Brian Paddick: It's time to move hardworking 'illegals' into society

Recent immigration has created a mass underclass of illegal workers who lack any employment rights, citizen rights or access to public services. It is estimated that the losses to the Exchequer from unpaid tax and NI contributions from people working clandestinely is as much as £3.3bn. It is for these reasons that the Liberal Democrats have proposed an earned route to citizenship for those illegal immigrants who have been in this country for 10 years or more.

The Home Office itself estimates that there are more than half a million illegal immigrants in the country and that it costs around £11,000 to deport someone. The Institute for Public Policy Research's 2006 report estimated that it would cost £4.7bn to remove all illegal workers. It is totally impractical, given the scale of the task and the diversity of the irregular population – not to mention hugely costly – to suggest that we can deport everyone who is here illegally. It would represent the largest forced removal of people by a country with a civilian police force in peacetime.

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Unlike Boris Johnson, however, we are not calling for a blanket amnesty for everyone. Even his own party leader has dismissed this idea as "not right" but both David Cameron and Gordon Brown have yet to come up with a practical policy to solve this obvious problem. They both, ridiculously, maintain that it is possible to round up and deport every single clandestine worker in Britain. But a blanket amnesty is not the right approach as it does not distinguish between hard-working people who play by the rules and those who have come here to exploit the system or engage in criminality. Amnesties are also rarely "one-offs", as Johnson suggests, with the recent experiences of Spain and the Netherlands signifying otherwise. The importance of maintaining public confidence in the immigration system should not be underestimated.

The Liberal Democrats are, therefore, proposing an earned right to citizenship for those who have been here for many years, to bring them within the tax system and to tackle illegal working. To qualify for citizenship candidates must speak English, have a clean criminal record, demonstrate a long-term commitment to the UK and undergo a two-year work permit trial to be eligible. Because those applying have lived outside the rules for a long time, we would levy a fine on applicants, which could be waived by a period of volunteer work or military service. These are the rules of the game for those who want to settle in this country for the long term.

It is time to move hard-working immigrants who have been in Britain for more than a decade out of the shadows and into society. An earned route to citizenship is a solution to one of the greatest challenges facing this country. It is far better than the policies promoted by both Labour and the Tories, which continue to suggest that we can deport all illegal immigrants, despite that being both impractical and unprincipled.

Brian Paddick is Liberal Democrat candidate for Mayor of London

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