7 April 2004
The Prime Minister called for a sense of ‘balance and perspective’ on immigration in a press briefing following talks on the issue at Downing Street.
Mr Blair said it is ‘absolutely clear’ that the vast majority of inward and outward migration is perfectly lawful. Britain and its economy benefits as a result, he said.
Home Secretary David Blunkett said it would be a mistake to have ‘Fortress Britain’.
"We need people to come here and work," he said. "There are 60,000 vacancies in hospitality and catering alone in London."
Statistics show that the vast majority of the people who come to work in the UK are employed in areas like health, education and information technology.
The Home Secretary outlined steps that the government are taking to increase confidence in the immigration system. The government will:
- Ask the National Audit Office to review asylum statistics to ensure trust in the figures;
- Set up task forces within the Home Office to accelerate and monitor the management change programme; and
- Examine other specific areas of application where there’s been concern such as bogus marriages and student applications. A lot of work has already been done in this area.
"There is, and should be no tolerance of abuse," said the Prime Minister.
"But we do have to have a sensible debate about people who come to our country for perfectly legitimate reasons and actually do things that are good for Britain and its economy."
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