UK: - Må bygge et nytt hus hvert sjette minutt

Stor­bri­tan­nia vil bli nødt til å bygge et nytt hus hvert sjette minutt, dag og natt, syv dager uken de neste 20 år der­som lan­det skal kunne møte føl­gene av den nåvæ­rende inn­vand­rin­gen, adva­rer par­la­ments­med­lem for regje­rings­par­tiet Labour og tid­li­gere minis­ter Frank Field. I 2007 mot­tok Stor­bri­tan­nia en ny inn­vand­rer nes­ten pr. minutt.

I følge Field vil dagens inn­vand­ring utgjøre 70 pro­sent av befolk­nings­veks­ten de neste 20 årene; 7 gan­ger befolk­nin­gen i Birmingham:

In 2007, immi­grants were arri­ving at the rate of almost one every minute.

He recal­led that he and Tory MP Nicholas Soames had estab­lis­hed a cross-party group on balanced migra­tion, desig­ned to sti­mu­late and inform a non-partisan and calm debate about the issue.

“For many years, pro­bably a gene­ra­tion, immi­gra­tion has been a no-go area to Bri­tish poli­tics. ‘Racist’, ‘Little Eng­lan­der’, ‘xenop­hobe’ – those who have raised the sub­ject have been insulted, abu­sed and, all too often, silenced.”

Field went on: “The bene­fi­ci­a­ries of this have been the extre­mists, lur­king in the wings, eager to pig­gy­back on the public’s con­cern for their own despi­cable ends. The losers have been the citizens of this country.”

He said that over the past few years immi­gra­tion had reached unpre­ce­den­ted levels. “Net migra­tion – the num­ber of people coming to the UK minus the people lea­ving – has more than quad­rup­led since 1997.”

In 2007, 502,000 migrants arrived in the UK – almost one every min­ute, Field said. “Our popu­la­tion is offi­ci­ally pro­jected to reach 70 mil­lion by 2028 and 80 mil­lion in mid-century, with immi­gra­tion the main dri­ver and the only one that the govern­ment can directly influence.

Field said that these pro­jec­tions were based on the Government’s own net immi­gra­tion assump­tions. “But cold sta­ti­s­tics do not paint the whole pic­ture,” he said.

“Delve beneath ‘seven new Bir­ming­hams’ and we see that in the next 20 years, one-third of pro­jected house­hold for­ma­tions will be a result of immi­gra­tion, meaning we will need to build 260 hou­ses a day for the next 20 years to meet the requirement.”

And he warned: “If the Govern­ment does not adopt the policy of balanced migra­tion, or somet­hing close to it, our popu­la­tion is set to rise to a level to which the vast majority of people are strongly oppo­sed. They are not oppo­sed to immi­gra­tion or immi­grants, but to the pre­sent scale of immi­gra­tion, which is bound to have a nega­tive aspect on life in Britain.”

Scot­land on Sun­day: Field hits out over immi­gra­tion levels