Devizes MP welcomes fall in net migration (From This Is Wiltshire)

Devizes MP Claire Perry has welcomed the first fall in net migration into the UK since 2008.

Recent figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) show that estimated net migration in the UK fell to 216,000 in the year to December 2011, from 252,000 in the year to December 2010, as a raft of recent reforms to the immigration system start to bite.

Mrs Perry said: “I know that immigration is an issue that concerns many people in the constituency and I know how deeply frustrated they are about the chaos which was the hallmark of our immigration system for too long. For years under Labour, immigration was out of control with net migration to Britain reaching more than 2.2 million people between 1997 and 2010.

“We now have a Government which is doing what is needed to bring immigration under control. Economic migration has been capped, bogus students are being turned away, and the rules on family migration are being made more robust. Immigration is still too high but I know the Government is committed to continuing its aim to bring it down to sustainable levels; from the hundreds of thousands to the tens of thousands.”