RESIDENTS’ concerns that Solihull and Britain is ‘bursting to the seams’ with immigrants is mostly inaccurate and the result of tabloid scaremongering, the borough’s MP has told the Commons.Liberal Democrat Lorely Burt said: “We cannot ignore the perceptions of the people of the United Kingdom. Much of what they believe is not factually accurate.
“Tabloid newspapers - I name and shame the Daily Mail - feed on people's worst fears and paint a picture that is so exaggerated that the vast majority of people in Parliament could not, I am sure, recognise it.
“However, it is a real fear, and so we must address it and do whatever is necessary to reassure the British people that that is not the situation.”
The number of ethnic minority people in Solihull is ‘low’, eight per cent, she told the debate on immigration control.
She said the reaction on the doorstep in the borough is that Britain is “full-bursting to the seams, with immigrants coming and taking jobs and social housing and pushing the indigenous whites to the back of the queue for health, housing and other services”.
Mrs Burt added: “We ignore that perception at our peril.”
And she accused the Government of a “misguided lack of planning for immigrant populations when they come to this country”. Labour had failed to start exit checks abolished by the Tories, she said.
She said: “New migrants should be permitted to settle only in the appropriate areas, as opposed to congregating in areas such as Sparkhill in Birmingham, where it is difficult even to see a white face as one goes through.”
A national border force with police powers of arrest should be established, she said, and more crackdowns on employers who take on illegal immigrants.
She said: “Immigrants must tolerate and respect British values.”
But she said she opposed Tory plans to set a cap on immigration.
Mrs Burt said: “Would the Conservatives stop Japanese sushi chefs from coming over, bringing their skills and contributing to the diversity of the British restaurant industry?”
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