Frequently Asked Questions

Do Migration Watch exaggerate?

No. We obliged the Home Office, under the government's freedom of information rules, to release their information on Migration Watch. Here is the text of an email from one Home Office official to another sent on 29 July 2003:

"I have made this point many times before but can we please stop saying that Migrationwatch migration forecasts are wrong. I have pointed out before that Migrationwatch assumptions are often below the Government Actuary's Department's high migration scenario.”

And here is a quote from an editorial in The Times of 23 August 2004:

"Once an electorate loses faith in the reliability of evidence on which decisions are made, no amount of persuasion can restore faith in the system. This would be the real damage of any Home Office revision of the Office for National Statistics. And this is why Migrationwatch is right to raise the alarm."

Is there a serious prospect of a UK population of 70 million?

Yes. The latest 2010 based population projections from the Office for National Statistics show that our population will reach 70 million in 2027. Nearly 70% of this increase will be a result of immigration - see http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/.../2010-based-projections/index.html.

When the previous projections were released in 2008 the last government claimed that this simply will not happen but there are substantial reasons to believe that it will. (Briefing paper 9.25).

This latest projection is based on the assumption that immigration will continue at 200,000 a year. Official figures show net migration to be 239,000 in 2010.

Are the ONS projections often wrong?

That depends partly on how far ahead they look. There was a famous case in 1965 when they exaggerated the likely increase. Since then, at the 20 year range, they have been accurate to about 2.5%. (Briefing Paper 9.24).

Surely the recession will reduce immigration?

Yes, but only temporarily. (Briefing Paper 1.21).

Are economic migrants taking British jobs?

There is some anecdotal evidence of foreign workers being preferred. However, the UK labour market is large and complex with nearly 30 million in the work force and, of course, the total number of jobs is not fixed. The statistics are not unambiguous but there are some worrying signs. (Briefing Paper 1.22 and Briefing Paper 3.7). Recent figures have shown that of the increase in employment of people aged between 16 and 64 during the period of the Labour government 68% went to non-UK nationals and 88% went to non UK born workers. (The difference is because a number of those born outside the UK will have acquired UK citizenship during the period).

What is the point of immigration control if EU citizens are free to come and go?

Over the period 2000 – 2010 net immigration from the EU accounted for only 20% of foreign immigration to the UK. Immigration from Eastern Europe is expected to decline. Meanwhile, some of those already here will decide to go home. (Briefing Paper 4.8). When Spain, Portugal and Greece joined what was then the EC net migration declined after a period. The real long-term problem is in the developing world where populations are growing very rapidly but jobs are not.

Why hasn't Balanced Migration been proposed before?

For a generation people have avoided tackling the subject for fear of being thought to be racist. Now we are having a proper debate, we can address the issues sensibly. The Government are now putting in place a whole range of measures to try to get our borders back under control. The Prime Minister has declared the government's intention to get net immigration down to "tens of thousands". He repeated this in a major speech on 14 April 2011 and again in October. The government are well aware that public opinion is extremely strong. A poll carried out in November by YouGov on behalf of Migration Watch found that 70% of respondents believed that immigration of 50,000 or less would be best for Britain.

Is "Balanced Migration" really feasible?

Certainly - over a period of time. It would also provide a focus for policy formation as the House of Lords Select Committee on Economic Affairs has suggested.

How can you know what will happen to emigration?

The Government have no control over emigration which is a result of the free decisions of British citizens. Emigration by British citizens has averaged about 80,000 a year over the past ten years but has fallen in the last two years to around 40,000. The broad trend rate of British emigration could be used in constructing an aiming mark for immigration policy.

Surely immigrants benefit our economy?

Some do, but their performance is very mixed. The previous Government claimed that immigrants add £6 billion to our economy. What they did not say is that they also add to our population in almost exactly the same proportion as they add to production. Thus the benefit to the native population is very small - an outcome confirmed by major studies in the US, Canada and Holland and most recently by the House of Lords Select Committee on Economic Affairs. The previous Government's own calculation, submitted in evidence to that Committee, implies an annual benefit to the resident population of only 62p per head a week (see White Paper Cm 7414 para 2.5).

The conclusion of the House of Lords study was unambiguous:

“We have found no evidence for the argument, made by the Government, business and many others, that net immigration—immigration minus emigration—generates significant economic benefits for the existing UK population”. (Abstract)

Surely London would collapse without immigrants?

This debate is not about existing immigrant communities. Nobody is remotely suggesting that they should leave. The issue is how many more people our island can sustain.

Do we need immigration to fill vacancies?

No. The Government first made this claim in 2002 when there were 600,000 vacancies.

By October 2008 then the number of foreign born workers aged over 16 has increased by 1.1 million and there were still 600,000 vacancies. The reason is that immigrants also create demand which in turn creates new jobs, so the argument from labour shortages leads to an endless cycle of immigration. During the recession the number of vacancies has fallen sharply while 2.5 million people are registered unemployed.

Surely we need the skills that foreigners can bring?

Yes, there are skills gaps which foreigners could fill but they should do so only temporarily. We propose that they should be admitted only for period of four years while British workers are trained. The Confederation of British Industry themselves admit that immigration is not a long term solution to skills shortages. The government have said that they will bring forward proposals to split economic migration from settlement.

Don't we need foreigners to do to the jobs that British people are unwilling to do?

No. The underlying issue is pay rates for the unskilled. (Briefing Paper 1.22). At present, the difference between unskilled pay and benefits is so narrow that, for some, it is hardly worth working. The notion that British people are unwilling to do certain jobs is not true, for many though there is no incentive to work, in part because wages have been deflated by high levels of immigration.

Again, the House of Lords report was unambiguous:

“We do not doubt the great value of this (immigrant) workforce from overseas to UK businesses and public services. Nevertheless, the argument that sustained net immigration is needed to fill vacancies, and that immigrants do the jobs that locals cannot or will not do, is fundamentally flawed. It ignores the potential alternatives to immigration for responding to labour shortages, including the price adjustments of a competitive labour market and the associated increase in local labour supply that can be expected to occur in the absence of immigration”. (paragraph 122)

Who will pick strawberries?

There is a need for seasonal unskilled labour, especially in agriculture and horticulture. This is now being met largely by workers from East European members of the EU, although there is no reason why unemployed British workers should not also take this work.

Surely there is no harm in migrants who work and pay taxes?

There is a developing view, supported by the House of Lords Select Committee on Economic Affairs, that the effect of immigration on the budget is broadly neutral in the long term. They reported that: “Determining whether immigrants make a positive or negative fiscal contribution is highly dependent on what costs and benefits are included in the calculations. Government claims that the exchequer consistently benefits from immigration rely on the children of one UK-born parent and one immigrant parent being attributed to the UK-born population—a questionable approach. But even using the Government's preferred method, the fiscal impact is small compared to GDP and cannot be used to justify large-scale immigration”. (Para. 132).

In any case, large numbers add substantially to the pressure on housing and public services which take a long time to adjust. They also add, of course, to pressures on our environment.

Don't we need migrants to help pay for our pensions?

This is false. Immigrants themselves grow older so the only effect, even of very large scale immigration, is to postpone by a few years the impact of an ageing population. The real answer is that, as people now live longer, they should work longer. The Turner Commission on pensions dismissed the argument that immigration would help with pensions saying that only high immigration can produce more than a trivial reduction in the projected dependency ratio over the next 50 years... and this would be only a temporary effect unless still higher levels of immigration continued in later years... This view was endorsed by the House of Lords Select Committee on Economic Affairs in their report published in April 2008. They reported that:

Arguments in favour of high immigration to defuse the "pensions time bomb" do not stand up to scrutiny as they are based on the unreasonable assumption of a static retirement age as people live longer, and ignore the fact that, in time, immigrants too will grow old and draw pensions. Increasing the official retirement age will significantly reduce the increase in the dependency ratio and is the only viable way to do so. (Paragraph 158)

Won't EU migrants be so numerous as to exclude all others?

It will take some years to achieve Balanced Migration and there will have to be some flexibility on the way; the management of the inflation target could provide a pattern. Over the past ten years net immigration from the EU15 has averaged only 19,000 per year and we expect immigration from Eastern Europe to decline over the coming years. This makes it unlikely that EU migration will squeeze out all others. Net immigration from the EU 27 has accounted for about 20% of net foreign immigration over the past ten years.

Is it "racist" to apply limits only to non-EU citizens?

No. The basis for immigration control is nationality, not race. It you are a French or German citizen of whatever race, you have free access to Britain. Equally, if you are a non-EU citizen you do not have free access, whether or not you are white.

Revised October 2011