Immigration: Channel crossings hit record highs

National World - LocalTV

More people have crossed the English Channel in small boats during the first four months than in any previous year. Opposition parties have called for tougher action.

Transcript

00:00Immigration is a really difficult topic insofar as of course we want immigration of people

00:06who bring particular skills.

00:08Of course, what the main focus tends to be on are those who are coming from countries,

00:14particularly Africa, and they may have very legitimate reasons for so doing.

00:19Of course, if they arrive here without the correct credentials, i.e. that they are legal,

00:24then of course we get into a whole issue of what we do with them in the process, which

00:27becomes pretty expensive, and of course we hear stories of hotels being sort of turned

00:31over to sort of to put these people up. Now, of course, there's a whole set of economics

00:37that go with it, but undoubtedly where you've got sort of mass immigration, that takes, you

00:42know, a while if you like to sort of work through.

00:43Well, the latest figures on migration reveal that in the past year the UK recorded around

00:491.2 million immigrants, while roughly 500,000 people left the country. That means net migration

00:57stands at around 700,000. Meanwhile, asylum applications have surged to 108,000, nearly

01:05double what they were in 2021. Of those, 37,000 arrived by small boats, but far more entered

01:13the UK through other irregular means or arrived on visas before claiming asylum.

01:18It's a sort of really difficult topic which, of course, creates controversy. The Conservatives,

01:24if you like, they sort of won the Brexit election on the basis that they're going to get this

01:28done and reduce immigration, but of course we've not seen that. For particular consequences,

01:34Ukraine, we've had a lot of people coming in, and also of course the situation in Hong Kong,

01:38Hong Kong Chinese who sort of effectively forced out. So of course that's bumped the numbers

01:42up. But exactly, we do want the right sort of people because they are good, and indeed

01:46we have, if you like, a sort of a crisis in terms of a very ageing population, and what

01:51you need is younger people coming in to sort of work to do the sort of jobs which are going

01:55to sort of be essential, and also to sort of provide the economic sort of wealth through

02:01taxation which are going to keep the system sort of going. So there's very good sort of

02:05reasons, but unfortunately it gets polluted by the sort of the very controversial stance

02:10that some people have taken it. And reform is, if you like, into that space as it were,

02:15because they are certainly saying the sort of Conservatives failed, and they may never

02:19be forgiven in the sort of the short term. Eventually people do forget about these things.

02:22And Labour of course sort of came in promising they were going to sort of do something about

02:25it, but hey, so far it remains to be seen.

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