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'We must control how many people come to this country': Cameron announces major crackdown on immigrant numbers
By Rob Cooper

Last updated at 6:07 PM on 10th October 2011

Forced marriages 'to be made illegal for the first time'
Citizenship exams to be overhauled with history questions rather than tests on knowledge of the benefits system

Cash bond up front demanded before immigrants' family members will be allowed into the UK
But PM pledges 'red carpet treatment' for entrepreneurs and inventors
Two thirds of new jobs created in the UK since 1997 have gone to migrants

Crackdown: David Cameron today pledged to reduce the number of people coming into the country to 1980s levels - and said the 'door was left permanently open' under the last Government
David Cameron today announced a major overhaul of the UK's immigration rules as he said numbers had got out of control under Labour.
He pledged to reduce the number of people coming into the country to 1980s levels - and said the 'door was left permanently open' under the last Government.
Launching his crackdown, he said: 'We must control how many people come into the country'.
He added: 'We have to be much better at finding illegal immigrants and getting them out'.

However, in a concession to his tough stance and amid attempts to kick-start economic growth the Prime Minister said inventors, entrepreneurs and scientists would be given the 'red-carpet treatment'.
He promised 'tough limits, not weak minimum thresholds' as he addressed student visas, family migration and illegal immigration in a wide-ranging speech in London.
Mr Cameron said the Government would rewrite the exam for migrants wishing to become UK citizens to ensure that British history and culture - rather than EU institutions and the workings of the benefit system - are at the heart of the tests.
In a sign of how out of control the system has become, the Prime Minister said a Pakistani man divorced his wife as soon as he was granted leave to remain in Britain - and then remarried and demanded a visa for his new partner to come into the country.

But efforts to overhaul immigration laws are likely to face fierce opposition from the Conservatives' Liberal Democrat coalition partners.
The Prime Minister said: 'Levels of immigration can return to where they were in the 1980s and 90s, a time when immigration was not a front rank political issue.
'I believe that will mean net migration to this country will be in the order of tens of thousands each year, not the hundreds of thousands every year that we have seen over the last decade.'

Under the proposed changes, families who want relatives from overseas to settle in Britain may be forced to pay an upfront bond worth thousands of pounds.

The payment would be designed to ensure migrants did not become a �burden on the taxpayer� by claiming benefits and not working.
A survey suggested that more than 70 per cent of UK-based family sponsors had an income of less than �20,000 after tax, creating 'an obvious risk' that they may become dependent on welfare.
In an admission that immigration levels had been too high, Mr Cameron said that two thirds of the new jobs created in Britain since 1997 had gone to immigrants.
He said the Government would impose a new approach 'that imposes tough limits, not weak minimum thresholds. Real tests of skill and potential, not thousands of people box-ticking their way into the UK. In short, a system that actually controls migration for the good of this country that doesn�t just sound tough, but is tough.'
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Employers had a stark choice, he said, between disillusioned and demotivated British people on benefits and Eastern European migrants with 'get up and go'.
In an admission that immigration levels had been too high, Mr Cameron said that two thirds of the new jobs created in Britain since 1997 had gone to immigrants
'FORCED MARRIAGE IS LITTLE MORE THAN SLAVERY' Forcing someone to marry against their will could become a criminal offence under plans set out by Prime Minister David Cameron today.
Mr Cameron announced he was making it a criminal offence to breach an order issued by the courts to prevent a forced marriage.
A cross-party Commons Home Affairs Committee called earlier this year for forced marriage to be criminalised, but its recommendation was rejected by the Home Office in July for fear that it would discourage victims from coming forward.

The Prime Minister said he was asking Theresa May to rethink that decision.

'Forced marriage is little more than slavery,' said Mr Cameron.

'To force someone into marriage is completely wrong. And I strongly believe this is a problem we should not shy away from addressing. But I know that there is a worry that criminalisation could make it less likely that those at risk will come forward.

'So, as a first step, I am announcing today that we will criminalise the breach of Forced Marriage Prevention Orders. It's ridiculous that an Order made to stop a forced marriage isn't enforced with the full rigour of the criminal law.

'And I am also asking the Home Secretary to consult on making forcing someone to marry an offence in its own right, working closely with those who provide support to women forced into marriage to make sure that such a step would not prevent or hinder them from reporting what has happened to them.'
There will closer checks on claimed relationships between spouses to weed out sham marriages for immigration reasons, including cases where couples divorce immediately after obtaining permission to stay and then make fresh applications relating to different partners.

'We will make migrants wait longer, to show they really are in a genuine relationship before they can get settlement,' Mr Cameron said.

'And we'll also impose stricter and clearer tests on the genuineness of a relationship, including the ability to speak the same language and to know each other's circumstances.

'We will also end the ridiculous situation where a registrar who knows a marriage is a sham still has to perform the ceremony.'

Mr Cameron denounced Labour's points-based system, which was intended to ensure that economic migration was limited to those workers needed by the UK economy, as a 'complete failure' which was 'a magnet for fraudsters' and allowed the number of incomers to go 'through the roof'.

Initial indications suggest that the Government's actions since coming into office in May last year have started to reverse a trend which saw net migration rise to 239,000 last year, he said.

Mr Cameron said his goal was to get net immigration down to the tens of thousands.
He said he recognised there was 'discomfort and tension' in some communities over the arrival of large numbers of migrants, and insisted that the Government was not 'powerless' to deal with it.

He promised to deliver 'fairness for people already living here, working here, contributing here, who worry about finding work, getting a good school for their children and affording a good house'.

'For too long, they have been overlooked in this debate. And it's time to do right by them.'

And he said: 'How do we know when we are getting immigration right?

'It's when we are getting the right people we need for our economy and when all those who come here do so for genuine reasons and join with the rest of society in making our country stronger, richer and more secure.

'That's the kind of immigration I want. And that's the kind of immigration this Government will deliver.'

He's been saying this for two years. Presumably he's going to actually do something at some point.

more tripe from rent a lie.