Peter
Viggers, MP for the Gosport constituency, yesterday set up
a debate which forced the Prime Minister to admit that aspects
of the Government’s asylum policy would have to be
reformed.
In Prime Minister’s Question Time yesterday, Mr Viggers
asked the Prime Minister whether the decision to abandon
plans for an accommodation centre at Daedalus showed that
his asylum and immigration policies were ‘unworkable’.
Peter’s question was followed up by the Leader of
the Opposition, Michael Howard, who then asked why Britain,
unlike most EU countries, had not imposed transitional controls
on the free movement of citizens from the accession countries
of eastern Europe; in fact, the Government’s only action
so far to dissuade citizens of those countries from coming
to Britain was to run an advertising campaign on Slovak television,
asking people not to come to here. Britain, he said, was
a far more attractive destination for potential immigrants
than France, Italy, or Germany, for example, because this
country had not imposed the controls that most other EU countries
had introduced.
The Prime Minister
was forced to concede that the Government was now examining
the possibility of withdrawing concessions
given on this issue, and at whether people’s eligibility
for benefits in this country was too generous under the existing
regime.
Peter Viggers
said today, “By permitting so many people
to enter this country; by giving an amnesty to illegal immigrants
who have been here for some time, and so giving a green light
to future illegal immigrants; the Government has set up a
system which is unworkable and deteriorating. The Prime Minister’s
admission yesterday is an acknowledgement of this.”
|
