Peddler of truth or exaggeration

By Ben Davies BBC News Online political staff

You would think that after a high-flying career as a diplomat Sir Andrew Green might want to kick back a bit and grow roses.

But instead the former British ambassador to Syria and Saudi Arabia has decided to turn his retirement into a crusade about immigration.

Sir Andrew, pictured here while the UK's ambassador to Syria

He founded MigrationWatch UK which professes to be an "independent immigration and asylum monitoring organisation" with no party links.

In entering this political minefield, Sir Andrew has won plaudits and condemnation alike.

Figures put out by his organisation have sparked some pretty sensational headlines and are often picked up in papers like the Daily Mail and Daily Telegraph.

'Not anti-immigration'

But he has also been viewed with suspicion by the left-wing press and described by ex-immigration minister Barbara Roche as a "peddler of exaggeration".

When we meet at his central London flat, he is at pains to stress that MigrationWatch is not anti-immigration - it is just a question of scale, he says.

In order to get the situation back under control, he argues, it is necessary that the UK tear up the UN convention on refugees.

Asylum remains a controversial issue in the UK

That convention stipulates refugees should not be returned to a country where he or she fears persecution.

He wants the UK to establish its own legal framework which would allow new arrivals to be locked up until properly identified.

In order to ensure decent community relations in the future, the authorities must take proper control of Britain's borders, he argues.

"The number of people coming into Britain, permitted to enter Britain as it were, should be roughly equal to the number that leave," he says.

Green says MigrationWatch research shows that the UK is looking at an in-flow of two million non-EU citizens per decade - figures disputed by the Home Office.

Historical levels?

He says, that particularly in London and the south east, there is substantial extra pressure on the NHS, housing and the benefits system.

He says people claiming benefits should be forced to take part in an otherwise voluntary identity card scheme as part of a bid to take control of immigration into the UK.

Asked if he is worried that his idea would lead to greater numbers of people from ethnic minority groups being stopped and searched he says he "accepts that there are concerns of that kind".

Green says that the now "massive" levels of immigration are higher than at any other point in British history and fly in the face of public opinion on the subject.

One of his central points is that migration has been mismanaged and tough decisions are now required to bring the situation back into control.

And he questions just how much immigration benefits the UK economy.

Home Secretary David Blunkett's claim that immigrants contribute £2.5bn to the nation's coffers above what they take out in benefits is "laughable", he says.

Advantage?

"There has always been immigration, it's an open society. People come and go they always have and its welcome - it's good for us, it's good for them.

"That's not the issue, the issue is whether massive immigration which is what we now have, is to our economic advantage."

We believe the only answer is to pull out of the 1951 convention and write our own rulebook Sir Andrew Green

His contention is that the contribution of new arrivals to the UK's gross domestic product (GDP) - the market value of all goods and services produced in Britain over a year - is "trivial".

"Anyone who has looked at this in terms of overall benefit to the economy comes up with a very small number against which you have to set, particularly in the case of the UK, the congestion crisis.

"Doesn't apply to Australia and the United States, but England is nearly twice as crowded as Germany, four times as crowded as France, 12 times as crowded as the United States."

And what of all the people who arrive in the UK and work cleaning offices, in construction and in other ill-paid service industries?

Productivity threat

"The sad thing is that it's in the interest of employers to have cheap labour that is highly valuable, that won't argue, that won't demand its rights, but there's no question that the people who suffer most as a result of this are the unskilled indigenous workers, whatever ethnic community they belong to," he said.

He adds: "I don't think there's any doubt that if you have a flow of unskilled labour it will tend to discourage labour-saving investment that will raise productivity."

As for importing people to match shortages in the labour market, Green warns there are dangers: "For every foreigner you import off the shelf, that's a Brit you're not training."

In order to restore control of the UK's borders, he says it is necessary to reinstate the process of recording visitors as they come and go.

'Huge task'

After that the authorities should begin the process of removing people who have no right to be here - something he concedes is a "huge task".

He is also highly critical of the expansion of legal immigration by raising the number of work permits being issued.

At the moment it is impossible - you'd have to lock up 100,000 people every year Sir Andrew Green

As far as asylum is concerned he says the first problem is the UN convention on refugees which allows people the right to have their cases fully considered.

"We believe the only answer is to pull out of the 1951 convention and write our own rulebook," Green says.

"Now once you've done that you can then do a separate thing which is to detain those that destroy their documents - 70% are found without documents. The only reason for that is that they want to fiddle the system. "

Locking up

He adds: "Now those people should be detained until checks have been made on their identity, security and health. And if their cases fail, and under our own system we'd run the cases through a damned sight faster."

David Blunkett is home secretary

To the suggestion his idea would involve locking up an awful lot of people he claims that, with about 60,000 asylum applicants per year there would be 8,000 detained at any one time - if you allow about six weeks to process each case.

"I mean, at the moment it is impossible - you'd have to lock up 100,000 people every year. And that's why, at the last election, the Conservative proposal failed - everyone could see it wouldn't work.

"At the moment... it's a chaotic system, and the files get lost and there's nobody representing the Home Office and the whole thing is frankly chaos.

"At the moment many people feel that asylum seekers are scroungers - that's what they feel, they may be wrong but that's what they feel - and we know that.

"So if you had a system in which people had confidence then you'll get a much better reception for those who genuinely deserve it."