Immigration Controls
Opposition Day — [19th Allotted Day]
5:48 pm
Peter Lilley (Hitchin and Harpenden, Conservative)
That is certainly true, and I found that when I represented much of the seat now represented with such distinction by my hon. Friend in St. Albans. I have represented large numbers of Bangladeshi, Pakistani and other ethnic groups, as I now do Sikh and other groups in my constituency. Many of them have grave reservations about the impact of continued mass immigration on the stability of their communities.
Sometimes there is something rather patronising and fundamentally racist—in an anti-British sense—about some of the arguments. As the hon. Member for Ealing, North almost suggested, we are held to be in need of a constant influx of people because we need refreshment and strengthening, without which we poor Brits could not survive. Of course we want to welcome a flow of people from abroad, but the idea that everybody who comes to this country is so superior to those already here is a bit of an absurdity.