Previous Press Releases
2010 2009 2008 2007 2006 2005 2004 2003 2002 2001December November October September August July June May April March February January
Press Releases for March 2004
March 29, 2004
Over half proposed extra housing needed for new immigrants…
March 22, 2004
Real impact of migration 'concealed' in Government figures…
March 7, 2004
Lid blown on migrant cover-up
Full Text of Releases : March 2004
Over half proposed extra housing needed for new immigrants…
In an interview with The Observer on 21 March, The Deputy Prime Minister, John Prescott, indicated that the government plan to double the rate of house building in England.
He was responding to the Barker Report which recommends building an extra 120,000 new private sector homes in England each year to reduce the trend in real house prices to 1.1% per year.
The Barker report looked primarily at the supply of housing and how this could be made more sensitive to price. It did not explore whether some of the factors driving demand, and therefore price, could be managed. But even on the Government's latest, and very conservative, projection of 103,000 net immigration each year, more than 1.1 million homes will be required just for immigrants for the period 1996-2021.
For the past five years, however, net immigration has been running at an even higher average of 158,000 a year and this excludes illegal immigrants which the Home Secretary acknowledges is a large, if unknown number.
Migrationwatch UK believes that net immigration will continue at about the average of recent years. If this proves correct, total new households attributable to migration in the planning period 1996 - 2021 would be 1.75 million. This means that well over half the extra houses will be for new immigrants.
Sir Andrew Green, Chairman of MigrationwatchUK, said: 'By concentrating on the supply of housing the government are glossing over one of the main determinants of demand - namely immigration. Indeed, analysis of the government's most recent population projections shows that 85% of the increase in the UK's population up to 2031 will be due to immigration.
'They hope that people will see their policy of concreting over the South-East as a necessary response to the need for housing without realising that much of the need arises from the government's own immigration policies.
'The Barker report points out that England is a close second to the Netherlands as the most crowded country in Europe with 380 persons per sq. km. compared to 390 for The Netherlands. The South East region, including London has a density of 734 - again the second highest density in Europe,' he said.
'Part of the answer to the housing crisis must be to get a grip of immigration. Yet the government has been promoting immigration on a massive scale without a moment's thought about the implications for housing and therefore for the countryside. This, to say the least, is not joined up government.
Back to top
Real impact of migration 'concealed' in Government figures…
The Government has been accused of concealing the true impact of immigration on our future population growth.
Government population projections, published in December, claimed that three million, or just over 50%, of the projected population increase in the UK between 2002 and 2031 of 5.6 million would be due to immigration.
But further analysis of the Government's statistics by think-tank Migrationwatch has revealed that even these figures understate the real position by a significant margin and, in fact, the true proportion should be 85%.
And if net immigration continues at present levels, the proportion of our population growth due to future immigrants and their descendants will rise to 89% of a total of 7.6 million by 2031, two million more than the Government's principal projection.
In describing their projection, the Government claimed that, out of a total population rise of 5.6 million by 2031, there would be some three million immigrants - but they only included first generation migrants. Children and grand children of these migrants were counted in the natural population increase and hence not attributed to the effect of migration.
'It is unacceptable that the Government should manipulate the figures in this way so as to conceal the true impact of immigration from public view,' said Sir Andrew Green, Chairman of Migrationwatch UK.Clearly if the first generation of migrants had not arrived on our shores, their descendants would not add to our population.
Sir Andrew said, 'The Government has no coherent policy on immigration. They have triggered by far the highest immigration in our history without informing the British people, still less consulting them. Fundamental errors of this kind, and the revelations of the past few weeks, will do little to reassure the public that this crucial matter is remotely under control.
Back to top
Lid blown on migrant cover-up
Following a story in the Sunday Times of March 7, 2004 headed 'Lid blown on migrant cover-up' Migrationwatch issued the following comment:
'The Sunday Times story takes us behind the spin to the heart of what is really going on at the Home Office. The Government's claims of 'managed migration' are exposed as a charade and the story reveals the lengths to which they are prepared to go to to hide the real facts. Revelations of this kind make it difficult to take at face value anything the Government tells us on this subject.'
Back to top