Balanced Migration's aim is to stop Britain growing its population by immigration. We have advocated two major policies. The first is to break the link between people coming here to work and automatically becoming citizens. The other policy has been simply to reduce significantly the number of immigrants being granted citizenship places.
Before Christmas, Alan Johnson, the Home Secretary, seriously engaged with Balanced Migration in breaking the link between coming here to work and automatically becoming a citizen. The Home Office is investigating how this is can best be achieved and we expect an announcement soon.
This was one of the key policy proposals Balanced Migration has put forward as a means of achieving its goal. The other means is to cut significantly the numbers of people settling permanently in this country.
Over the weekend David Cameron's statement suggests that he is now seriously engaging with the Group's, and more importantly the public's, concern about immigration. He has given a commitment that a future Conservative government would reduce the numbers of net new arrivals to this country to the level of the early 1990s. That means a reduction from about 150,000 to 180,000 a year net in migration to one in the very low teens.
Balanced Migration welcomes both these two initiatives. Our aim now must be to get both parties to make binding commitments on both policies in their election manifestoes.
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