Nicholas Soames MP: You're hired!

Nicholas Soames is the Conservative MP for Mid Sussex.

Diversification is the key to economic success.  A diverse national economy provides more sustainable growth and is less vulnerable to the vagaries of the global economy.  Balanced economies are more resistant to exaggerated boom-and-bust cycles (though I certainly wouldn’t go so far as to claim that they abolish boom-and-bust), whereas those economies inordinately dependent on one particular sector increase their risk of calamity.

This is why we need to strengthen British industry.  Although the UK remains the world’s sixth largest manufacturer (measured by output), this masks an alarming decline over successive decades and governments.  In 1979, manufacturing accounted for 25.8% of the UK’s economy.  In 1997, this proportion was 20.3%.  By 2009, manufacturing made up just over 11% of the economy.

Nicholas Soames MP: What are we going to do if we don't want our population to rise to 70 million in the next 20 years?

Nicholas Soames is MP for Mid Sussex and Co-Chairman of the Cross Party Group on Balanced Migration.

Graphs are usually not that exciting or compelling. This one is different. It clearly shows something that very few people realise: our population is on track to grow from 61 million to 70 million in the next 20 years, and 80 million in mid-century.

This is the backdrop to the debate about immigration. Make no mistake: I believe that immigration has benefited our country in numerous ways. But what we have seen in the last decade is uncontrolled, large scale and unprecedented levels of immigration. For example, East African Asians admitted in the mid-1970s amounted to 27,000 spread over two years.  Net foreign immigration is now that number every month; in 2007 it reached one third of a million.