Planning minister ‘nervous’ about impact of east European immigration
This interesting article reveals a series of views which are unlikely to be held in places like the East of England where hard working migrant labour is a crucial part of the food sector. It tells us:
Planning minister Nick Boles has said he is “nervous” about the impact of immigration from Romania and Bulgaria on housing and public services, risking re-fuelling what is becoming a diplomatic row with the two countries.
Boles, seen as an ally of David Cameron, was speaking as controversy over the lifting of immigration restrictions on the two EU member states at the end of this year continues to cause problems on the government’s own back benches.
Ministers are also nervous because even if claims of a “surge” in immigration are exaggerated, only a few tens of thousands of new immigrants would threaten promises to cap net migration at less than 100,000 by 2015.
Boles told the Spectator magazine that the previous Labour government showed “deep complacency” over the issue when similar immigration restrictions were lifted on Poland and other east European entrant countries in 2004, driving a larger-than-expected 1.7m immigrants into the UK in the last decade.
“We should have been more worried than we were about the pressure on housing and other public services from the last set of entrant countries…[and] ended up in a very, very difficult situation…the ripples from which are going to literally affect an entire generation,” he said.