Legal News

Local councillors in the West Midlands have called reports that the Midlands will be deluged with new migrants “scaremongering”.

Council officers in Redditch say there is little evidence to suggest Redditch and the surrounding areas will experience a “surge” in new migrants.

Speaking to local paper the Redditch Standard, Chief Executive of Redditch Borough Council, Kevin Dicks, said:

“There is little evidence to suggest the lifting of restrictions on those nations that became full EU members seven years ago will have a significant effect in Redditch.

“We have not therefore made special provision for our services and we continue to monitor the situation.”

The 2011 census shows that between 2004 and 2006 just 1,200 people from EU member states settled in Redditch – and a further 833 arrived in the area in the following three years. Between 2010 and 2011, just 291 migrants settled in Redditch, according to the report.

The south of England’s airports, ports and transport hubs such as Victoria Station in London have been the focus of media attention since 1 January, when border restrictions were lifted on Romania and Bulgaria. Despite predictions by some that the UK would be inundated with new migrants from those countries, very few appear to have arrived in the UK so far.

Press stories that all flights and coaches out of the countries were fully booked for UK travel months and even years before restrictions were lifted appear unfounded.

The EU Referendum Bill which would give the British people a vote on whether the UK should remain in the EU cleared its first in the Lords on Friday (10/01/14) – but any vote under the current government would most likely not take place if the Conservatives lost the General Election in 2015.

If the Bill has a smooth passage through Parliament, the vote on EU membership would not take place until 2017.

In the meantime, Redditch remains calm about the prospect of new migrants settling in the area.

Conservative MP for Redditch, Karen Lumley, told the Redditch Standard that there had been too much scaremongering surrounding the issue of immigration:

“We need to be careful we are not playing to a massive right wing agenda, which I don’t want to be part of,” she said.

“The Polish people that came here work really hard and don’t depend on the state.

“If you went down to the Alex Hospital today, you would see loads of people from EU countries – and I wouldn’t want them to have to go back because they are providing a service for the people of Redditch,” Ms Lumley added.

LibDem leader Nick Clegg has recently criticised Prime Minister David Cameron’s proposals to cap the annual number of migrants allowed to come to the UK.

Mr Clegg said that if a cap were introduced the City of London and the NHS “would fall over.”

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