A Message on Immigration

It is hard to read the recent media coverage about immigration and not feel depressed. My father was an immigrant to the UK in the late 1950s. He came here as a student and stayed when he met my mother, who was English. They attempted a life back in Sri Lanka which is why I was born there, but my mother wanted her first daughter to be brought up in the UK so they returned. To some people I look like an immigrant but I don’t feel like one. I have spent nearly 60 years in this country. My husband's parents were immigrants to this country. His mother came here after the war from Germany and his father from India. His father, although from a British family, had lived all of his life in India and had an Indian passport, of which he was very proud. He came to the UK to do his conscription but was told he didn’t need to and so he joined the RAF and stayed with the service for 24 years.

The media coverage is depressing because there is an assumption that immigration is negative. It is not, it is a positive for the UK. It is now and it has always been. It increases our GDP, productivity and tax revenues. Our leaders and most politicians don’t say this as they are happy for some group of people to be blamed for the country’s woes, to avert eyes from shortcomings that have been created on their watch. They react to opinions rather than actually direct resources to inform us properly as to the facts. Here are some facts:

In 2024 of the 431,000 migrants who came to the country, 262,000 came to work and a comparable number came to study. Both of these categories bring money into the economy. Of the 262,000 who came to work the majority of them came to the healthcare, construction, engineering and teaching sectors All of which require labour shortfalls to be plugged.

The success of Honesty Group, the business I founded 14 years ago, is in some part due to the hard work of people from overseas. We have of course also enjoyed a huge contribution from British nationals but the business would not have succeeded without the help of immigrants.

I have been out of the UK for a month and reading various media I wonder whether I should be preparing myself for a much changed country, with flags hung from houses, violent demonstrations in the streets and immigrants fearing for their safety. I suspect everything will more or less be as it was because the majority of people in the UK recognise the contribution that economic migrants bring to our shores and go out of their way to be kind, compassionate and welcoming.

-Romilla