UK Immigration News

A report from the Ontario Chamber of Commerce warns that Canada risks losing out on the brightest immigrants if it does not increase the speed of its 'Expression of Interest' (EOI) immigration system which is due to be introduced in 2015.

Former Canadian immigration minister Jason Kenney announced in 2012 that Canada would work towards the introduction of an EOI system once a backlog of applications for permanent residence by skilled immigrants had been eliminated.

Nigel Farage, the leader of the UK Independence Party (UKIP) has called for a total ban on permanent immigration into the UK for five years. He has also said that no one who comes to work in the UK should be able to claim benefits for five years after arriving in the country. He says that to be able to put the immigration ban into place would require the UK to leave the European Union.

The former Polish president Lech Walesa has accused the UK's prime minister David Cameron of behaving 'irrationally and short-sightedly' over immigration. Mr Walesa was speaking on Polish television.

Mr Walesa became a globally famous figure when he led a strike by the Solidarity union at the Gdansk shipyard in 1980. After the fall of communism in eastern Europe, Mr Walesa became the first democratically elected president of Poland in 1990. He lost power in 1995.

The UK's Office for National Statistics has released information about the make-up of the country's immigrant population since 1951. The main finding s that the immigrant population quadrupled from 1.9m in 1951; 4.5% of the resident population, to 7.5m in 2011, 13% of the population.

Vince Cable, the UK's Business Secretary, has told the BBC that the immigration target set by UK Prime Minister David Cameron is 'arbitrary' and 'impractical'. He added that the government 'almost certainly won't achieve' the target by the next election.

The UK government has committed itself to reducing net immigration to below 100,000 annually by 2015 from a previous level of 250,000 a year under the last Labour Government. Mr Cameron told the BBC in 2010 that he wanted to see net immigration falling to 'tens of thousands' annually.

A health minister in the UK government has announced that the UK is to introduce charges for health care for all migrants. Foreign nationals living in the UK, as well as UK nationals resident abroad and tourists, will be expected to pay for medicines, for some emergency care and for eye and dental treatment.