Immigration Minister hits out over school integration

Reporter: Kirsty Rigg
Date online: 29 January 2009

Immigration Minister Phil Woolas has hit out at MPs who used a Rochdale school to claim integration is not working.

Across the country, there are 10 primary schools where no pupils speak English as a first language — ome of which being Heybrook Primary school in Hamer, Rochdale.

The list, which also includes four Oldham schools, shows one in seven primary pupils nationwide who does not have English as a first language.

Labour MP Frank Field and Tory MP Nicholas Soames, co-chairmen of the Cross Party Group on Balanced Migration, said: “These figures make a nonsense of the Government’s aim of integration and show the very real strain that uncontrolled large-scale immigration is already placing upon our society.

“How can these children be expected to integrate into our society if they are being taught where English is not the mother tongue?”

Immigration Minister Phil Woolas hit back saying: “We have been dealing with this and addressing this for more than a decade. 

“I don’t mind criticism but let them do it with facts, not prejudice.”