Immigration debate pulls crowd

Barbara Roche was taking part in the debate on asylum

Asylum is one of the most important public policy issues in modern Britain, ex-immigration minister and Labour MP Barbara Roche has said.

Ms Roche was speaking for the motion 'Britain needs more immigrants' in a debate organised by Intelligence Squared.

She stressed the social and economic benefits of multi-culturalism.

But opponent Sir Andrew Green said large-scale immigration was putting a strain on society.

Unpleasant controls?

The former British ambassador to Saudi Arabia, who is the founder of Migration Watch UK, argued current levels of migrants coming to Britain would mean two million more people over the next 10 years.

Arguing on the same side, Cambridge economics expert Professor Robert Rowthorn said that the current scale of immigration was without precedent.

But he said that he accepted that immigration controls were "by their nature unpleasant".

Prof Rowthorn rejected suggestions that Britain had a lot to gain economically from immigration but equally he said it was hard to argue that it was doing the economy any great damage.

Speaking in favour of the motion Dr Heaven Crawley, from the think-tank the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) had argued that Britain's ageing population, the need to fund the pension system and a skills shortage meant immigration benefited the nation.

Confusion?

Ms Roche accused Sir Andrew of confusing the issues of asylum with migration.

"He uses the term immigrants, he is also talking about asylum seekers or refugees and that's where we fall into great error," she told an audience of more than 400 at London Royal Geographical Society.

"We need straight away to divorce the two. Asylum is the fundamental right of people to claim refuge from from political persecution."

She argued that from the Roman invasion on, the UK had always experienced waves of migration, and that added to the diversity and strength of the country.

Immigration had been off the agenda more or less since the beginning of the 1970s, she said, and with growing global movement of people and capital it was time to debate the issues again.

'Dangerous world'

"In an age of globalisation I also believe there are other arguments for migration not simply economic ones," she said.

"We live in a dangerous world, I think a world where it is not just about governments talking to governments but people talking to people.

Home Secretary David Blunkett has argued legal migrants bring valuable skills

"What other country in the world is there where we have the potential in the future to send a British ambassador to Pakistan who is a British citizen of Pakistani origin, and a British ambassador to India being a British citizen.

"We have that possibility."

Ms Roche then warned against who attacked migration using it as a "subsitute for attacking our multi-cultural society".

Sir Andrew said Home Office figures from 2002 showed that 150,000 more people migrated to Britain than left it each year.

"These are just the ones that are counted. Of the illegals, 50,000 are detected every year on our borders at least twice that number come in undetected so you are talking 200,000 a year, 2m over 10 years.

Truth?

He added: "Anyone who tells you any different is not telling you the full truth.

"We're not opposed to all immigrants by any means. We recognise there are positive benefits.

"The issue is one of scale because there comes a point when large-scale immigration places a strain up on society."