• YES to closing our porous borders
• YES to an integrated customs, immigration and police border control service - joined up action and thinking
• NO to Eastern European migrants claiming benefits - a 30% rise for the first quarter of 2006
• NO more immigration until we have consulted with industry on an actual skills shortage, trained our own unemployed and economically inactive to do those jobs

We need a debate and act fast on immigration.

Asylum claims have fallen sharply but immigration has trebled under the present government; it is now about ten times asylum.

The issue is not about existing immigrant communities. Many have contributed greatly.

The question is about scale and pace. How many more immigrants should be admitted to the UK and how rapidly can they be integrated?

In a recent opinion poll 76% said that they favoured an annual limit on immigration. Only 10% were opposed.

A huge rise in the numbers arriving from Eastern Europe and Romania is expected when these countries join the EU. A secret government report states that the expected arrival of hundreds of thousands from abroad will have serious implications for social discord. The report says that schools will be under pressure with thousands of children arriving unable to speak English; hospitals will struggle to cope with Eastern European patients who will block hospital beds because they are ineligible for social care and benefits if they leave. The report also claims that 45,000 “undesirable” criminal migrants could also settle here.

There is evidence that where large numbers of immigrants have been settling is depressing wages for low-paid workers. Students have claimed they have been unable to find work this summer to pay off their debts.

This government has in the past underestimated the amount of immigrants from the accession EU states. They expected 10,000-26,000 to arrive in 2004-06 the real figures is around 662,000 and they expect this to rise by another 140,000 next year.

If we ever go back into a recession – and remember that Europe and the US economies have suffered in recent years – there is a real danger that many of these migrants could become jobless and start claiming benefits. Add the implications for housing, education and health it really becomes apparent that it its time for a much longer-term perspective to be taken on this issue.

The Home Office claims the asylum backlog will be cleared in five years. How come if they don’t know how many are here, legally or illegally? We currently have over 10,000 foreign nationals in our prisons but then the Human Rights Act interferes with our right to deport them.