Speech in Commons Chamber - Thu 18 Nov 2010 Immigration
"It is probably all right as long as someone is not a British soldier. The bulk of the inhabitants of Afghanistan are living peacefully...." Lord Lilley - View Speech
"I am grateful for the opportunity to participate in this debate, and I congratulate the right hon. Member for Birkenhead (Mr Field) on introducing it. Like him, I welcome the change in tone that has occurred in raising and debating the subject of immigration. In 2005, I wrote a pamphlet …..." Lord Lilley - View Speech
"And cheaper MPs, says the man from the Pound store. These professions tend to be somewhat immune, in that if one wants to be a journalist or a lawyer, it helps to be English, to understand English law and so forth...." Lord Lilley - View Speech
"Absolutely. I was coming on to that issue, which requires intelligent debate and recognition that it is not a matter of “all or nothing”. The absurd idea that we should allow anybody who can be labelled a skilled worker to come here is wrong...." Lord Lilley - View Speech
"In a moment, as I want to finish answering the point that was raised.
I am not suggesting that certain categories of skilled workers could not be used during a temporary shortage while domestic employees were being trained, or that there could not be a skills transfer when the skills …..." Lord Lilley - View Speech
"My hon. Friend’s intervention prompts a number of questions. For instance, why do we not train people?
For a while I was chairman of a small German company as a result of a merger, and the first thing that we did was bring in British employees to train its employees. …..." Lord Lilley - View Speech
"Yes, and that would imply the following policy: if a company says, “No one in this country yet has expertise in—”[Interruption.] Yes, in electric cars, as the hon. Member for Burnley (Gordon Birtwistle) suggests. I do not know whether that is the case, but if it is we might …..." Lord Lilley - View Speech
"Yes, but above all we need to fill it by training people up. That is what countries that grow and prosper do, and we have got to learn to do it too...." Lord Lilley - View Speech
The hon. Member for Ealing, Southall (Mr Sharma) mentioned the skill of cooking Bangladeshi meals. There are a large number of unemployed Bangladeshi people in this country, and there are a large number of Bangladeshi restaurants. Why, therefore, do the restaurateurs not train …..." Lord Lilley - View Speech
"The hon. Gentleman is one of the few Members of this House who admits to general illiteracy.
The magazine contains a very interesting article by Professor Coleman, a professor of demographics at Oxford university and former consultant to the Government. I have always dealt with immigration in terms of net …..." Lord Lilley - View Speech