22 October 2013

On the 22nd October, a debate was held in Parliament at the second reading of the Immigration Bill. During the debate,  CPG co-chair Nicholas Soames said that the Bill was necessary to restore order to the immigration system after the arrival of 4 million migrants under the last Labour government.  He also said that the Government had already experienced success in bringing an end to abuse of the student visa route and that the Government had had considerable success in bringing down immigration,  for which they had not been properly credited. He noted that Non-EU migration—that part of the equation which was subject to Government action—had been substantially reduced from 217,000 in 2010 to 157,000 in 2012. Mr Soames said that he was concerned that though the Bill contained many welcome measures-such as closing off illegal migrants access to driving licenses and bank accounts- it did not contain adequate provision for ending abuse of the NHS.

The full transcript of the debate can be read here http://bit.ly/18QYsha.


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