There's no secret about Labour and immigration

Its source was a former (and good) speech writer of mine, Andrew Neather, who worked for me when I was Home Secretary.

I'm glad to see that he now says that his "views have been twisted out of all recognition".

I read the original stories, and more comment on it yesterday, with incredulity, since they are the reverse of the truth. I spent my time as Home Secretary seeking better to control immigration, by new laws and more effective administration. My 1998 Immigration and Asylum Bill was not heralded by anyone as an "open door" policy, because it was the opposite. I was damned by many on the Left for my pains.

I am, however, unapologetic about its effect. It has worked. Asylum applications, at 25,000 a year, are now a third of their peak (and below the average in the European Union 15); the dreadful backlog of appeals which was there in 1997 is being overcome, and enforced removals and voluntary departures are up threefold. A language test for spouses seeking indefinite leave to remain has been brought in; a minimum age of 21 set; and new laws on forced marriages enacted.

Asylum and illegal migration was the preoccupation then. Now it is work permits. As the economy boomed, work permit numbers did rise rapidly, and so did those coming in from the new "accession states" of the EU, such as Poland (far in excess of the thorough estimates with which ministers had been presented), all to fill jobs which employers - not ministers - judged were not being taken by UK-based workers. But it was never an "open door" and the old system has now been replaced by the Australian-style points system.

Immigration brings, and has brought, enormous benefits to the UK. Our history has been built on it, and the diversity it has brought to our lives is to be celebrated.

I am always ready to debate immigration policy. I do so all the time. Partly in preparation for Question Time last Thursday with BNP leader Nick Griffin, I spent an afternoon one Friday knocking on doors in a BNP-contested ward in Dagenham. I met no one who was signed up to Mr Griffin's race-based politics, but plenty of people disturbed by the rapid change in their area - with a pretty sudden rise in black, Asian and Eastern European residents - and anger as a consequence that long-standing residents were losing out on housing waiting lists.

I don't dismiss either concern. I've seen the pace of change in my own Blackburn constituency, though what is perceived as a consequence of immigration today is often movement into an area by second and third-generation Asian families.

On housing, housing minister John Healey is encouraging councils to make more effective use of the discretion they already have to take account of length of residence, and quite right too.

I'm clear: this is an issue that won't go away by not talking about it. But I'm just as clear that talk of "secret plots to encourage mass immigration" are simply untrue.