http://www.guardian.co.uk/immigration/story/0,,2103683,00.html

A rapid rebuttal unit is needed to challenge myths and rumours about
immigration and prevent public policy from pandering to unfounded
fears, an official report said yesterday. It also urged politicians to
sign up to new duties under race relations laws, preventing them from
making inflammatory statements.

The "myth busting" unit would form part of a new national body to
promote integration. But the report by the Commission on Integration
and Cohesion stressed that it would be up to councils to produce local
solutions and programmes, because issues varied from place to place.

The commission, set up by the communities secretary, Ruth Kelly, after
the July 7 bombings, and chaired by Darra Singh, said Britain was
primarily a harmonious society that had benefited from migration. But
some people were concerned about the impact of immigration, and in
places the majority might come to believe there was a problem with
integration.

"Our fear is that in the current climate, the majority will be
pandered to, with immigrant rights being removed or freedoms being
restricted ... We want to see work that either defuses the issue or
dispels the myth," the authors wrote.

The report said councils should explain clearly how they distributed
resources such as housing, and should produce briefing packs for new
arrivals, explaining what sort of behaviour was acceptable.

The report stressed that speaking English was the key to successful
integration for new arrivals, urging employers to help pay for their
workers to learn, and for councils to divert money from translation
services to language lessons. It urged the Department for Education
and Skills to reconsider funding arrangements, after it announced that
it was cutting the universal entitlement to free English lessons.

Ms Kelly said she would explore the proposals and "think very
carefully" about the idea of a national integration body.