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Press Releases for March 2009
March 23, 2009
Low paid most affected by immigration
March 19, 2009
New tax on migrants a “drop in the ocean” compared with cost of migration initiatives. For every £1 of Government spending on schemes to help migrants, new tax will raise about 7p.
March 13, 2009
Immigration to Account for a New Household Every 6 Minutes
March 9, 2009
MIGRANT STOCK HAS DOUBLED SINCE 199I IMMIGRATION PROBLEM ‘HOME GROWN’ - NOT A RESULT OF GLOBALISATION
Full Text of Releases : March 2009
March 23, 2009
Low paid most affected by immigration
There is mounting evidence that immigration has had a negative effect on wages at the lower end of the UK labour market. There is also developing evidence of a negative impact on the employment of the UK born workers. These are the conclusions of a study published by Migrationwatch today.
‘The body of evidence on this subject is growing and seems to point in one direction,’ said Sir Andrew Green, Migrationwatch chairman. ‘For example between the first quarter of 2005 and the last quarter of 2008 the number of UK born, aged 16 and over, in employment fell by about 230,000 while the foreign born increased by nearly one million. Thus the large scale immigration of recent years has clearly done nothing to help the low paid and it may very well be affecting their chances of employment.
Sir Andrew said the impact of immigration may have been masked during the years of strong economic growth – perhaps partly explaining the rather small impacts found in the studies outlined in the paper.
However, there are now worrying signs that UK born employment is falling while that of foreign born is rising. In the most recent 12 months to October-December 2008 employment of UK born workers fell by 278,000 (1.1%) while employment of non-UK born workers rose by 214,000 (6.0%). Analysis by nationality gives an even stronger effect; it shows a fall in employment of UK nationals by 234,000 (0.9%) and a rise in employment of non-UK nationals of 175,000 (7.9%). ‘Immigration on this scale during a period of severe recession could turn out to have a significant impact on the employment of UK natives or nationals,’ he said.
In occupations that are low paid the effects of immigration on pay and employment could be mutually reinforcing - immigration could hold pay levels down, thus discouraging native workers and encouraging the continued employment of low paid immigrants, says the report.
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March 19, 2009
New tax on migrants a “drop in the ocean” compared with cost of migration initiatives. For every £1 of Government spending on schemes to help migrants, new tax will raise about 7p.
Research conducted by think-tank Migrationwatch shows that the amounts raised by the “migrant tax” are paltry compared with the significant amounts spent on government programmes specifically to help migrants.
Under the Government’s new scheme, to be announced formally on 19 March, anyone from outside the EU applying for student or work visa will be required to pay a new tax of £50 into the Migration Trust Fund, which the Government claims will be used to help local communities pay for public services in areas where there are high levels of migrant workers. The Government claims that this will raise £35 million a year. However, the Government spends over £500 million a year on schemes specifically to help migrants alone – quite apart from the extra cost of migrants to the public services.
Commenting on the announcement, Sir Andrew Green, Chairman of Migrationwatch, said:
‘The Government say the new tax will raise £35 million per year. This may sound impressive, but it is a drop in the ocean compared with the huge sums spent each year by the Government as it tries to help society cope with the impact of immigration both nationally and at the local level. A rough estimate shows that, for every £1 the Government spends on schemes specifically to help migrants, its new tax will only raise about 7p. And that spending does not allow for the fact that one new home will have to be built every six minutes for new immigrants; nor the additional costs to the NHS and education services; nor the countless other costs to local services that large-scale immigration brings. Our population will hit 70 million in 20 years. 70 per cent of the increase will be thanks to immigration: this new tax will not begin to foot the bill that this population increase will present to British taxpayers.’
The table below lists only some of the Government spending on initiatives specifically relating to immigrants.
Name of fund/area of funding |
Department | Amount | Description |
| ESOL | DIUS | £289m (2006/7) | Funding for English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) training. |
| Ethnic Minority Achievement Grant | DCSF | £187.6m (2008-9) | For schools working with English as an Additional Language. |
| Cohesion | CLG | £50m (over three years) - £16.6m per year. | £50million over the next three years to support local areas in preventing and managing community tensions. This comprises: £34million in area based grant; £3million to support the National Improvement and Efficiency Strategy to develop regional and local capacity to meet community cohesion challenges; £4.5 million to help schools and others offer positive activities for young people with a focus on community cohesion; and £7.5 million to support inter-faith work. |
| Connecting Communities Plus grants programme | CLG |
£18m (over three years - £6m per year) | Funding for activities which encourage race equality and community cohesion. |
| Migration Statistics Improvement Programme | Cross-departmental | £12m | £12 million cross-government programme led by ONS and the National Statistician to improve the population and migration statistics, including those at the local level. Will deliver improved local estimates and projections by 2010, in time to calculate the next three year local government finance settlement from 2011-12. |
| Exceptional Circumstances Grant | DCSF | £6m (2008/9) | To support schools with a rapid growth in pupil numbers and/or increase in pupils who have English as an Additional Language. |
| Rough sleepers (London Boroughs) | CLG | £600,000 | For central London Boroughs for their work with EEA nationals who are rough sleepers. |
| Total | £517.8m | Per year |
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March 13, 2009
Immigration to Account for a New Household Every 6 Minutes
Government projections issued this week confirm that net immigration is now the largest single influence on household formation in England, accounting for very nearly 4 in 10 new households (39%).
The projections show that, over the 25 years from 2006 to 2031, immigration will account for an extra 99,000 households a year - or one every six minutes.[1]
This means an extra 2.5 million households by the end of the period out of a total of 6.3 million new households, or nearly 40%. These households would not be formed if immigration was in balance with emigration.
The figures also show a substantial increase of 15% in the number of households expected to be formed in England by 2031 compared to the last estimate which was made only a couple of years ago in 2006. There are large upward revisions for the North East (33%) Yorkshire and the Humber (30%), and the East Midlands (21%). The West Midlands and the East are both revised up by 16% while the South East and South West are increased by about 10 %. (see attached table).
Commenting, Sir Andrew Green, Chairman of Migrationwatch UK said, "Yet again the government have tried to bury the true picture in the middle of a 17 page statistical release but they cannot conceal the fact that immigration will have a massive impact on housing demand and therefore on our whole quality of life and our environment. It is time that the government faced up to the facts and brought immigration under control instead of seeking to camouflage the true position".
Table 8: 2006-based projections compared with revised 2004-based projections, by English region
| thousands | 2006-based projection | 2004-based projection | Difference |
| Average annual change 2006 – 2026 | Average annual change 2006 – 2026 | ||
| North East | 9 | 6 | 2 |
| North West | 28 | 26 | 3 |
| Yorkshire & The Humber | 31 | 23 | 7 |
| East Midlands | 28 | 22 | 6 |
| West Midlands | 22 | 18 | 3 |
| East | 34 | 30 | 5 |
| London | 34 | 33 | 1 |
| South East | 40 | 36 | 4 |
| South West | 32 | 29 | 3 |
| England | 258 | 223 | 35 |
[1] Department of Communities and Local Government web site document "Household Projections to 2031, England". The last line of table six refers to zero net migration that would reduce household formation by 99,000 per year or 271 per day or 11 per hour.
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March 9, 2009
MIGRANT STOCK HAS DOUBLED SINCE 199I IMMIGRATION PROBLEM ‘HOME GROWN’ - NOT A RESULT OF GLOBALISATION
The cause of the highest levels of immigration the UK has ever seen is not, as the government claims, global population movement but rather a series of failures of Government policies, says a new report out today from think tank Migrationwatch – “How did immigration get out of control?"
Now that immigration regularly features high on the list of public concerns the Government have tried to promote the view that world trends have been responsible for a trebling of net foreign immigration since 1997. However, the report demonstrates that this is simply a ‘smokescreen’ to disguise the way in which UK immigration and asylum policy has been mismanaged for a decade.
‘The government seems to make a habit of blaming current ills on ‘global forces’ but our analysis shows that this problem is almost entirely ‘home grown’. It could, and should, have been more competently managed, so preventing the rising tide of resentment among the public,’ said Sir Andrew Green, chairman of Migrationwatch.
The report shows that the percentage of the world population who are international migrants increased somewhat- from 2.5% in 1960 to 3.0 percent in 2005. The pattern in Britain has been quite different. The percentage of migrants in the UK – that is persons born outside the country - increased by only just over 1% in the first 30 years - from 4.5% in 1961 to 5.8 % in 1991. It then accelerated, doubling to 11% in 2008.
The report also demonstrates that comparisons with major European countries are often irrelevant because their demography is completely different. For example, the population of Germany would decline by 25% in mid century without immigration, whereas that of France and the UK would still increase.
Until 1997 it was the policy of successive British governments to minimise immigration into the UK, subject to the needs of the labour market and obligations to dependants and international conventions. Indeed, until 1996 government statisticians assumed in their population projections that net immigration would be zero over the long term.
Since then a series of policy measures has contributed to the rapid increase in immigration:
Embarkation controls – because of the total abolition of embarkation controls (begun in 1994 and completed in 1998) foreigners arriving on time limited visas became aware that there was no check on their departure and, as Mr Blunkett- then Home Secretary - later admitted on television, the government now has "no idea" who is in Britain.
The Primary Purpose Rule – in 1997 the requirement that the applicant should show "that the marriage was not entered into primarily to obtain admission to the United Kingdom" was abolished. Immigration by spouses has increased by over 50% since then.
Asylum – control of the asylum system was lost for several years so contributing considerably to net immigration, particularly when dependants are included. The number whose claim is rejected still exceeds the number removed.
Economic migration - Since about 2000, the government have specifically encouraged the arrival of economic migrants. The number of work permits issued has trebled since 1997.
East European workers - the forecast of numbers coming to the UK was wrong by a factor of at least 10 when, unlike most EU partners, the Government failed to impose any transitional controls over numbers.
‘Many people are at a loss to know how all this was allowed to happen’, said Sir Andrew. ‘The true story is that the government has held public opinion in contempt for years. Despite having dismantled border controls, they deliberately encouraged immigration, partly to make the economic growth figures look better. The fact that the extra population cancelled out any real benefit to the resident population was repeatedly denied until exposed by a major investigation last April by the highly authoritative Economic Affairs Committee of the House of Lords,’ said Sir Andrew. ‘We now face a massive increase in population just as our economy is struggling. Some apologies from the government would be in order.’
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