Most Back Migrant Worker Limits

Most people living in the UK favour imposing restrictions on migrant workers, a new survey has revealed. Three-quarters of those polled for the Tonight With Trevor McDonald: Open Door UK programme felt limits should be put on the number of people allowed into the UK or the type of work they were allowed to do. Overall, only 4% believed the Government had immigration under control and almost half said they were less likely to vote Labour because of the party’s current policy on migrant workers.

The YouGov survey, in which more than 2,000 adults were quizzed, found eight out of 10 people believed migrants took jobs from British workers and 39% said in most cases a migrant worker’s job was a position lost to a British worker. Two out of three people felt Britain was losing its culture.

Also featured on the ITV1 programme to be broadcast on Monday night at 8pm was the former Chief Inspector of Schools Chris Woodhead, who claims that education standards have dropped as a result of the arrival of immigrant children.

Mr Woodhead warned the situation would become “very, very serious” if large numbers of Bulgarians and Romanians were allowed into the country next year – unless the Government invested significant extra resources into meeting the increasing demands placed on teachers.

Speaking on the show he said: “It’s inevitable if a teacher is faced with children in the class who can’t speak English they’re not going to be able to concentrate on the education of the children who can speak the language.

“So I think we have to come to the conclusion that the overall standards of education have been affected negatively in some, but not all schools, by the arrival of immigrant children.”

Mr Woodhead said schools where standards had been maintained were ones where the local education authority had planned for the arrival of children who could not speak English and not relied on teachers “winging it”.

He predicted plummeting morale among teachers and a backlash from parents of English-speaking children if standards dropped as a result of an influx of immigrant pupils from Romania and Bulgaria once the two countries join the EU next year.