his own Government to listen to, even though he says the city's

absorbed immigrants for centuries. Refugees came from France in the

16th century and they lived in a part of town that is still known at

French Street. John Denham wrote to Gordon Brown in 2006 to spell out

how immigration was affecting Southampton. It had an impact in

construction. Wages fell dramatically. In the Health Service

the newer migrants who weren't used to having GPs tended to turn up at

hospitals with minor ailments and colds, so a big impact. In private

housing, it meant a lot of family housing was turned into renting

houses often for several adults at a time. Across the city there was a

sense of rapid change and the community feeling and sounding

different to the way it had done before. The sound of Poland. Listen

to this, Southampton's very own Polish punk show. There are now

8,000 potential listeners in the city. An increase of 30-fold in the

last ten years. One of the presenters Sheple came here -- Shem

came here in 2006. They often say that Polish people have an easy life

and they have benefit and a house. It's not - there are not many

benefit takers. Poelds came here to work, because even if they work for

the lowest wage they have a decent life. Walk in Southampton streets,

it's clear it's not just Kop poles whocked -- -- it's not just Poles

who flocked here, the city's Muslim population has more than doubled.

This city, this country, doesn't look or sound as it once did.

This is the country some remember and some still yearn for. The New

Forest Show takes place just outside Southampton, but it feels a world

away. Opposition to immigration is often rooted in a fear that things

are change g too fast. I wanted to see if people here had an appetite

for the facts. Ladies and gentlemen, can I gather you round? I have a

question to ask you about the country. If I were to ask you how

many immigrants are there in Britain as a proportion of the whole, is it

a half? Is it more than a half, say three quarters? Is it about one

third? Which is it? Who is going to step up first and just tell me what

they think. I'll do the cutting. I think it might be a third. You think

it might be a third. OK. You have that third. Thank you. Sir. You

think? I'll go with the eighth. I think objectively it's not as much

as people think. That's about an eighth. 25%. You think about a

quarter of the British population were brorn abroad, that's what we

mean? A quarter. Anyone want more than that? 75% of the population.

North of Birmingham! You get 75%. That goes in there. There we are.

That's yours. I can now announce the results. Who got closest to the

immigrant population of Britain on our pie chart, Peter Snow eat your

heart out. The answer is well done, Sir, an eighth.

APPLAUSE The immigrant population of the UK

is about 13%. Opinion polls show that most of us overestimate the

numbers and think the answer is one third. Public concern should,

though, not be underestimated. I remember Enoch Powell and I remember

what his words were and I have thought about that all my life. I

wouldn't want to see my more immigration. There's no jobs for

English people. I don't have a problem that anyone that works and

pays their way. My brother studies for ages to get a job and when a

foreign person can come here and walk straight into a job. Those are

views commonly held, but for a long time not listened to. According to

to new research over three quarters of people want immigration to be

cut. It's higher still among those with few qualifications. Well over

half of the population want immigration to be cut by a lot. The

highest figure since the question was first asked in the mid-1990s.

The truth is, anyone who lives here has no clue whether there are ten

million, one million or 1,000 immigrants. Today, of course, what

has happened is there are more of them, we are meeting them as

neighbours. We are meeting them as parents at our school and their

children are sitting next to our children. We are meeting them in the

doctors' surgeries and of course, we are meeting them as competitors for

jobs. It all adds up to an awful lot of change. And that's led to an

awful lot of unease. What's at the root of that public ank site is a

single decision taken here with Westminster with remarkably little

public debate and taken in Downing Street without, it seems, much

thought. In 15 or 100 years time, historians are likely to say it's

among the most significant taken since the Second World War. So what

did they take it? Well, it's a remarkable story, a mixture of good

intentions and wishful thinking and an awful lot of miscalculation. The

story begins with the smashing of the barriers which divided Europe.

After the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 people from the East were free

to move as never before. Britain's Tory government dreamed of them

joining the EU too. Perhaps weakening Brussels at the same time.

One man was in the room for the crucial decisions over the next 20

years. Top Mandarin, Gus O'Donnell. I remember working with Sir John

Major when he was saying we wanted a broader, not a deeperure, so we

wanted to bring in Poland, the central and Eastern European

countries and the truth is that there wasn't an enormous amount of

discussion about what does that mean for the flow of migrants to the UK.

When Labour took power, they were just as keen as welcoming the east.

Tony Blair travelled to Poland to call for EU expansion to grow faster

and wider. Tony Blair took a clear view, didn't he? He did, driven by

the politics of wanting to give a clear message to countries like

Poland, that actually we wanted them in. They're an important country and

close ally and we wanted them playing a full part in Europe. In

2004, Tony Blair got what he wanted. Britain didn't just welcome Poland

and seven other countries into the EU. The British Government took

another dramatic decision to welcome all their people to come here and

work from the very day their countries joined. Unlike the

governments of Germany, France, Italy, indeed most of the EU. One

reason - a massive miscalculation about how many people would come.

One of those who did come was Shemslav. When he's not playing punk

rock on his Polish radio show, he works at a glass blower, making

precision instruments at Southampton University. When Britain opened its

doors to eastern Europeans, it was an opportunity that proved hard to

resist. How many more do you earn as a glass blower here than you would

in Poland? Six times. Six times more? Yep. And that's the standard

of living? I never realised before I come here how difficult the life is

in Poland. I just said, well, that's how it is, how it's supposed to be,

but no, no, it hasn't got to be that way. And there were plenty of people

thinking what he was thinking. Day and night, east European workers

came by plane, boat, and coach-load, all eager to improve their standard

of living. And as their numbers mounted, so too did the political

temperature about letting in so many people so quickly. I raised this

question repeatedly at Prime Minister's questions and I was told

that I was scaremongering. Most other countries have already imposed

controls. Why haven't the British government? It's precisely for that

reason... He said we've had estimates and they were in the low

thousands. That always seemed to be complete nonsense. The Home Office

researchers concluded there was likely to be net migration of about

13,000 people a year looking forward over the following ten years. How

good were those predictions? The predictions were completely

catastrophic. They were wrong by a factor of ten, in other words it

wasn't 13,000, but something like 130,000. A year. About one million

over ten years? Yes. It suits some politicians to blame the

forecasters, for the choice they made to open the door to east

Europeans. In truth, though, the decision had been taken effectively

long before the final forecasts were in. At the time, there was another

priority, how to find the people to fill the jobs in a booming economy.

A new century brought with it renewed belief. We celebrated the

Queen's Golden Jubilee. We spent and spent and spent. Symbols of our new

prosperity sprung up. But worries were rising too. Without more

workers might boom be followed by bust? Did Britain need immigrants to

keep our economy growing? This is the man who gave Tony Blair the

answer to that question. Jonathan PortaS was a economist working at

Number Ten in the year 2000 he and a team of Civil Servants wrote a

report examining the impact of immigration. Published with little

fanfare it helped change the face of Britain. We found that immigrants on

the whole made a positive contribution to the public finances.

Certainly, enabled growth to carry on. It also met the concerns from

quite a lot of businesses that they were face skill shortages in

particular. Was there not also something where business, the

Treasury and the Bank of England were worried that inflation would

take off when growth was high and immigration was a way keeping the

lid on wages? I'm sure the Treasury viewed immigration as potentially

helpful in that way. And big business? And big business. And the

Bank of England? Yes. They welcomed the report's conclusion at the

Treasury. There is little evidence, it said, that native workers are

harmed by migration. Any worries about negative impacts were trumped

by the prospect of real economic benefits.

With hindsight we might have wanted to slow it down but Polish people

filled a gap. So nobody said 70 million people whose income is

averaging a fifth of that in the UK, would not want to come here? That

issue was put, but when they come they will be doing jobs UK people do

not want to do and they will be meeting and filling our skill gap.

So it was not seen as a threat, but an opportunity. Immigration was

supposed to benefit us all, and the better off noticed. They noticed the

cheaper Polish plumber or decorator and enjoyed the new delicatessen and

down the road. But the worse off in society noticed something different,

they thought their job was at risk, they thought their wages were being

undercut and thought their identity was threatened. A big choice had

been made by the politicians. But they had scarcely bothered to

consult the public. Where people told, was the debate specifically

about the decisions on Eastern Europe? We never cease to debate it

in the House of Commons, the Conservatives used to grumble we had

too many immigration bills. We did not spell out words in one syllable

of what was happening, partly because of a fear of racism. The

people of the country were not ass about it or told about it. I don't

think that is the way in which Holler ticks in a democratic company

-- country should be conducted. The public should have been told? Yes.

At the time, ministers were afraid of what they now called the

immigration tinderbox. Ministers now say it was a mistake. We should have

had more of a debate, a sensible response to people's concerns but

also listening to what those concerns were. People were worried

about jobs, wages or the pace of change. And to have that debate

about it rather than simply thinking, we cannot talk about it

for fear that might be the politics of the right. The then Home

Secretary says if East Europeans were not allowed to come here

legally, they would have come anyway. I am unapologetic because if

you don't have legal, managed migration and people don't sign up

to pay national insurance and tax, they work illegally. Although we did

not get everything right about this issue, we were on the side of the

angels. Is Labour right to apologise? Personally I am sceptical

about apologies, other than personal apologies. It debases the currency

of the language. It is right to say we got it wrong and we deeply regret

it. Why do you regret it? It undermines trust in government if

you are that wrong. Mistake or not, this is a policy that unlike most

politicians take, is irreversible. Many immigrants came and then

returned home. But many more like this man, are here to stay. Polls

are blending in. You cannot see them much, they just work. Home, work,

home. They will be Polish to the end of their lives, like I will be, but

my children will be English. The next generation Polish people will

be English. Southampton's festival is proof of Britain's genius for

absorbing immigrants. This is a celebration of the city's Asian

community, which took root when Sikhs came to fight for Britain in

the First World War. Today, those enjoying the music are often the

children and grandchildren of immigrants, a first and foremost

Brits. I don't feel I am in immigrants, this is where my roots

are, my children are here, my family is here. And I have been here are

very, very long time. This festival is also a reminder of something

else. Even in the last decade, mass immigration did not only come from

Eastern Europe. In fact, more than half came from outside the EU. The

concern is here also, the British Social Attitudes Survey showed 60%

of first and second generation immigrants want to see a cut in the

numbers following them here. I don't think it is therefore the locals who

have established themselves and are trying to set up as Mrs, trying to

work, with somebody coming over from Eastern Europe or any part of the

world and setting up a similar and rival business and undercutting

them. And that is from my own business. The frustrating thing

about it, our communities, our British-born cannot get jobs. The

Eastern European communities can get the job. It is causing great

faculties in Southampton. The worries here, as in many parts of

Britain, are real. No wonder politicians feel they have two act.

-- to act. After the huge flows of people in recent years after the

mistakes and miscalculations, a promise from a politician was

unlikely to convince voters immigration was finally coming under

control. David Cameron came up with the idea of something more concrete,

more tangible, more measurable. A target to cut net migration from

hundreds of thousands a year to tens of thousands. A cut of well over a

half. Easy to say, harder, as it turns out, to deliver. Here is one

way they are trying to hit that target. These are the pictures the

government wants you to see. A crackdown. A raid on rough sleepers

in central London carried out by immigration officers looking for

those here illegally who can be sent home. Hello, mate. We are

immigration officers. What nationality are you? Slovakian. What

is your name? Have you been in the UK long, Jack? If migrants have no

prospect of income or work, they cannot stay wherever they come from.

Until recently, seems like this were unthinkable. Officers left Eastern

European is alone, but not now. Do you want to go back home? Now I

don't. It is a raft of initiatives to reassure voters the rules are

being implemented and tightened. But it is not enough to ensure the

government gets net migration below it 100,000 target. The latest

figures were not far off double that. How likely is it the

government can meet its net migration target? That remains are

aimed by the end of the Parliament. Can we meet it? My job is to look at

every aspect of immigration and make sure we are making the changes we

need to do. In reality aren't you saying to the country, if, maybe,

perhaps? If we are lucky we might meet the target? I don't want to

predict what we will do. That is my target and I want to get on with the

job of working towards that target. The government's target is in

truth, a funny sort of target. It includes all sorts of things

ministers simply cannot control. First of all, people coming here

from the EU. Anyone can come from any country, it is their legal white

and our legal right to live where we choose. This target is for what is

called net migration, the difference between two very big numbers. The

number of people coming into the country and the number choosing to

leave these shores. The bizarre thing, is that if people stop

choosing to lose Britain, the figure for net migration goes up, the

government misses its target. And with so much beyond the

government's control, it is hardly surprising it is proving difficult

to hit. Even some members of the Cabinet have little faith in it.

Setting and arbitrate is not helpful. It will not achieve the

below 100,000 level the Conservatives are setting anyway.

The government's target is a nonsense then isn't it? I would not

use the word nonsense, but the idea it should come down to 100,000 is

something the Liberal Democrats have never signed up to because we know

it isn't practical. Another truth about immigration politicians have

kept to themselves, their scope for decisive action is limited. Given

they cannot control everything, ministers end up looking for things

they can target, and they often come with a catch. Take students from

overseas, people coming here to study made up the biggest share of

the immigration statistics until the recent crack down. Fewer overseas

students equals less immigration, equals success. Or does it? Not if

you are a top university like Southampton.

A quarter of the students here are from overseas. They pay higher fees

and British students, helping universities to cope with funding

cuts. And they bring much-needed foreign cash into Britain, higher

education is a great British exports. But the student Visa system

was being abused by applications for bogus colleges. The reason for this

interview is to ask questions about your student application. The

government are trying to weed out people who are really coming here to

work. Why did you decide to come to the UK to study? This centre opened

last spring and has vetted about 100,000 applicants around the world.

In theory, those pretending to be students are vetoed, real scholars

are approved. What will you do at the end of your cause? I will come

back to my country to look for a job. Schools and phantom colleges

have closed. Over, applications study at further education colleges

have almost halved. That is the end of the interview, so you are free to

leave. But leading universities are worried. They fear the Visa crack

down has sent out a disastrous message, that if you are a foreign

students, Britain does not really want you. It is quite damaging and

could have long-term reputational effects for the UK and higher

education as a whole. Potential students are saying to you, we are

not sure we welcome? Absolutely. It is beginning to feel like the

British don't really want students there and we don't understand why.

It is not just a problem for them and universities, it is a problem

for you and me. Foreign students don't just come here to study, they

often stay and create wealth, or go home and are a link with growing

economies. The government's immigration clamp-down has led to

applications plummeting from some of the world's powerhouses, like India.

Thousands of Indians are not coming to Britain to study at university,

who would be. They are going to France and America, is this bad for

the British economy? The overall number of foreign students has gone

up. We have all been saying universities are saying, we do want

to see the brightest and the best coming here and students coming here

genuinely to study. But as so often with immigration there are no simple

answers. The downside of cracking down on the number of foreign

students has pitted one minister against another. This is a type of

immigration and is one of the largest categories of immigration is

which is very good for the UK economy and indeed for universities

in general. The fact there was a big drop in the number of Indian

students is bad for Britain and the economy? Almost certainly so. The

idea of stopping bogus students whilst only allowing in people who

are serious about getting the qualification is the sort of idea

most people would agree on over a coffee or their Saturday night

curry. So to the idea of allowing those in with high skills or

blocking those with low or no skills at all. It is popular, and sound

easy enough, but in truth it is anything but, which takes us back to

that curry. Meet the nation's curry king. Born in Bangladesh, this man

is a man who loves Britain and has made it his life's work to persuade

his adoptive homeland to love curry just as much. It's not vindaloo here

washed down with a pint of lager. You call this British curry? Yes.

Rather than Indian? Absolutely. It's British curry because of the way

it's presented, the way all the process is done. It's regarded as a

British kauRy. British cuisine. -- curry. British cuisine. He calls it

British, but it's cooked by foreign shelves, who like him come from

Bangladesh. There's a crisis simmering here and in the kitchens

of the nation's curry houses. Under new immigration rules, work permits

are only given to those classified as highly skilled, earning about

?30,000 a year and who can speak English. In Bangladesh you apply for

and advertise in the newspaper and you interview them and you apply

them. Because? Because his English may be weak or the certificate is

provided and it's not good. Does it matter whether chefs can speak

English? Yes, that's what they're saying. Does it matter to you? No,

because I'm looking for someone who can cook curry. I'm not looking for

someone to come into the kitchen lecturing English. He's not above a

bit of lecturing himself. He founded the British Curry Awards, the Oscars

of this hot and spicy industry and yes, curry is an industry, with a

turnover of ?4.5 billion a year and it employs 72,000 people. An

industry under threat. Tory-supporting Enam tells his guest

of honour. I look forward to working closely with the Government on the

issue that affected our industry, the industry that we are celebrating

tonight. I know there have been questions on immigration and getting

chefs with the necessary experience. So, let me promise you think - we'll

work through this together. We'll continue to help you to get the

skilled Asian chefs that you need and we will also work with you to

train up the next generation of home-grown chefs, backing pup... It

may sound smoothing but the real message was blunt, stop relying on

foreign chefs and train some born in Britain. But even in the shadow of

Brick Lane, London's curry mile, it's clear that won't be easy. This

is where thousands of Bangladeshis and other immigrants have settled,

and where many struggle to find work. This centre helps young people

into jobs, but few want to do what their parents often strife to

escape. Working in the restaurant is degrading. If you work in a

restaurant you get looked down on? From the community. Why? Because you

can do more than working in the restaurant. Work ing in a restaurant

seems like a low job? Yes. If my son was to say he works in a restaurant,

regardless of how glamorous being a chef can be, it's frowned upon

because you should be aiming for an accountancy job or law job or even

things like the media, which isn't so common. It's not frowned upon,

because it's got a title. If Brits don't want to learn to cook curry,

either chefs' wages will go up and with them the price of your meal, or

we may need more immigrants after all. This, though, is about much

more than cooking. To get the best designers, programmers and

scientists, we may need to bring in workers from all over the world, or

should we listen to those worried about the imfact of immigration? We

will be shooting ourselves in the foot if we actually restrict one of

the main sources of growth, which is to allow migrants in, who are

innovative and who bring skills that we haven't otherwise got. I can

imagine someone listening to this and saying, "It's all right for

you." They could say, "It's my child not getting a job or whose wages are

depressed. It's all right for the establishment to tell me open the

borders, but it's us that gets hurt." I would say what I want for

your child is for your child to have a prosperous and good education and

to come up and grow up in a society that creates great opportunities for

them. We do need to be open. Yes, it will be more competitive, but that's

the world we're in. You can't hide way from that. When it comes to

debating immigration, economics has pretty much always trumped politics.

The consensus here has been however anxious some people may get,

immigration has made us all richer. The people who come here have tended

to work hard and pay taxes and you know what, to claim rather less in

benefits. Yet that idea is now coming under attack. Not just in

Westminster, but in the country as a whole. As a result, there is a

mighty struggle ensuing about which approach is right for Britain's

future. Back at the New Forest Show, time to quiz the public. What price

would they pay to cut immigration? Britain's official economic

forecasters say less immigration means more cost for the rest of us.

The Office for Budget Responsibility says if you cut immigration it will

take us longer to pay the national debt off. If it meant higher taxes

in order to cut immigration will you pay? I would pay, yes. You want to

see a cut? Yes. You need to give me some money. Why do you feel all that

strongly? I think it should have been curbed 30 years ago. Is the

credit card easier? Now, this may be unscientific research, but one

political leader echoes those views. Are you saying, "I accept, we could

be poorer, but so be it." ? I don't want to live in a country who's

population is heading to 75 million people. There are some things in a

society and community that matter more than just money, quality of

life, overcrowded Britain, lack of social housing. Youth unemployment.

These are real issues. Almost certainly there would be an economic

price to play if immigration controls were applied in very harsh

ways. Of course, there would be control and you need to balance the

social consequences, but we do need a certain kind of immigrants for the

British economy. Many of the public simply don't accept that. According

to the British social attitude survey, almost half of us think

imbraGS is bad for the -- immigration is bad for the economy.

That has dropped in recent years. Those who think it's good number

31%. Even half of them still want to see immigration cut. Some

politicians at Westminster have clocked that and they're changing

tack. Both Labour and the Tories now argue immigration's good for some,

but not for all. I think the problem in the past has been this general

assumption that immigration was always good for the economy. I don't

think people have looked at it sufficiently closely to be able to

recognise the impact it has on members of the public. The real

difference in our approach now is to say, look at the different impact

and make sure that it's fair, because actually it hasn't been fair

on the impact it's had on different parts of the population. But the

economists insist that our leaders should be brave enough to tell us

the brutal truth. Even if it does hurt some, immigration is good for

most of us. Are you saying politicians need to be blunter with

people and say, "You're right. You may have to cut your wages and you

may even lose your job, but overall Britain's better off and you're

going to have to live with that." ? I think that's correct. If we say

that on average immigration makes us more prosperous then politicians do

have to say to individuals who are negatively effected, and there will

be some, "Yes, we are doing this for the good of the country and you may

lose out, but ultimately we have to do this." Just as we said to the

coal miners 30 years ago, "Sorry, we can get the coal cheaper abroad and

can't afford to keep on propping you up." Broadly, I'm afraid, I think

it's probably the riT thing to do. -- right thing to do. No matter

where you look, there are stark chooses between hard-nose economics

and the politics of listening to the public's worries. The latest

battlefield is over EU immigration. Remember those fruit pickers in

Kent? The Bulgarians and Romanians who filled the fields are now free

to take any job, anywhere in Britain and to stay as long as they like.

Their boss wants to be able to look elsewhere to replace them. In order

to stay in business I need a core workforce that's going to turn up.

If you're not getting them if Bulgaria and Romania, where will you

get them from? We've had them from Belarus and Russia and the sort of

countries around the fringes of the EU. But the Government's got other

ideas. It's scrapping the scheme that gives work permits to foreign

agricultural workers. Was more, David Cameron says he wants to cap

the numbers who can come here from within the E. At the moment that

would be illegal. The Government would have to persuade other

countries to tear up one of the EU's founding principles. I think we need

to look at the question of when new countries come in of what is right

to say to them about when they can have full access to that free

movement concept. If the rest of Europe says forget it, isn't it the

case if there's no change in the rules of the EU, there's precious

little you can do to control overall numbers and the E you gets bigger --

EU gets bigger? I've been talking about this for three-and-a-half

years since I've been Home Secretary and opposite numbers across the

union are saying there's an issue and we need to do something about

it. But any attempt to limit the number of immigrants coming from

poorer countries could spell trouble for this business. I think what will

happen in the UK, the very labour intensive horticultural jobs would

probably go abroad. Simple, if you can't get new immigrants to work the

fields, strawberries will be grown somewhere else? Yeah. Strawberries,

curries, students, all pose difficult choices for policy makers.

As pour Romanians and Bulgarians arrive here, the argument over

immigration will only hot up. For years, in Britain, we have

perhaps failed to properly discuss the downsides of people heading to

our shores. Are we now in danger of ignore the upsides? The truth about

immigration is that it's a debate that's scarcely been had. An

argument that's been feared and a series of choices made largely in

private. Few would now defend the huge increase in numbers, which has

come in in the last few years. Few, though, would admit that there are

real limits on the controls that any government can have, or to concede

that there are costs as well as benefits. That's in trying to shut

the door. Perhaps it's now time for that frank, honest and open

discussion we've really never had.