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UK immigration benefits "preposterous"

01/04/2008

The government's position to immigration into Britain has been comprehensively bulldozed by an influential committee of peers.

A report from the House of Lords economic affairs committee says the government has "overstated" the advantages of a high-level of net immigration.

It found "no evidence" to support a connection between large numbers of new arrivals in Britain and economic benefits.

The Conservatives claim the government's immigration polices have been "demolished" by the report.

Shadow home secretary David Davis echoed peers' findings in arguing the benefits of high immigration levels were "non-existent".

"There are a series of long-term risks to the economy, not least the disincentive to train, and it presents absolutely no answer to the pension crisis," he said.

In their report, the committee's members call for an explicit target range of net immigration rather than the projection of 190,000 new arrivals per year.

While they acknowledge GDP has risen in line with increasing levels of immigration, they state it has had "little or no positive impact" on the living standards of the existing population.

The economic effects of immigration, the peers write, should not be judged on GDP but on income per head of the resident population.

They continue to claim immigration has had a "largely neutral" effect on economic wellbeing and has not been needed to prevent labour shortages as it has had no impact on vacancies despite increasing the size of the UK economy.

Lord Wakeham, the chair of the inquiry, said GDP as a key measure of net immigration was "preposterous and irrelevant".

"Decisions about the level of net immigration that is desirable must also take into account important non-economic considerations such as the impacts on cultural diversity and social cohesion," he argued.

"These are clearly important but were beyond the scope of our inquiry.

"Immigration from the EU cannot be controlled and the UK must continue to honour its human rights obligations towards asylum seekers.

"So controls on immigration from outside the EU are the most appropriate way to achieve a level of immigration that really does meet the UK's economic needs."

Lord Wakeham's criticisms of high levels of immigration into Britain also included a discouragement of employers from investing in new technology and the incorrect perception the "pensions time bomb" is being defused.