Is Labour doing enough to tackle immigration?

New research suggests that the UK has the largest number of illegal immigrants in Europe.

Transcript

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

00:07who bring particular skills. Of course, what the main focus tends to be on are those who

00:13are coming from countries, particularly Africa, and they may have very legitimate reasons

00:18for so doing. Of course, if they arrive here without the correct credentials, that they

00:23are legal, then of course we get into a whole issue of what we do with them in the process,

00:28which becomes pretty expensive. And of course, we hear stories of hotels being sort of turned

00:32over 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 a

00:42while, if you like, to sort of work through. Well, the latest figures on migration reveal

00:47that in the past year, the UK recorded around 1.2 million immigrants, while roughly 500,000

00:54people left the country. That means net migration stands at around 700,000. Meanwhile, asylum

01:02applications have surged to 108,000, nearly double what they were in 2021. Of those, 37,000

01:11arrived by small boats, but far more entered the UK through other irregular means or arrived

01:16on visas before claiming asylum. It's a sort of really difficult topic, which, of course,

01:23raises controversy. The Conservatives, if you like, they sort of won the Brexit election

01:28on the basis they're going to get this done and reduce immigration. But of course, we've

01:32not seen that. For particular consequences, Ukraine, we found a lot of people coming in.

01:36And also, of course, the situation in Hong Kong, Hong Kong Chinese who sort of effectively

01:40forced out. So of course, that's bumped the numbers up. But undoubtedly, we do want the

01:45right sort of thing, because they are good. And indeed, we have, if you like, a sort of

01:48a crisis in terms of a very ageing population. And what you need is younger people coming

01:54in to sort of work to do the sort of jobs, which are going to sort of be essential, and

01:58also to sort of provide the economics of wealth through taxation, which is going to keep the

02:03system sort of going. So there's very good sort of reasons. But unfortunately, it gets

02:08polluted by the sort of the very controversial stance of some people taking it. And reform

02:13is, if you like, into that space, as it were, because they're certainly saying the sort

02:17of Conservatives failed, and they may never be forgiven in the sort of the short term.

02:21Eventually, people do forget about these things. And Labour, of course, sort of came in promising

02:25they were going to do something about it. But hey, so far, it remains to be seen.