We need to talk about immigration – as a nation, as a society and as policymakers. And it needs to happen in a mature way; neither pandering to the “Britain’s full up” brigade, nor those claiming there isn’t a nurse with a British accent left in the country. For my own part, it’s a discussion I want the Conservative Party to lead, because this isn’t about slogans on mugs or Breaking Point posters; this is about the need for a rational discussion around economic growth, workforce planning, the capacity of public services, societal change and public consent.

It is also to understand the intensely personal nature of the debate. One in eight people living in the UK was born outside our borders and one in 12 current residents are not UK nationals. That’s 8.6 million husbands, wives, friends, workmates and neighbours who have moved to the UK from somewhere else. When we talk of this issue, we are talking of a huge number of people’s lives. So as we have difficult – but necessary – debates on how we manage borders in future, let us not forget that behind discussions of numbers and rules and criteria, there lie people and homes and families.