To be annoyed that immigration is the main issue for most people in EU debate?

[susanketty]

Whether you are 'in' or 'out', I'm getting tired of immigration being the main issue for people - sure, it will have an impact, but brexit is not going to solve any problems with immigration that people perceive, and immigration fears does not seem to be to me a good enough reason to vote out. And voting in is not going to necessarily lead to a rush of immigrants.

We are not in the Schengen area, we have border control, and EU immigrants make a net contribution to our economy. Brexiteers often say they would like a Norway-esque agreement, which seems to me like all the problems (i.e., free movement of people) with none of the advantages other than being in the trade area (which we are already).

I just think there is more to the debate than immigration and it seems to me like it's been pushed to the front of the agenda to push more people to vote out due to fear.

YANBU, feel free to be as annoyed as you want as long as it doesn't impact on anyone else.
Pointless getting het up though, as people are allowed to decide how to vote based on the issues that are important to them.

scaryteacher

Interestingly, before this industry of interpreters/translators, overseas people somehow managed! How amazing. Someone from the family accompanied them to an appt, or someone from church-temple-mosque, etc. There are many ethnic self-help groups, partly supported with council money, going back 80 yrs and more. There are younger relatives in the family who speak English well, perhaps born here, who could interpret.

I did for my parents, in person and reading forms, completing them - everything. This nonsense of having every form translated into many languages is simply jobs for the boys.

It would be a huge dereliction of patient care if the NHS didn't offer translation services to those who need them.

That is why it is imperative to make our Benefits system less generous should we Brexit. And I personally would negotiate a very limited free movement of people should we sign a trade agreement with EU, with no claim to benefits. The UK needs to attract people from all over the world whose skills our country needs. No one need familiess of 6 living on benefits moving from one EU country to another - for what purpose?

I think that this idea of immigrants-as-benefits claimants does cloud the debate. I am not saying that immigrants do not claim benefits, but, as mentioned earlier, they make a net contribution to the economy. The benefit system is already pivoting towards reduced benefits (the two-year requirement before benefits can be paid). Most EU immigrants are working age, do not claim benefits long term, and contribute to the economy. They are usually younger, which could help to combat our aging population - we should be encouraging this (much the same way that many argue that the US should be welcoming hispanics as they often are younger and work in the economy). Especially in this age of fear and terror, we should be more welcoming and inclusive.

MedSchoolRat 2015/16 NHS England budget = £101.3 billion. £33 miln = 0.0325% of that.

The figures I gave (but I need to double check with another source) are the FEES paid to interpreters. Nothing else.
Aahhh that old trick of showing how small the percentage is of total budget. Total of £71 million paid last year to interpreters, of which £33m was NHS. £33m could buy us a few extra nurses, not to be sniffed at.

Translation and interpretation is a small cost, and at leasts helps people to integrate in the early years. Of course some never do learn English, but why should council services, NHS services, benefits services etc be cut off for non-English speakers? They are eligible for the help but they are forced to learn English to access it? This is not the way to treat people.

We had issues in France and my DD had a nasty accident, we had no interpreters at all and we got billed for it. I couldn't even ask where we were in the hospital so I could leave, and come back in and find DD and DH again , ( we had come in by ambulance!
A lady attacked to a drip walked over to me to help.

River I think Labour had to have interpreters to help, because unlike in previous years when immigration was normal, suddenly hundreds of people walking into NHS not speaking English put huge strain on it, same with prisons, courts etc.

It was one way of them to ease the crisis they put us in. Its a shame the money wasn't directed to the poor of the UK though really.

Translation and interpretation is a small cost, and at leasts helps people to integrate in the early years

I think cost is relative really.

We know in the early years, councils were put under tremendous strain with thousands of people flooding in needing services.

We know the head count however proved the population was going down. In this crisis, with one budget services had to pulled from other areas like Meals on Wheels.

So I dont think the folk at the end of the cuts, to provide all these extras would say its a small cost.

In fact I think they would say " why are my meals on wheels cut, why on earth do we need thousands of Eastern Europeans in my town?"

Surely its better to have small, manageable - predictable numbers of people coming in and out, that councils can budget for accordingly and can cope with in all service areas?

The net contribution point is often made - but this is a simple calculation of taxes paid minus state support, and usually over a very short period of time, certainly before the young single EU migrant has children.

What about the additional hidden costs, e.g. if a young EU migrant takes a job at the expense of a local applicant, what about the costs of the state having to support the jobless local applicant?

Fine if you think £33 million is unacceptable, but no one should use that as evidence that EU migrants are somehow the biggest NHS users.

But when the NHS was already under strain and in crisis, why on earth did we allow any more users to access it?

I know back in 2006/2007 the papers were full of horrors on Maternity wards and there was a massive shortage of MW. THEN, the birth rate went BOOM and a large number of users were foreign born mothers?

These of course are in concentrated areas where migrants first settled.

Was this the best course of action to take - when there was a shortage of MW?

Was the Labour Government acting in the best interest of its own people?

In a study, it was calculated that between 1995-2011 migrants made a positive contribution of more than 4 billion, native Britons made an overall negative contribution of around 590 billion. Between 2001-2011, the contribution from the post-2004 eastern european countries was around 5 billion. Yes, these are from people who are generally young and may well have children, but they may well also be at the beginning of their career and in a position to earn more and make larger contributions as they integrate in society.

And if a EU migrants takes a job from a British native? Evidently the EU migrant is a better applicant. To me, this is not really an immigration issue but more about supply of jobs / training for British natives. Do we really want to live in a country where we keep out immigrants because we are concerned they will 'take our jobs' because they are better qualified?

But when the NHS was already under strain and in crisis, why on earth did we allow any more users to access it?

Because it is the NHS and it is there to provide health care.

Susanketty, I don't speak fluent Flemish, can get by in French, and the fact that my local services are mandated to speak in Flemish, doesn't mean I don't access them, I just can't access them in English. Thus, I use language dictionaries, or Vertalen.nl to work out what I want to say.

Translators or translations aren't supplied as a matter of course by other EU member states, because they want people to integrate by learning the language. We should be providing subsidised English lessons for those who don't speak it, be they Hungarians or from the sub continent.

I'm voting out purely because I want my vote to have some sort of meaning in the future. Our votes for the European parliament are effectively meaningless, it is controlled by the unelected and unaccountable Eurocrats. Sure, at the moment we have a Conservative government in the UK. In four years time we'll have the chance to change that. Moreover, even now we can force the government to back down if we protest loud enough - like on making all schools academies.

If we stay in, what we do or say in Westminster will have as much importance as a parochial church council meeting does now.

yes its there to provide health care to the UK citizens.

The job of OUR GOVERNMENT whether you op, or anyone else disagrees, is to put us - the UK citizens first. That is the way it is.

When any UK citizen suffers as a result of actions taken in favour of people from other counties the Government is failing in its duty of care.

The EU concept is largely to help and support the poorer nations, Like Poland, etc etc. Very noble but not to the detriment of UK.

And if a EU migrants takes a job from a British native? Evidently the EU migrant is a better applicant

I dont think you understand how all this works.

Its been said, seen and repeated so many times. Polish builders - for instance live in lodgings, sometimes a few people to a room, turning every room in house into a bedroom, they live very cheaply on shoe string budgets with a clear goal, to earn money to take home.

They would spend very little on local economy, probably work really hard cash in hand, pay LL - ( probably slum) cash in hand, then go home.

How on earth can a young lad perhaps still living at home or in a normal flat, compete?

Again, you may think its fair to give poor polish people a chance in the UK at the detriment of the poor UK citizen.

I would argue that the UK Government has a duty of care first and foremost to the UK citizen!

Susan I have had a great deal to do with EU people who have come here to work. Their work ethic is tremendous and they work long hours, with very little time for socialising.

This is my experience. At first the men come to England by themselves and obtain work - usually building work - off the cards. They work their socks off and send money back home, where he may have a wife and child. He lives in a rented room in a multi-occupied house with men from his own country. The man will take a coach trip back home at Easter, Christmas and the summer for a break.

Once he judges the time is right, he will find himself a PAYE job so that he becomes visible. When convenient, he will have his wife and child move to the UK and she too will find work, the child will go to school. OR the couple meets in the UK and sets up home together. They will apply for housing benefit, then when child No 2 is coming they apply for either a council house or suitable private housing for two children. She will go on maternity leave, tax credits, etc.

The CE and EE menfolk specifically do not use the NHS much, but their women do contribute somewhat to maternity wings being full up, but mostly it is the non-European women. My local maternity wing has been affected badly. In the 50 yrs I have lived in this area I have never known anything like it.

The central European and EE people do not apply for Unemployment Benefit, but they are recipients of various credits.

Is it okay to allow more users of NHS if those users are themselves NHS workers?

Because of WWII and French secular traditions, there is a history in most continental countries of not recognising ethnic minorities at all. Not recognised in census, nobody knows how many there are, nobody can tell you with hard facts if they are discriminated against, etc. If you don't see people, you don't have to provide services for them (or acknowledge the social inequalities they endure). Hence the social isolation of some ethnic minorities around Brussels and Paris, a growing trend of some becoming radicalised, and the deplorable plight of the Roma across most of Europe. Not a model the UK should want to copy.

Because it is the NHS and it is there to provide health care.

For anyone, from anywhere (in the EU at least), for ever?

Ah, yes it's OK because all the EU migrants are net contributors - it's odd how all the trusts are in deficit considering the fantastic improvements all the immigrants are funding.

Oh wait, let's blame all the old indigenous people - not only are they wealthy and uncaring (as nastily alluded to earlier by the OP), they are ill and using the health service too, the old bastards.

I agree MedSchoolRat

river

x post.

The CE and EE menfolk specifically do not use the NHS much

I would disagree with this comment though, as I have seen much use of ambulances from fighting men where we are, there have been mutliple stabbings, attacks and fights. There has been much police/council/NHS use. I have not read this, I have personally witnessed it.

There is a very large EE contingent where we are, and they are not all like this, but this is what I have seen. Families have integrated much better, through the DC, chatting at school and so on. I also suppose it makes more sense they - families have more reason to want to integrate and make a go of it here. The men working to send money home, perhaps not so.

If numbers are small, who cares or notices?

If numbers are large, it matter a great deal more. This - the volume is the key issue isn't it.

MedSchool some becoming radicalised, and the deplorable plight of the Roma across most of Europe

I did not become radicalised, nor did my brother, sisters or cousins. Don't blame the host country. And by the way, have you actually met Roma close up? If you had you would understand why people are not well-disposed towards them, in any country.

Does that mean Shakeeba is a sterling example of the sort of immigrant (upholding British values of tolerance) that the UK wants to attract & keep? :(

in 2012 the ONS said that you needed to earn 39k to be a net contributor to the economy. I can't imagine that many immigrants earn this level of money

Totally disagree Susan if you want to live in England then make an effort to learn the language especially if you want access to our services that you haven't paid for.

I agree about the paper Europeans who often arrive from places like Holland who may not want them as they don't work but we get lumbered with them.

I would like the government to clamp down on people using the NHS who do not qualify and billing them and fining the airlines who let them travel or billing their embassy.