What would Brexit mean for immigration? Newsnight

Migration is one of the most fraught issues in this referendum campaign.

We're here in the bustling market town of Boston in Lincolnshire,

an immigration hot spot, to ask, is it time to leave

the EU and get control over who can live here?

We have members of the public, 'S experts and politicians to help

us negotiate our way through the issue.

We'll ask, what are the prospects for population, if we stay

in with free movement of EU citizens?

And here in Boston, what has been the effect of migration so far?

Hello, welcome to St Botolph's church, they call it a church,

It's the biggest parish church in England, known

We're guests here for the next hour, as we try to get our heads

This is the fourth of our Newsnight specials on the main referendum

issues, and we've come here for this one, as it is a town that has

seen its population grow with central and east European

migrants attracted by local jobs in agriculture

A bigger proportion of east Europeans than

According to a new national poll from Ipsos Mori,

immigration is ranked as "very important" in this referendum by

48% of the population, that puts it almost level

with sovereignty and a little behind the economy in the rankings.

Two-thirds of us believe, that if we leave the EU,

Here in Boston, the effect of EU migration has been dramatic,

We'll look at both with our two politicians.

For Brexit, Conservative MP Kwasi Kwarteng.

Labour MP, former minister in the Home Office in

We also have experts and those with important

And we have an audience too - some have been regulars

But we have quite a number of people from this area.

I thought we might start with comments from the audience.

A quick show of hands, how many of you think immigration has gone too

far? How many of you don't feel immigration has gone too far. So

perhaps a few more of you think it has. Let's get some of the effects

it has had in and around Austen. Angie Cook, what has your experience

been with the arrival of so much New Labour in the town. I used to have

an HGV drivers agency and pay a fair wage until another company in the

Spalding area brought in immigrant drivers and they pay the minimum

wage. They put them up in caravan sites. Or they have to pay for their

living is ?35 a week to live in the caravan, plus food. Our drivers

cannot compete with that. If our workers are on minimum wage, at the

same as what the immigrant workers are, they live in these caravans and

paid the minimum amount. We have to pay council tax, wrens, childcare

costs out of the same money. Your business has now gone? I don't do

the driving agency any more. What do you do now? I run a temperature

control career business. Darren Bevan, what has been your effect of

migration in this area? From our perspective, it has been a positive

one. Food processing? Yes, I work for a business just outside of

Austen. We have been around for about 15 years, make a contribution

to employment and we do employ a large amount of migrant workers. It

will be great but you because it has pushed the rates down. It allows us

to be competitive within our business arena. And in any business,

the objective is to be competitive in your business arena, yes. I know

we have some central and Eastern European is here. What are you doing

here? I came to Boston and started teaching at Boston College. I teach

English. I happen to teach both, migrants and also native students. I

don't have a lot of experience with migrant employment, but I am very

close to the problems migrant people have, but they encounter in their

daily life. I talked to my students and they do comment a lot. There has

been a lot of concern about the pressure on public services, schools

and hospitals. We will hear more about that through the programme.

Caroline, I know you have been a head teacher, what is your

experience because you must have lots of peoples who come into the

school who don't have English as their first language? My school is

in Grantham and we have a lot of migrants in the school population

and we find they integrate very well with the strong pastoral support

system. We do feel the RAF base feeds our school population as well.

As regards education, as long as there is strong and robust pastoral

systems and partnerships at every level, we have found the Eastern

European is add another dimensional to the school. What do they add, I

can see you can deal with the problems of language. Cultural

aspects, work ethic and their parents contribute as well as the

students. They are very much part of the community, as all students are.

All students add different dimensions to academies, and that is

the way it should be. They all contribute and have a lot to learn.

And with a robust Pastoral system, transition allows students to settle

in very well and they achieve a lot. Some of the themes we will pick up

on as we talked through the issue. And we'll get more comments

from the audience too. I should say there is also

a Newsnight live blog, it will have lots of extra material

and even potentially some fact clarifications

as the programme progresses. You can find it at

bbc.co.uk/newsnight. But why is migration

an issue at all? The story of the EU

is one of two halves. When we last voted on membership

in 1975, the nine member states had But since then, the EU has

tripled its membership, and brought in countries

with far lower wages, That has created an incentive

for inward economic migration on a scale this island has not seen

since it was cut off from the continent by

the English channel. Our policy editor Chris Cook has

been out and about in Boston, Boston has been transformed

by immigration. It is not just the mass

of East European shops, it is not just the local agriculture

and food processing industries who thrive on workers supplied

by local employment agencies. And it is a change

that divides opinion. I think the community has

lost its Lincolnshireness. It should be again a good story

for Boston because in fact We have had to create extra school

places, we have had to expand schools, and we have had to build

new schools and open free schools. Let's take a step back though,

and look at the national picture. Total EU immigration was running

at about 100,000 people a year until 2004, when it rose as a group

of Eastern European countries Annual EU immigration is now a bit

under 300,000 people a year. Now EU immigration is less than half

of total immigration, Net immigration is about half

of those totals. Now some of those East Europeans

come here temporarily, living in cramped

housing and saving up. So what do academics

make of these flows? Well, they're usually quite

positive. Well, we have done a study which now

dates back some years, we're looking at the period

between 1997 and 2005. And over that period what we found

was that immigration held back wages at the very low end

of wage distribution. On the other hand, that impact

was very, very small. It did increase wages further up

the distribution and on average the impact of migration on wages

was actually positive. From the evidence we have

from the study which dates back a little bit further,

we found basically very little evidence that immigration has

done anything in terms Boston's experience of EU

migration is very extreme. Here in the town in the 2011 census

they found 13% of the local population came from

elsewhere in the EU. What that means is that all of those

migration effect are really dialled For example, we know that migrants

have powered big changes We know that better off people

have done even better. But there has also been a squeeze

on lower income people and it has come in the form of their living

standards, not unemployment. This Labour councillor says changes

to the local economy has Historically, we grew

the vegetables, people came There has always been more work

than could be done by local people. You would have people arriving

in white vans you know, at four in the morning and before that,

you would have itinerant Irish So there has always been

the need for extra work. But in those days the vegetables

were picked, the workers went home at four o'clock and the vegetables

left Boston with them. What has happened now

is there is much more processing of food going on and in truth

lots of vegetables are actually being brought in from Europe

to be processed here. And also technology has

extended the farming season, so really now harvesting takes place

for ten months of the year. Immigration has also had

a big demographic side-effect. Walking around Boston,

one thing is quite clear. It is actually quite a young town,

even when you take account of the fact that we are here

on the week of the May fair. When you look at who immigrants are,

one of the very striking things So for example, here is a graph

showing the age distribution It was taken through the annual

population survey, a big What you can see is the huge swell

of them in their early 30s. In fact, if you take people

who are the same age as me, 33, across the whole of the UK,

a full 5% of them were actually This local Ukip councillor says that

an influx of young people has Unfortunately now we're

in a situation whereby we have a lot of young men and this

brings its own problems. Alcohol, of course, causes

many, many problems. And it means they do disrespectful

things in public where And then likewise, it means there's

fighting and such problems Immigration has had other

effects as well. Well, the main effects have been it

has driven down wages, we have some of the lowest

wages in the country, The average wage for an adult

working full-time is only just And that is before the new living

wage, that is last year's figures, And rents are some of the highest

in the East Midlands. You have got in Nottingham

about ?480 a month to rent a house. There's also a local problem

with family homes being used to house large

numbers of single people. If you are a less scrupulous

landlord you can get a three-bedroom house,

change the living room and the dining room into bedrooms,

nothing in law stops you doing that. Two people in each room,

ten persons in the house, ?60 each week, ?600 a week rent

coming in and ?2400 a month. And that is more than the average

family earns in a month. So there's no way an average family,

whether they were born in Boston or come here

as a family from Europe, So how many different

languages have we got? We've got English, we've got one

Polish, we've got two Portuguese. Left to their own devices,

young people often make In 2014, 11% of children born

in the UK had at least one parent The figure for where both parents

are EU migrants is over 5%. Whose parents were not born

in England, they were born

in another country? This headteacher runs a chain

of local schools with a large In the secondary sector, 36%

are of Eastern European community. In one of our other primaries

it is 42%. But if you go in to nursery,

73% of children are not English. More children obviously

need more school places. And that demand wave in Boston

will soon hit secondaries. Lots of these children

also get public money Fortunately, we do get additional

funding for children who arrive in this country not

speaking English. A child that has not been

in in the country for three years, we would attract an additional

thousand pounds per child. In our trust that equates to around

?375,000 a year additional funding. Now, with that, we can appoint

specialist staff who can Now, EU immigrants as a group

are unusual in a way you might not expect from the type of work

that they do. So immigrants to this country

and in particular from Europe They are better educated

than the average UK worker. However, that does not mean

that they necessarily work from the very start

of their migration history They very often downgrade

because they're downgrading, they are working jobs

which are below their observed Because they need some skills

which are complimentary Such as for instance

language skills. They acquire these skills and then

they very quickly upgrade to those jobs which are more in line

with the education Well this is the traditional

game in Latvia. Indeed, lots of those who lack

English skills have This local Latvian community leader

has been trying to stop them It would be better to stop people

coming in who don't speak English, it is better for them and safer

for us as well. Those living in this

country quite a long time. Because two years ago they opened

the doors for new countries and these people came two years ago

and now they're actually working Some of these people working

for ?3.50 an hour, that is illegal. And this again, exploitation

is just going on. We are here ten years now,

they opened the doors for Lithuania, Latvia and Poland and we have been

exploited when we came here. Local authorities can act

on some problems. We have managed to get two grants

from government to run The first one went for a year,

we inspected over 240 properties and issued over 280 enforcement

notices, so some properties had Four of the properties

as I understand it were not actually And we actually found some

properties where people were being forced to live

in wooden sheds. Others though, think we should call

time on our EU membership. I feel that our country

is becoming overwhelmed. We are only a small island,

although I do believe But I do think we need very

seriously to have our borders back. There is a hard question

for the Leave campaign Would immigration actually

be lower post Brexit? It is certainly the case that

if we were to leave the European Union,

we would have an opportunity What we cannot say though,

is what that immigration So for example, it is quite

plausible that a future British Government would cut a trade

deal with the EU to get market access to that big market and part

of the price of that would be much the same migration conditions

as we have right now. Few other towns, or their annual

fairs, have been so But few also face such congestion,

or pressure on living standards. So the effects of migration are more

nuanced and much harder to spot. Well we can now look at our

experience of EU migration. David Hanson to start with you for the

Remain side. Do you like free movement in Europe or are you

someone who says free movement is just a price we have Depay to be in

a good thing, the EU? Free movement I think has good value but the

greatest value from me is the fact that we have access to a market of

500 million people. Where we can sell goods, we can import and export

goods, and I have constituents who make planes in France as well as

constituents who make planes in the UK. The people doing business across

the whole of the EU. Everyone says the rest of Europe says if you want

to be in the single market you've got to go with the free movement of

people. But let's suppose the EU said look you do not need

pre-movement, would you say the best immigration policy is one that says

anyone from the EU can come in and we are quite selective, about people

outside the EU. I would put caveats on the EU movement, there has been

some agreement with the Conservative government on the issue of whether,

people paying in before the draw out. Issues were raised in the film

about undercutting wages for example, about housing, and I

propose motions in the last Parliament to enforce minimum wage,

to stop gang masters and enforce housing regulations. So I think

there is free movement and we should not forget there are 1.2 million

British people who live in mainland Europe. I'm still not 100% clear as

to whether you actually think that is a good thing in itself whether

that is just something you have got to put up with. This is part of my

genuine attachment to the issue at my grandfather had free movement in

Europe, he went to fight Germans in World War I. My uncle died in World

War II. Premy that was free movement but not free movement in a positive

economic market of 500 million people. That is what I think is that

prize in this. 500 million people in a big market. You think that the EU

made a mistake, this is perhaps of relevance to Boston, Debbie EU make

a mistake because it always said it wanted free movement as part of the

package early on. 2004 suddenly changed massively and became to

different sections. The poor low-income part and the high income

part. That is right, I was an officer at the time, not the Home

Office but in others at the time and they should be brought transitional

approaches to that. Even now we have a situation whereby income levels

are desperate. But ultimately again, I entered Parliament 24 years ago,

we had the eastern European states under Russian rule. We had a lack of

looking outwards to the west, no open markets there. Come back in 20

or 30 years and we will see Eastern Europe rising in terms of its

economic austerity, it will be part of a wider market with us and

creating jobs not just here in the UK but also in Eastern Europe. For

me that a surprise that we have got to work for and fight for. We cannot

walk away from it on the 24th of June. If the Prime Minister had been

able to negotiate as perhaps the wanted to, if he had to negotiate an

emergency brake, would you support the idea of that? I think the Prime

Minister wanted to have a positive recommendation so his expectations I

think were quite low in terms of what he was seeking in the

negotiations. What I want to see is where still not part of the Schengen

Agreement, labour and the Conservatives do not believe that we

should be part of that. We are an island, we have strong border

control now. In my view, and I was the Home Office minster, we now have

strong border control. What we do have is free movement and I would

say to people there are people here from eastern Europe, 1.2 million

British people in mainland Europe. If we leave the EU gives me an

answer as to what happens to those people who currently live on

mainland Europe. Let me ask that question, but before that, are you

glad the central and eastern Europeans came to the UK and

contributed? It would be wrong to say there were no benefits. What I

would say, there was a huge scale and the biggest immigration we have

had since the UK left the continent and the English Channel was formed

thousands of years ago. I am the product of immigrants, my parents

came from West Africa in the early 1960s and I recognised the benefits

of migration. But in the last ten years you have a scale and magnitude

we have never seen before and I think the internal institutions of

the country, my own constituency, school places, it is a difficult

issue. The other thing is that the EU changed, at the beginning the

countries of the EU were roughly comparable in terms of their

economic status, their GDP. When you have a situation with Eastern

European accession countries who threw no fault of their own, you

looking at minimum wage rates of ?1 in Bulgaria and ?2 an hour in

Poland, and our minimum wage is now ?7 and going up to ?9 and more by

2020, you do not need an economics degree to work out there are huge

incentives for a lot of people to the UK and that process is verging

on uncontrollable. Even with hindsight tummy watcher immigration

policy with regards to the eastern and central European countries,

Europe idealise policy if you had been allowed to set that, what would

it have been in 2004? Well David himself could well that they needed

to be transition. If you read the accounts of Labour politicians that

the time... What with the right number have been? In 2010 when I was

first elected to Parliament, the Conservative Party manifesto said it

would reduce immigration to tens of thousands. That was a clear

manifesto commitment that we have not reached. The reason why is

because largely because of EU membership. You have not got to that

on the non-EU migration. You cannot blame the EU, you're not even close.

If you had no migration from the EU you would not be close to that

target. So how can you blame the EU for that target? You would

acknowledge that there are two portions, the non-EU bid and the EU

bid. If we were to leave the EU we would be able to have some control

of that. Then we can worry about the other bit as you say. The other bit

is aware, it is a points system, much more regulated, people are

coming in that effectively we can choose for us but free movement of

people we do not have a choice. That is the fundamental difference. Let

me introduce a couple of people, to local people with professional

experience of the effects of rabbit population growth.

Alyson Buxton is the rector for the Parish of Boston.

And Rohini Deshmukh, a GP in Boston until

Alyson Buxton, we have heard of the talk of the cultural difficulties.

The demographic of young, single men coming into the town in large

numbers. What has been your experience? It is interesting that

we are here who was the patron saint of travellers and wayfarers. We know

people have visited the sometime here. But the percentage has

increased. As a church, what is important is we try to be at the

centre. We come at it in a different way. It is about dignity. Any vote

for instance, for me is not necessarily just about what I feel

is best for me. It is about what is best for common humanity, what is

best for the poor and what is best for the marginalised. We are in the

very centre of that. We find in this very church, it isn't just about

Sunday, it is about every single day of the week. Even if we think about

our votive stands and how they are used. We buy about 15,000 votive

Stans a year. Sorry, candles. What you are saying is, because the

numbers coming in have been boosted by... The church is central and the

church is being used... There has been change in the community,

without a doubt. Rohini Deshmukh, you are a GP. Answer the question

because a lot of people say it puts pressure on medical services. Did

you find yourself with too much to do because of the population growth?

Absolutely, there is no doubt the numbers went up. Having problems

anyway with coping with what we are dealing with, the numbers. With no

infrastructure or no mechanism put in to cope with that, you have to

take patients in because they are in your locality. It is unethical not

to register patients, just because you cannot cope. There was a time

when people were saying, an interesting thing about migrants,

particularly polls and others, they are young men who don't tend to be

big users of the health service, not a population of elderly people. Was

that your experience? It is not 100% true. Everybody needs medical aid

and the problem with that is, apart from them going to GPs, I know it is

a diversion, I am a GP, but the hospital A get flooded with these

people because they don't get time. They are so strict with them,

getting time off with sick leave or whatever, they don't get that so

they go to A and present themselves there. Was there a

mistake made, when we saw the numbers coming in, in providing the

infrastructure, let's call it? There was a migration fund established in

2008 by the then Labour government. Lincolnshire in 2009, 2010 had

almost ?1 million for that. The current government abolished the

fund in 2011. We are in Boston and there are pressures and I recognise

them. In my constituency, similar things are happening. We should look

at how we can support languages and health services. There are 100,000

people from Eastern Europe and mainland Europe who work in the

health service currently in the United Kingdom. Let's go to the

audience. Who would like to make a comment about this point of

infrastructure, gentlemen in the front in the blue shirt? I am a

foreigner myself, I am from Yorkshire. But the infrastructure is

very poor and it cannot cope. I am a health visitor and the two years

working in Boston, finishing in December. Half of the newborn babies

were from Lithuania or Poland. I do think immigration should be

controlled. However, I am surprised to the attitude because I have met a

lot of Polish people and they are the warmest, friendless and hardest

working people. APPLAUSE

Take the gentleman there and then we will go to the lady. The point I

would like to make is on a wider scale, we are a sovereign nation

state and it is up to us to decide how many people come into our

country. It may be one person a year, it may be 1 million. But it is

up to us as at country to decide not to have these open borders. We

cannot cope with 300,000 people coming in every year. Where do they

go and how do the services look after them? So we had to take

control of this. APPLAUSE

The lady in the purple top. I am an Lincolnshire County Council. My

residents are complaining bitterly so much about how our Jack has been

put under stress. One of the issues is policing, visible policing. The

migrants have been given a special police officer. That is special

treatment and it costs money. It costs ?350,000 per annum for

interpreters for Lincolnshire Police. We're not getting any extra

money for this and it is depriving our residents, who have been here,

pay taxes for years, of the visible policing they wish for because

resources are being put elsewhere because of the strain of the

migrants. You are Ukip counsellor? I am a Ukip County Council and we are

a growing force here because we are being ignored because the

politicians and the establishment don't take any notice of what is

going on. APPLAUSE

Just a show of hands, how many people feel you will have been

better disposed to immigration if more money and more resorts is what

put forward to cope with the bottlenecks and stresses caused by

it? How many feel those stresses and thinks... How many of you feel that

is not really the problem. This gentleman over here. You have got to

control the numbers coming in. You talk about a shortage of housing and

school places, hospitals and Doc is. It is obvious coming you have 300

thousand minimum coming into the country. That is not counting the

illegal immigrants and those that come across the tunnel and given

hotel places. It is not about putting more money into the health

service to cope? You cannot keep pouring money into an open pit.

While you have got 300,000 people coming in a year, you will never

control anything. I want to bring in two

national figures now. Harriet Sergeant, who's written two

reports on immigration And also here, Jonathan Portes

of the National Institute An economist, he is quite an expert

on migration, and produced a report today on Brexit,

migration and the economy. Jonathan, economist are mildly in

favour of immigration, they don't exaggerate the benefits. But what

was your report's central conclusion? You heard a lot of

concern about public services. Let's be clear, more people means more

demands on public services, school places, more demands on GPs. But,

migrants also pay taxes. Especially migrants from Europe. Because they

are more likely to be in work, much more likely to be of working age. We

spend most of the money the welfare state spends goes on old people and

to some extent, to the kids. It doesn't go on people of working age.

What our analysis suggests, as does that of many others, migrants, on

average, especially European migrants, pay in more than they take

out. We should be clear on this, at least on a national level. If you

want lower migration, then I think leaving the EU will mean we can end

freedom of movement and it will mean we can reduce migration, not to the

tens of thousands, even reducing migration from the EU, we could

reduce it, but the cost would be either higher taxes or worse public

services. We would lose more money from the taxes the migrants who

weren't here, wouldn't be paying than we would save. Wait, the

microphone is not new. That is not true. 75% of migrants go into

low-paid jobs. That means they are getting housing benefit, getting tax

credits, getting child benefit. We are in this extraordinary position

where we are subsidising migrants to take low-paid jobs and we are

sidelining of the people who could have been doing those jobs. So they

are not paying in more. They are simply not paying more tax, we are

subsidising their jobs. One of you is right, one of you is wrong. BBC

graph... That is wrong, Harriet. I would

On that basis you could have 100 million migrants from China who

would be economically productive and would bring huge benefits. There is

financial activity which the numbers bring an personal finance, how that

benefits people individually. As we have seen it just does not. Mostly

the poorest in society suffer from migration. In a word, if I told you

there is a small cost, call it a penny on the basic rate of income

tax, as a result of reducing migration, would you still do it? It

depends on the numbers. You said my case was preposterous, 100 million.

It is all about the numbers. Let's pause for a moment. We have been

talking about the effect of migration to date. What happens if

things carry on as they are? The population of the UK right now

is fast approaching 66 million. Now, the clever folks at the Office

for National Statistics make projections as to how

that will grow. Based on what they think

are sensible assumptions. By 2027 we are projected to reach

70 million and we get That is when a 20-year-old

today reaches 64. Half the growth is down

to net migration. Britain becomes Europe's

most populous country in the official projections,

comfortably exceeding Germany. There's even an official projection

for the borough of Boston. It sees the population of 68,000

grow by 500 a year for England is already one of the most

densely populated nations of Europe. How easy will it be to create homes,

roads, power stations and water supplies for a population

on the projected scale? As I said in that graphic,

those projections are official, but they are not meant

to be reliable forecasts. They are just projections

based on assumptions Maybe the economies of eastern

Europe will grow, and people Or maybe Turkey will join

and there will be many David Hanson, the projections show

80 million in 2016. Are you comfortable with that? I do not

believe we will get to 80 million. The key question is a economy has

got to be able to sustain that. Therefore if there is economic

growth, and jobs being created, there will be people who have got to

do that work. Not just in Boston but in different parts of the country.

You can see if it is 1 million, 2 million, the maths could work out

but 80 million, when you get to 80 million, do you think the quality of

life would improve if we built the roads and houses, are you convinced

that quality of life would improve? I think they go hand-in-hand. We

will have a natural limit at some point, I cannot project what it will

be. For me the question is how do we ensure that we have economic growth

because that is what is important. Sometimes that means skills

shortages. If someone wanted to come from Italy and set up a business

here in Boston, would we say you cannot come because we do not have

the infrastructure. I think with got to look at how we encourage economic

growth across the whole of Europe. That will ultimately include the

eastern European countries, even the lower part of Italy where there are

more economic growth because ultimately the economic success of

the 500 million people in Europe depends on all of us. At the moment

they're just exporting their unemployed young people to us. Do

those official projections, you think that they will happen? I think

the projections are likely to stop 35 years ago the senses of

population was 56 million, today around 65. Some people say 67 or 68.

I think 80 million, just another 12 million, is easily achievable and

easily something under the influx of immigration that we have had that

could be reached. I do not understand why David is so clear

that it will not happen. The point is, it is a waste of time speaking

of numbers but the point is we have no control over numbers. If the

whole of Greece if it collapsed tomorrow, which could be possible,

the whole of Greece could move here. There is nothing stopping the

numbers. Nothing. But the whole of Greece is not going to move here.

You with a party that told us know when from, that's 30,000 Polish

people were going to come if that. That is part of the economic growth

that has created jobs that need filling. Do you think that the whole

of France, Italy or Greece are going to come here? The point is that they

could. And we have no control over who comes into our country or in

what numbers. That is the point. You can say it is impossible,

technically it is not impossible. That is the point, that we should be

able to control who comes into the country.

Jonathan, should we believe those projections, they are the official

projections, statisticians make these projections and tell us that

they're not forecasts and then they are used in all the forecasts

everyone makes. Knows short answer. They are perfectly plausible. --

know is the short answer. But long-term forecasts have been made.

I live in a place called Islington in north London. It happens to be

the most densely populated local authority in the country. It is the

most crowded place in the country. In the 1970s, when I moved there,

inner London last 20% of the population. It was a pretty dreadful

place at that stage economically and in many other ways. All we have a

lot of problems now in Islington as you do in Boston, because of the

pressure of a growing population, the pressure it puts on public

services and other ways. But the downside of a shrinking population,

think of what life would be like in Boston is the population shrank by

15%. But that is not going to happen. 80 million, I do not know if

you've looked at the physical infrastructure, but in London if we

built a desalination plant to provide water, a strange thing for

the UK to have to do. It is a densely populated city, as you know,

but more broadly, Harriet is right in one sense, as long as we are a

member of the EU and if we vote to remain, free movement means we do

not have control over numbers, that is right. But there would still be

hard choices even if we had control, about economic matters. Just to go

to the audience for a second. A little show of hands. I want to get

at those of you who accept the migration we have had and I know

many of you do not, but whether basically you worry about there

being another ten or 20 years of this. So the published a Boston

projected to grow at 500 per year for the next couple of decades, how

many of you are worried by that prospect? Quite a few of you. And

how many of you would be worried, have been worried by what happened

in the past ten years? So a lot of you, I'm trying to get at how many

more of you are worried about extra growth than previous growth. Any

comments on the kind of projections M the lady in the second row. I

think we are looking at it from the wrong angle. The idea of the EU, one

of the four fundamental freedoms is free movement and I think the best

person for the job should get the job. So if there is a job there than

anyone within the EU should be entitled to have that job. Just

because you're British, just because I'm British, it does not mean that I

should be any more entitled to that job than anyone else. And you could

compete for a job in Spain or France or Italy.

There are always winners and losers, technology is the big winner now and

there will be many jobs gone. A lot of people think that we're winning

now and will later be last in the words of the song. There are big

changes going on around the world and you look at China and India,

Ph.D. Students and they will be looking for jobs. If you have free

movement of people then they will take some of the jobs that people

feel safe with, economist jobs, educators jobs. And that would upset

you? People must realise that the winners now will later be last. And

there are pressures. There's too much change in the country and we

will it. The gentleman with the glasses behind you. We've just got

to stop and take stock. Stop talking about and scaring people about how

many people are coming in and talking about forging and losing

people, you're off your head. You've got to stop think about controlling

the amount of people coming into our country. We are a great country, it

is Britain. We have survived and lived on the island, we can get back

and if we have to leave Europe we will still be able to fish and set

our own targets, still be able to buy cheese and wine. No one is going

to stop this country from succeeding. The gentleman at the

back. Migration over the centuries has brought new ideas, new vibrancy.

As a race we are a mongrel race, how far do you want to go back, we had

various migration of different centuries. We are a port and we have

a great Portuguese community. Migration will bring new ideas and

businesses, they will assimilate and become British. The gentleman next

to you. I work in a hospital down the road and migration for hospitals

has been positive. The hospital across the road would probably have

collapsed and been unable to cope with demand, the amount of migrants

working there and providing care, where we find that government is

cutting British trained nurses and doctors, we have got to bring these

people link to deliver care to British people. It is an issue of

policy rather than migration. That is a good point, that the numbers

coming here have made public services more viable by getting the

numbers up. Do you think that is true? I think it is a good point.

There was appointed couple of years ago brought up again where they were

deciding to close the maternity unit and following that the paediatric

unit at the hospital because of their not being enough deliveries.

So they said we cannot run the unit. That really would be dreadful for

women in labour are trying to make their way to Lincoln or wherever. So

I think that is a valid point. Let me come back to my panel for a

moment. Just to clarify one thing, are we going to get, some people say

let's get our borders back. Are we going to get the water back if we

vote for wrecks it? It is not a black-and-white simple yes or no

answer. -- vote for Brexit. That is casting a dark shadow over this

discussion. The word control is the word that keeps coming back and

taking some kind of control over the process. No one is saying we will

ban migration from ever happening, no one has said migration is wrong

and people should never leave their country. My own story is one of

migration and I celebrate that. But I would say we need to have some

measure of control. That is what is coming from the audience loud and

clear. Are you prepared as others in the Leave campaign to save we do not

want to be in a single market because most people seem to agree if

we are in that, we lose control. I think that is the basis of the

negotiation. I do not know what the terms would be. If they were to say

you can only join the single market if you have unrestricted vibration

from Europe, I would probably say no. But I think we can reach a

discussion, that is the point. Norway and Switzerland are both

outside the EU and both part of the single market and one of the

conditions for them to do that is to have that free movement. Do you know

what proportions of Norwegians want to go in the EU, 72% in the last

polled do not want to enter the EU. The numbers have gone up. I come

back to the central economic argument and the issue is as the UK

do we want access to a 500 million market with investment and sales

across Europe. If we do then freedom of movement is part of that and we

have got to have controls. You said before we had great control. We have

got to have measures, one example, we currently have people where

recruitment agencies only recruit in Eastern Europe and local people

cannot get access to the jobs. That is not fare so we've got to work on

labour market issues and at the same time for the economy we've got to be

part of the 500 million single market. Canada has a trade deal with

the EU with access to the EU market and they do not have free movement.

I do not see why we cannot do something similar. They have access

to part of the EU market. Now we need to know what terms we would be

going in. You mentioned Norway. I do not want to get into a discussion

about the Norwegian option. We are going to get into a programme on

that but to be clear, it may be the cost of this discussion would be the

single market as well as... Can I ask you, I want to get the opinions

of the panel. Is there any potential detriment of voting for Brexit to

the EU citizens already here question mark I do not see any

because of the principle of British law, things do not act

retrospectively. Someone resident here, who has a job here and no

other rights to be here other than through the EU. I spoke to one

French lady who was terrified that she would be forcibly removed. There

are huge scare stories. The Remain people saying that British people in

France would be kicked out, this is complete fantasy. It will not

happen. There is no legal basis. We cannot change that.

David, is that correct, that the people here don't need to worry at

all? My point would be, he is quite right, I don't think anyone on the

Leave side wants to check people out. The legal practicalities of

determining who would qualify, when is the cut-off date, how many years

of the last tender you have to live here? Given we don't have records!

The complications would be immense. David, last question for you. On the

economy, on security, the Leave side were coming up with a proposition to

change and in a way your side was saying status quo, comfortable,

security. It feels like the boot is on the other foot, is this your

biggest vulnerability? There are real challenges. What is your

constituency? The key thing I want to see, how do we make the economy

work, make free markets work, make free movement work, but at the same

time put in some mechanisms, enforcement on housing, enforcement

on minimum wages and enforcement on recruitment agencies to make sure we

have a fair market and we maximise the skills to grow the economy

fairly. We could carry on -

maybe we should, but we can't do so on BBC Two for any

longer, we're out of time. The issues of how many people

live in this country, and who they should be,

obviously get to the heart It's not as significant in many

parts of the country as it is here, but we've taken a brief tour

of the economics and some I hope it all helps contribute

to your decision on the big vote. Our next referendum special

is on Monday, and before that, I'll be back in

the studio tomorrow. Thank you to everybody here for

hosting us. At the weekend, most others will be

dry, if rather cool. We