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WATCH: People 'with a trade' should be prioritised when it comes to immigration, says ex-MP
Apr 24, 2025
Former Labour MP Steve McCabe has called for the UK government to focus on the "quality" of immigrants rather than their countries of origin.Speaking about immigration policy, McCabe emphasised that "people with a trade" should be the priority.READ THE FULL STORY HERE
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to immigration. But what about the types of people? Because there's been suggestions today
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that actually, when it comes to immigration from poorer countries, we should be tightening
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our belts and restricting the numbers on that side of the fence and instead looking more
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favourably on immigration from the likes of EU countries. Well, the only research I've seen on this comes from Denmark and the Netherlands. We've
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never done any research on this. But what it showed there, convincingly, is that immigrants
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from poor countries, and I'm talking about Bangladesh and Pakistan, are a net cost to
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the exchequer of quite a substantial amount. And immigrants that come actually from Western
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Europe, right, are a net gain to the exchequer, which actually plays to the argument, which
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is that we should rescind Brexit because the quality of immigrants coming to our country
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would be higher. But that's a completely different argument. So, but however, these are the only facts we've seen
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We shall carry out research. Remember, the Home Office would never, ever, ever say
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break down crime by country. Now they've decided to do it. They could definitely work out..
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Under pressure. Under pressure. They've not just worked up and thought... So we've seen some pressure start now
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So therefore, actually, we should now see the Home Office, Yvette Cooper, who's had a latter-day conversion
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to this kind of view, right? Her announced we're going to work out which immigrants are making money for us
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and which are a cost to the country. Steve? Well, I'm not sure we should be focusing on countries
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I think we should be focusing on the individuals who are coming here. We should be making sure we have people
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with the qualifications and the skills that will benefit this country and will be an addition to this country I think it actually quite difficult to be clear about it on a country basis because despite the research you mentioned there
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I mean, I think there's also some research that shows that Pakistani Americans do far better in American society
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than the vast majority in this country. That's true. That would suggest it may be something about the people
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you're actually bringing in. Now, I don't know enough about it, but the point I'm making is we should concentrate on the individual
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And there are examples in the past. I mean, I know that Bangladesh has made some economic progress
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in recent years, but at one stage, we used to have a reciprocal health deal with Bangladesh
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because we could get well-trained doctors and nurses there who came and helped our health service
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and actually invariably went back to Bangladesh and helped their country as well
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So it's about the quality and the skills of the people you're bringing in
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And it's about their record. If they've got a criminal record, what sort of person are you inviting into your country
3:01
Well, I see that. I've seen that research, which shows that the Pakistani Americans came from a better area of Pakistan
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And we seem to get the rejects and they get the good guys
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So perhaps we should start looking at whereabouts they came from. before we make a decision about whether we should allow them in or not
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Well, what do you think to it all? I think no matter what side of the fence anyone sits on
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or the viewpoint you all have, transparency, data transparency, can only surely be a good thing, can't it
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Because I was watching some commentary yesterday and the suggestion was it was pandering to the so-called far right
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to try and ask for this data. I mean, how ridiculous is that
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You get your data, surely, and from there you can make decisions
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and have proper, honest conversations. Can you not
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