The British Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, has finally entered the debate on UK immigration policy and what could have been his opportunity to address and set out the positive benefits to the UK economy of immigration and the UK's position in the global economy.

Thalej Vasishta, business immigration law expert and Founder and Managing Director of international specialist immigration legal practice, Paragon Law in Nottingham, comments: "The speech was a knee-jerk reaction to the current live debate following the BNP's rise in the media and a very apparent concern on the part of the Labour party and their leader that they are under threat of losing the 'white working class' vote to the BNP.

"There appears to be no clear policy or strategy adopted in Gordon Brown's speech as to why he has put forward certain proposals. 

"A classic example of this is that Mr Brown announced that Labour would review student visas so that only those coming to the UK to study degree or post-graduate courses would be allowed to enter. This completely goes against recognising that British education is one of our most successful exports, contributing £10bn to the income of UK universities, colleges and schools collectively.  

"Paragon Law has been working with a number of schools and further education colleges on their strategy to recruit international students. The income that these institutions receive from international student fees is the difference between survival and not.  Many colleges and schools are developing 5 - 10 year strategies on international recruitment based on previous assurances by this government that they want to encourage students from countries such as India, Nigeria and so on, to choose the UK as a place to study. It is apparent that in making this announcement the government has not consulted with this part of the education sector.

"Another reason that Gordon Brown has been compelled to speak about immigration is because of the criticism of his government's failure on immigration control which is going to result in the UK population increasing to 70 million. Gordon Brown's response in an interview with the Daily Mail was to simply dismiss that the UK's population would increase to this level.

"I would argue that a population increase is not a bad thing for the UK economy. Whether you are a house builder, a landlord of properties, a retailer, a restaurant, private school or for that matter in any business you need consumers to market to, a larger consumer market means a greater opportunity to sell your products. After all is this not one of the main reasons that global business is looking at China and India as a place to set up? Forward looking businesses are looking at opportunities in India and China because of the size of their population. These are big consumer markets to go after and which make up one third collectively of the world's population.  

"Indeed the sole reason why China and India have not been affected by the global economic downturn is because their domestic markets are so large that they are not dependant on having to sell their goods and services abroad.  

"Moreover, the UK needs a clear and effective policy on ensuring that the UK population grows properly and in line with what demographic changes necessitate. There is an aging population in the UK; in the next 10 years 50 percent of the UK population will be of retirement age or over. The fastest growing age group in the UK is the over 80s which will soon make up 25 percent of the UK's population.  

"These demographic changes do not sit comfortably with the UK being competitive in a global economic market. We need to attract the best talent to the UK and ensure that our strategies and policies are in place to ensure that this starts now. There is a global war on talent and we are competing with other aging economies such as the USA and the rest of the Western European countries for this talent. 

"The UK government needs to give careful consideration on not restricting British businesses from being able to attract the best talent from abroad. Many of these businesses are now finding it difficult recruiting from within the resident domestic market and are having to rely on finding skilled workers from abroad in order to remain competitive. British business should be allowed to continue, in line with market forces, to be able to look for the best talent from abroad if this is not available in the UK. This problem for British business is going to become more apparent as the population ages.

"The UK will be better served in stealing the march on attracting the best talent, investors, entrepreneurs and business to the UK and the UK should market itself as the place to be. If we do not do this now we will regret this in 10 years time. There are only a certain number of businesses in the UK whose target consumer market is the over 50s!

"London, Nottingham, Leeds, Manchester, Birmingham and Leicester are all successful global cities because of their ethnic diversity, because of the coming together of different ideas and conversely different businesses attracting larger consumer markets. For Gordon Brown to say that the only benefit to the UK economy is that it has made it easier for us to find a plumber is very offensive to those who have come to this country and contributed to this country's success and in many cases more so than 80 percent of the indigenous UK population. The government should celebrate the success that Indian, Pakistani, American, African and so forth entrepreneurs from other areas have made to their local economies in the UK. There are many thousands of examples to choose from.

"To suggest that the immigrant community do not accept the responsibilities or the rights that come with living here is equally offensive. Not obeying the law, not being able to speak English and not making a contribution to the UK economy is equally a social problem which is concentrated in large pockets of the UK where there are no migrant communities.  However, this should not be about dividing the people of Great Britain but rather bringing people together, in order to contribute to the success of the UK in their own way. Such statements by government ministers are very often picked up by the foreign media who understandably report such comments in a negative light and quite often in their press portray the UK as a place which does not want to do business with the outside world. 

"I have met Chinese and Indian nationals who have echoed such concerns and the consequence being that they have looked at other counties such as Australia, New Zealand, Canada and USA to set up in business. We as a nation can not afford to lose such opportunities.

"As the election comes closer, the immigration debate will become more heated and if polls are correct immigration policy will be either number 1, 2 or 3 on the electorates' mind when deciding where to cast their vote. It is therefore extremely important that those who are able to do so, through experience, address the balance in respect of the negative press which is being led by the right wing newspapers. It is important to give the electorate a proper and balanced position of the benefits of immigration to the UK. The government and opposition are failing to do this in fear of losing votes and this will for the reasons outlined in this article have a negative affect on the UK economy."