Leader: Need to act without being xenophobic

They came to Britain looking for work. But now they are not in work, and 371,000 of them are claiming benefits, a huge drain on public finances.

You can safely say that the official figure for the number of migrants claiming benefits is an underestimate, based on previous inaccuracies and the fact that it is in the Government's interests to play down the issue.

Even on the evidence of these official figures, it means that the number of migrants on the dole is far more than the population of Shropshire Council's area.

Records are not kept of the nationalities of the claimants, in what Conservative ministers describe as a "scandalous omission" by the previous Labour administration. We do, though, know that 258,000 were from outside the European economic area.

The whole thing reinforces the image of a slack immigration system.

There is no doubt that immigration can be a force for good. But how does Britain benefit from hundreds of thousands of migrants coming here and being a burden on the state, when many of them have not paid British taxes or contributed to society by working?

It is not a matter of race, religion, or creed, and even less of fiddling the system – a tiny proportion have been found to be claiming illegally.

It is a question of economics and the proper working of society, as these people also require housing, schools, hospitals, and so on, just like everybody else in Britain.

There are sensitivities which make politicians wary of wading in to the debate. But figures like these speak for themselves, and there needs to be some radical thinking in which those looking for solutions can do so without the fear of being smeared as xenophobes.

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