Migrant children are changing Britain's schools because many arrive not speaking English says Iain Duncan Smith

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Jack Doyle for the Daily Mail

The character of Britain’s schools is being altered by the influx of migrant children who do not speak English, Iain Duncan Smith said today.

The Work and Pensions Secretary said new arrivals in many communities ‘literally change the schooling because so many people arrive not speaking English’.

His comments put him at odds with Education Secretary Nicky Morgan, who has sought to downplay the impact of migration on schools.

She insisted earlier this month that schools were ‘doing extremely well’ with students who come from abroad.

Mr Duncan Smith also warned about the potential future cost to the Exchequer when migrants who come here when they are young grow old and ‘start taking from the State’.

He dismissed ‘silly’ recent research which suggested European migrants made a £20billion contribution to the UK between 2001 and 2011.

He told BBC Radio 5 Live's Pienaar's Politics: ‘I thought there was a silly report recently, in the last couple of weeks, that said oh look in tax terms they have contributed more.

‘First of all you have to take them all the way through to when they get older and they actually start taking from the State, you don’t account for the fact that often in many communities they literally change the schooling because so many people arrive not speaking English.

‘You have then got problems you know with local services, transport all that kind of stuff.’ 

Earlier today, in his second major intervention on immigration in a week, Sir John Major called for Britain to be allowed to suspend free movement for up to a year and restrict arrivals from the continent.

The former Tory PM said Britain needed ‘a little help’ to deal with the ‘huge bulge’ in the number of migrants which have boosted Britain’s population by seven per cent in a decade.

‘I think there are some practical things that could be done that don't infringe the principle but do meet the problem,’ he said.

His suggestion echoes plans for an ‘emergency brake’ mechanism being discussed at the highest levels of Government which could allow Britain to limit numbers if they are higher than expected.

Sir John added: ‘I see it as a shortish-term problem, maybe not a year, maybe longer, and we need a little help over that period.’

He also warned that any future outside the EU would be a ‘lesser future’ for Britain which could leave the government powerless to influence trade rules.

Mr Duncan Smith said he agreed with the former Tory Premier, and indicated he thought Germany would be prepared to support such a move.

He said: ‘Europe as a whole needs to tackle this because when all the GDPs of the various economies were about the same then the freedom of movement really was a fairly balanced process.

‘Once the economies are not the same you get big difficulties, so he is simply warning what the Germans already know privately and have said to me – they need to sort this problem out.’

Tory Party chairman Grant Shapps told Murnaghan, Sky News that the EU was ‘too big, too bossy, too interfering’ and there were ‘too many things that the EU tends to want to get itself involved with’.

He said Britain did not have ‘sufficient controls’ over EU migrant numbers ‘so we do need to see action’.

Earlier this month, Mrs Morgan slapped down the head of Ofsted, Michael Wilshaw, who said schools were struggling to cope with migrant pupil numbers.

He warned that schools needed more help to deal with growing numbers of foreign language children, saying it was a ‘big issue for government'.

But Mrs Morgan said his language wasn’t ‘helpful’, adding: ‘When I go round schools I see that they have adapted and are doing extremely well with students who do come from abroad.’

Critics warn there is a serious shortage of places at primaries - at which one in five pupils now speak English as a second language.

Official figures show that one in five schoolchildren speak English as a second language, a rise of a third in just five years. Some 1.1million pupils now speak another language in the home.

In some parts of London, children with English as a second language now make up as much as three-quarters of the school roll. The figure is around half in places including Slough, Luton and Leicester.

This term more than half of local councils across the country laid on extra 'bulge' reception classes as part of emergency measures to tackle a growing influx of reception-aged children.

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