shonolaku wrote:chess,
Its still not for free. Lets have the summary please.
February 05, 2005
Points system and higher charges to cut immigration
By Richard Ford, Home Correspondent
CHARLES CLARKE will unveil a package of proposals next week to clamp down on immigration and asylum-seekers, including a new points system and increased charges for migrants.
The Home Secretary will make it tougher for
highly skilled migrants to come to Britain by increasing the number of points required to enter the country. 
Mr Clarke will focus the Government’s five-year strategy dealing with the widespread public perception that migrants who are refused permission to stay in the country never leave. The Government was forced to abandon a target to remove 30,000 failed asylum-seekers after it proved too ambitious.
But the Prime Minister has pressed the Home Office for a stronger drive to increase removals so that the number of failed applicants and dependents removed each month is more than unfounded asylum applications. Latest figures show that 17,895 failed asylum applicants and their dependents were sent back in 2003, though in the same year a total of 60,045 applicants and dependents sought asylum.
Mr Clarke has looked at every way that people enter Britain as part of his review of asylum and immigration, including the work-permit system. Ministers may introduce a points system to ensure that those coming in under that system are only those with the exact skills needed in Britain.
The Prime Minister, who has been told by his private pollsters that immigration is one of the top concerns of the public, said: “We need to get to a situation where you are absolutely clear that those people coming in on the work-permit route are actually necessary for our economy.”
The Home Office has resisted quotas for work permits because of fears that setting arbitrary figures would damage Britain’s economy.
Mr Blair said: “I think that it is more a question of making sure that the rules are absolutely adhered to, rather than plucking some arbitrary figure. You might want it to be lower, you might want it to be higher at any particular time, but that depends on there being a job for someone to go to that someone who is here in Britain can’t do.”
Ministers plan to increase the costs for travel permits for students and economic migrants because they benefit from being in Britain.
David Davis, the Shadow Home Secretary, said: “Britain has become a soft touch. Mr Blair’s Government has lost control of the system. He promised Britain would have ‘firm control over immigration’ but it has more than doubled since 1997.”
Where there is a will there is a way.
