BUSINESS secretary Vince Cable told business leaders last night (March 6) he was "intensely relaxed" about mass immigration and condemned "scare stories" about the issue.
"The free movement of goods, services and labour is good," Cable told guests at London's Mansion House trade and industry dinner.
The business secretary's remarks came as an official government study concluded there was "relatively little evidence" that migrant workers had taken the jobs of Britons when the economy was strong. There was evidence of "some labour market displacement" during the recession, according to the review.
Cable said he was "intensely relaxed about people coming to work and study here and bringing necessary skills to Britain," and cited the Rothschilds, Warburgs and Cazenoves as examples of immigrants vital to the creation Britain's huge financial sector.
The Liberal Democrats minister admitted that abuses of the system needed to be dealt with, but complained that those pointing out the positives of immigrants "need a tin hat and a gas mask".
"We just have to stop treating people coming to work here as if they are a problem," he said.
"We need to kill the scare stories.
"Business cannot understand why outstanding Chinese and Indian students who graduate from British universities with valuable skills can't stay on and pursue their careers in British business."
Conservative ministers have frequently cited research from 2012 by the Migration Advisory Committee (MAC) covering the period from 1995 to 2010 that found 23 British workers were left unemployed for every 100 new arrivals from outside the EU.
But the new analysis stated that when data from the recession years of 2009 and 2010 was omitted, the impact of non-EU migration was not "statistically significant".
At a separate event on the same day, Conservative immigration minister James Brokenshire said immigration was damaging Britain and must be reduced.
Making his first speech as immigration minister, Brokenshire attacked Cable's views and said the number of recent arrivals from the European Union was "just too high".
"Mass immigration puts pressure on social cohesion, on public services and infrastructure and – yes – it can force down wages and displace local people from the job market," he said.
"The winners are the haves like Vince, but the people who lose out are from working class families, they're ethnic minorities and recent immigrants themselves."
Opinion polls regularly show immigration to be one of voters' top three concerns. The rise of the UK Independence Party, which opposes "open-door" immigration, has put pressure on Prime Minister David Cameron to take a tough line on the issue to stop his supporters defecting.
Cameron's pledge to cut net immigration was undermined last month by figures showing that a net 212,000 people moved to Britain in the year to September, a jump of 37 per cent.
Opinion polls give Labour 38 per cent of the popular vote, a five-point lead over the Conservatives, with support for the Liberal Democrat sharply lower than before the previous election at nine per cent.
