So what we're, so, so in a sense, I mean, we are a multicultural society. And we have a responsibility to try and make it work. And so why ask, why, why ask you about the right sort of speech? How do you speak well of each other? Is there a ways of expressing anxiety about that are legitimate and important? And there are some ways that are really

not. Yeah, that's right. And that's absolutely right. And I am not saying that when I talk to working class people in my community and other communities, sometimes I don't cringe, because I do. But I'm equally cringing sort of the way that other people are talking about them as well. So my experience, which is quite long, you know, is that you have to talk to each other. You have to, you know, have spaces where people can talk to each other. You also have to stop having divisive debates or no debate at all, where you're a racist, you're far right. You know, you are, you know, you want open borders and therefore you want rapists and corinals in the country. This has got to stop because we've got to, somehow we've got to talk.

Dr. Mackenzie, thank you. Thank you very much indeed.

Our next witness is Sunda Katwala, who's Director of the British Future Think Tank, which works for, and I quote, a Briton that is inclusive and fair for all.

Do you think it's fair that people have had no say over levels of

immigration that opinion polls suggest the overwhelming majority don't want?

I think we've got a democratic society and so people can and should have a say about immigration. We had referendum on the European Union, which changed the immigration rules. We've got a parliament that we elected and we should have a say. I mean, I'm not a migrant. I was born in Britain. My parents came to this country from India and from Ireland in the 1960s and the 19s. Seventies I'm interested in trying to find common ground on an issue that's very divisive and polarizing.

So, Sunda? Thank

you. I'd like to come to this issue of public consent, which you've talked about a lot in your work. We just heard from our last witness, Lisa, about that it was there was a feeling of a lack of consent in some working class communities about the numbers of asylum seekers being housed in those communities, for example. Is there a difference between public consent at the national level and what people might say in an opinion poll and consent at the local level? It's an

issue that divides opinion. Historically, a lot of people have wanted a lower immigration than we've got. They've also been in favor of some of the immigration. It's certainly true that in communities where people arrive and nobody tells you or nobody does any work on it that you don't feel heard about that. So definitely, definitely the pressures and gains are felt unequally in our society. And if you want the gains of immigration, we'd better manage the pressures well if we want consent and confidence for what we're doing.

And what does managing those pressures well mean? Well, it means that you shouldn't have to choose between treating well

people who come to your society, you've invited them in or you've given them protection and fairness for the people who are already here. That might be hard work to work without. Sometimes that's practical school places, hospitals, sometimes that's about identity belonging. It's not racist to express the views with just being heard unless you cross over and you start being racist. So, you know, if you don't bottle up the debate and close it down, you can actually find out whether you can have

that common ground on how to handle it. And if you take away some of the economic concerns about immigration, the impact on the court services, etc, do you think there are still legitimate concerns that people can have about identity and belonging? Yes, there'd be two types of different concerns. I think there's, are there fair chances for

me and my children in this society as well as the people who are coming in? And this, do I still feel valued in my society? Does making society more welcoming of Sunda Catwala than it was in the 1980s mean that someone else is going to be dispossessed? Or can we have a sense that Britain is going to be a strong Britain with the people who've been here, 10 generations and the people whose parents arrived, you know, half cent trigger?

And do you think that when migrants come in to live in the UK, there are certain things that they ought to sign up to, things like speaking English or signing up to, you know, what we might call fundamental British values, like on women's rights, gay rights, rule of law, for example, do you think we have a right to expect

that? Because there's a pretty foundational consensus between most people who come to a society. Migrants and we've helped a mistake about the society they've joined and the expectations that if you don't have a shared language, how are we going to get along? If we treat you fairly and without discrimination, you play by the rules, you operate the rule of law, you learn how to queue for a bus and all the rest of it, and you and your children should be equally British as everybody else. That was said to be impossible for people like me. My dad came to Witson Bank holiday after he not power made that famous speech. That speech was saying, if Sunde Catwal is born in this country, it will be the funeral of everything. And what happens? What happens

when people come and they're not seen to be playing along with that? And I'm thinking, you know, for example, in the race riots in 2001, people were thought to have been living parallel lives, you know, both communities living high by side, not integrating. Fundamentally,

it's confidence, confidence in how it's gone so far will be absolutely foundational to whether you've got confidence in Britain. We're more confident in Britain with all the anxieties and pressures we've got. We're more confident about how we handle a shared Britain, a multi-ethnic Britain, than they are in France at the moment. There's a more polarised politics in France because the majority and the minority group feel more distant from each other. Here we don't get it right. We don't work very hard on integration the moments of people arriving. We've done quite well with a bit of a lag effect in the schools, in the universities, in the colleges, of, you know, when people are living together. Actually, that's why across generations we've got more confidence in migration than we used to have.

And is there a problem when we're using immigration as a society to avoid paying people decent wages and a set to like social care, for example, you know, where the government is one of the biggest customers? Yeah,

we should be very grateful to people who come and do social care jobs in this country, but the government has got the responsibility to pay people well, you know, a fund-bat system properly. And if you get that balance wrong, then, you know, you're not doing a good job, I think.

And if we do that, then, you know, if we were to pay people more, immigration might go down. Do you think that that's a problem?

I mean, I'm not here to maximize the level of immigration. I'd like to increase our confidence in the immigration we're choosing to have. Tim. Here, coming across as damnably reasonable. So I'm going to tell my questions up a bit. Paul Enoch was wrong. If you listen to his speech, he really is just a massive racist. But this is not 1968. There's 2024, and we are running historic levels of immigration. And we also have major economic problems. We have shortages and squeezes on public services. Is there not just simply, does it not just feel as though we are just reaching a breaking point? Whatever the polls might show in terms of attitudes towards immigration, because it actually is just on a practical level right now unmanageable. I don't think our society is a breaking point, but I think we need confidence in what is a sustainable level and how do we handle it. It's important to understand what is unethical about what Enoch Powell did, because it's always ethical to contest next year's immigration. You might want it high, low or medium. It's never ethical to contest the immigration of 20 years ago. Enoch was saying, send them all back for the last 20 years. So we agreed after Brexit that we can change the free movement rules. We've got to be fair to all of the Europeans that came. So by all means have a debate about what is a higher level and what is a lower level. There was a problem with what Boris Johnson did, because ethically he's a have your cake and eat it kind of politician. He didn't agree with reducing immigration. He agreed with Brexit. He wanted control and he agreed with more immigration. And while he was making immigration more liberal, he also said, by the way, the numbers. But doesn't that speak to the government? Isn't that precisely why people feel betrayed? You said at the beginning we do have votes on things like we had a vote on the EU. People voted to leave the EU and to control freedom of movement. But the problem is for that point of view, immigration then went up. Whoever you vote for, the elite, just does what it wants to do. If Boris Johnson would be more honest about which cake he was going to eat, he could have taken people with him. Because the immigration increased the students and the post-study immigration, the Hong Kongers to whom we had to assault responsibility. And the Ukrainians, and the Ukraine in case it's fascinating because it's totally the opposite of the power argument. This was not the government-foisting immigration on the people. It was individual people in terms. Foisting immigration on the government, because the number of Ukrainians we could take was dependent on the number of people in the public. But critically, the public felt there was an element of choice in a personal agency. They were saying, I am letting someone into my home because I'm choosing to let men. And the problem with the system at present is it feels as though they have no control over it. Politicians set the road. It's all about what business wants. And they are actually being betrayed by it. So let's learn that lesson. Let's have a humanitarian visa for Britain, let communities be did up by office. This is the issue. This is why I say you're being very rich. Let's have a parliamentary debate like the budget where we hear about last year, we hear about next year. Forgive me, but I suspect that you basically want to encourage people to embrace immigration. Well, actually the current level, the 750,000 level was a worn off because three massive things happened at once, Hong Kong immigration has. Yes. When it gets down to 350,000, actually we could sustain that, but we better build the houses. According to the last census, something like 40% of people living in London were born. Yes. And isn't that a remarkable change? And isn't it understandable that people are nervous about that? Well, hang on. The people who are born abroad and the children born here, let's not be contesting the immigration of 50 years ago, 20 years ago, and 30 years ago. Let's have a debate about immigration, whether migrant citizens, the settled migrants, the ethnic minorities, the white British born for 10 generations can all have a voice in handling it fairly for everybody, having integration and cohesion that works. Let's not say too many migrants, too much diversity is the problem. Let's have a more normal debate like we have for tax and spending about immigration. You and I might have that, but I'm worried that people out there are having a very different kind of debate. And the right wing is rising. It's going to play a big role in the next election. And whether one likes it or not, people are really angry and they're having quite dark thoughts. We've got more control now. We've got dilemmas of control. People won't lower immigration. They want doctors, nurses and care workers. People wanted to have our historic responsibility to Hong Kongers. It was rising immigration. We'll have more sustainable levels than we've got now. I don't think it can be above half a million a year and sustainably. But even handling this level, we've had for 20 years, of course, a million a year. We better roll our sleeves up, work hard on identity, hard on integration and build some houses. We might do all of those things and there will still be, even if they are dwindling as a proportion, a number of people who are just furious about this. Are those people who you ultimately give up on and say, you're never going to like Britain, so you're the ones who are actually in touch with British values? They've got a democratic vote. If they vote in a landslide for your next guest, then they can have a couple of minutes. Senator Khatwala, thank you very much indeed.

Our last witness is Richard Tice, who's leader of course of the Reform UK political party, formerly the Brexit party. One of whose, the Reform UK party, that is, one of whose stated aims is reducing immigration to net zero. In a nutshell, Mr Tice, in a single sentence,

in fact, what's the moral case for that?

The moral case for that is that we want immigration to work for both people who come into a country, but also for the host nation. If it works for both sides of the equation, then that's a great thing, everybody benefits. But if either side of the equation gets a greater benefit, then actually it starts to cause issues, challenges, concerns, whether it's either side of the equation. And the fundamental role of government is actually to look after its own citizens, to improve the way a country is run for ones as citizens, hopefully therefore to make people better off, healthier and therefore handing over essentially a better country for ones own children. That's the fundamental role of government.

Jaws, Rader.

Do

you think it's important if people come to this country to live here from abroad that they subscribe to some of our sort of fundamental issues? Some of our sort of fundamental moral ethical values? Yes,

I do. I think that's really important. I think that we've seen that multiculturalism has paid and failed, whereas I think actually people who want to come and enjoy the privilege of living in the United Kingdom. I want them to actually say, yes, we all sign up to the single British culture, and then actually that's how people can work together. And that's how people see the benefits, particularly

those... Can I just cut a question? Because I just wanted the yes there, because I've got a follow-up really. Do you think Christianity has played an important formative part in the formation of our British values? I think without

question, I mean, we're a nation that's based on Christianity, we've got the Christian ethos, and some of the things that people treasure about the United Kingdom all over the world are those great Christian values. And I think therefore, and that's what British people, people who have born here were living a long time, that's what we

feel is... So far we agree. So part of Christianity is welcoming the stranger, welcoming those who come from who are vulnerable, those who come from places that are... There's a lot in the Bible about refugees and how you treat refugees and how you welcome people. So that is also a part of our Christian heritage and formation. Correct. Yeah, very good. So you would think that there is a positive moral value for actually welcoming people who are vulnerable from abroad. And this country

has always been very generous in welcoming people from abroad. We've always done our bit. But I repeat the point that you've got two types of immigration, of course. You've got asylum seekers and you've also got deliberately planned immigration over the long term. You take country like Dubai, for example. They want huge immigration because they're building a city in the middle of a desert. But as I say, the thing is it's got

to work for both sides of the equation. Well, what I mean if it doesn't have to work for both sides? Why do you have to say it works for both sides? Why if somebody... Because that's... My hand would say that's very important. It's very important. But let me ask the question. I haven't asked the question yet. So the thing is, one of the sort of things, ethical things, is that actually sometimes you put yourself out for other people. That there are other people who are in need. Absolutely. And you put themselves out for them as we've done for all sorts of people. But as was rightly said earlier on, it's

about choice. And that's why people have been so welcoming and really gone, you know, huge extra lengths to welcome people from Ukraine, for example. But it has to be about choice as opposed to something that is forced on a

community where they're not seeing the benefits. I want immigration by consent, so we don't disagree with that. But I just want to hear you. And that's the point. That's the point. No, I

agree. But then

why do you say net zero immigration? Because actually, I think the British people are a welcoming, tolerant lot. No, no.

And we want to think about that because of the challenge. Because unfortunately, at the moment what's happened is, if you welcome 1.25 million people, the size of Birmingham, into a nation that's not growing at all, then everybody is getting a little bit poorer. The public services are a little bit worse off. And it goes on and on and on. And if

you do that without paying, in which case

you've got to ask the people, if you say to the people, in the

next 10 years, I want

to grow the population by 14 million people coming into the country. You have a debate and everyone says, great, let's go for it. Let's build the houses, build the hospital beds and the GP surgeries and get the doctors and train everybody. That's a democratic consent. Then everybody's on the side, everybody sees the benefit. If you impose on people and people get poorer,

services get worse, then actually that causes anxiety and concern and resentment. No disagreement. So what would you argue in that debate? So we have that debate. I believe we should have a public democratic debate. I believe it should be happened by consent. And I would say, I think we should welcome more people. I think it's our moral responsibility. I think also it's our Christian duty to welcome people who come from Afghanistan places that we can't. We don't want

to go to that debate. I want that debate. I've been calling

for that debate. What would you say in the debate? What would you say in the debate? My view is that I

think we want people to come here that benefits our nation and I think the right way to do that is you say it's got to add value.