Immigration debate

Recently, there has been lots of debate about immigration from the countries in the European Economic Union. In the last few years or so, we have stayed in several hotels in England and invariably most of the staff are from abroad, usually from a country in the EEC. The first contact is usually at reception and then in the restaurant. Invariably the staff are polite, friendly and efficient and look as though they enjoy their work.

My mother was a refugee from Germany and arrived in England just before the start of the Second World War. She had to retake her medical degrees in order to practice and she passed the exams the first time. She came from a wealthy family and she and her brother had an English governess (called Miss Henderson!). My mother and uncle learnt English from her from a very early age.

We go to Italy a lot as we have a second home there. Certainly the younger people we have met all speak pretty good English and they learned this at school. I wondered how all the waiters and receptionist at hotels had learned their English.

I today found a statistic on the Internet in in 2010 about 92% of all secondary school students in the countries of the EEC were learning English as a second language.

I am convinced that this is a major factor that determines employment in the UK of people from Europe.