Sir Andrew Green: Immigration control should not impede economic growth

Sir Andrew Green is Chairman of Migrationwatch UK.

Does the government’s political imperative to get immigration down to acceptable levels conflict with their economic imperative to stimulate economic growth? 

For business generally, the answer is a resounding “no”.  There are no limits on the transfer of international staff, vital to so many companies based here.  Only half of the available work permits (about 20,000 a year) have, so far, been taken up.  Special visas for entrepreneurs and investors are unlimited but the take up has been very limited – only 360 entrepreneurs and 300 investors had taken advantage of these routes by last Autumn.  Meanwhile, the arrival of 1.5 million business visitors every year suggests that Britain is indeed open for business.

Most of the complaints nowadays are about process, not limits.  The process has, indeed, become absurdly bureaucratic.  An attempt by Labour to make the issue of visas “transparent and objective” has utterly failed – for the obvious reason that the two million who apply for visas every year have circumstances so diverse that even 800 pages of regulations cannot prescribe the answers.  It must be a major task for the new Minister of Immigration to restore to the system the human element sometimes known as common sense.   

Sir Andrew Green: There is little sign of progress towards the government’s migration pledge

Sir Andrew Green is Chairman of Migrationwatch UK

I would expect Conservatives to be very concerned about today’s immigration figures while the immigration industry rejoices. Net migration fell last year from 252,000 to 216,000 but the drop is not statistically significant. There is thus very little progress to show nearly half way through the government’s term.

The public are bound to ask whether the government’s pledge to reduce net migration to tens of thousands by the end of this Parliament is achievable and, if so, what more needs to be done.

The reasons for the slow progress are clear. The immigration rules are so complex that they have taken two years to review and many of the changes have not yet taken effect – partly because the courts do not allow the government to change the rules on those already here. The numbers will come down in future years but nobody can be sure that they will be below 100,000 by the end of this Parliament.

Sir Andrew Green: Net migration will fall, despite this week's figures. But will it fall enough for the Government to hit its target?

Sir Andew Green is Chairman of MigrationWatch UK.

Thursday’s immigration figures were disappointing for the government but by no means disastrous. They covered the year to mid-2011, which almost coincides with the first year of the Coalition government.

The figures showed that net migration is still running at about 250,000 a year.  This, of course, would have very serious consequences if it were allowed to continue but it is worth pointing out that only one of the Government's measures had come into effect in that period. This was the temporary limit of about 25,000 on work permits in the year to April 2011. Even that measure (and the subsequent cap of 20,700) had no effect because the recession and general administrative confusion held the total below those limits anyway.

In the year to the end of June 2011, British net emigration increased by 22,000 while EU net immigration increased by about 8,000. Non-EU net immigration increased by 30,000, mainly due to more students from the Indian Sub-Continent. 

The Government have taken comfort from a subsequent small decline in visas issued in the second half of 2011 for workers and students. This allowed them to suggest that the net migration figure will improve in the coming months.

Some reduction seems likely by the time we have the full figures for calendar 2011 (next August) but the key number – net migration – is likely to remain high at about 200,000. This number will fall further as the government’s measures take effect but there is a very long way to go. Pressure on the Government to fulfil their manifesto promise to get net migration down to tens of thousands is, to say the least, likely to intensify.

Sir Andrew Green: What do the public really think about immigration?

Sir Andrew Green is Chairman of MigrationWatch.

The immigration industry is in a corner.  The government are proceeding with wide-ranging reform of the immigration system supported by very strong public opinion.  Special interest groups are fighting rear guard actions, often based on misrepresentation of government policy. Otherwise, there is nobody arguing against the need to reduce net immigration.  Even Labour’s spokesman on immigration, Chris Bryant, was obliged to admit in Parliament that “yes of course we think that immigration has been too high and that it should be lower”.

Perhaps that is why some on the left are seeking to suggest that public opinion is not what it seems to be. The IPPR, the Migrants' Rights Network and others, have latched onto a paper produced by the Migration Observatory entitled “Thinking behind the numbers – understanding public opinion on immigration in Britain”.  And guess what... the BBC News website lapped it up too.

This paper reported the results of an opinion poll which sought the public’s views on various categories of migrant and whether they should be reduced (or increased).

They found, for example, that only about one third of the public wanted the number of students reduced – no doubt for the obvious reason that most of them go home after their courses. The picture on workers was more mixed; 59% wanted restaurant staff cut back but only 31% wanted the number of highly skilled workers reduced.

Sir Andrew Green: David Cameron must now show that he is serious about reducing immigration

Sir Andrew Green is Chairman of MigrationWatch.

David Cameron has repeatedly committed his government to reducing net immigration from hundreds of thousands to tens of thousands.  This week the cabinet will decide how to go about it. These are long term decisions that are vital to the future of our country. This is not about money.  Economic crises come and go.  Demographic changes come and stay. 

The key question is, in essence, very simple.  Are the government serious about getting immigration down or will they fold in the face of special pleading from employers and academics together with Liberal Democrat opposition to any significant measures?   Theresa May’s first speech on the subject last Friday was encouraging.  It set out, in broad outline, the measures that are needed but can she get it through cabinet?

The issue runs much wider than the cap on economic migration which recently has hogged the headlines and provided a convenient target for all those lawyers and employers who do very nicely out of present levels of immigration. Recently, they seem to have made all the running but, while the concerns of special interest groups must be addressed, wider considerations must also be brought to bear.  The issue is about the whole future of our society.  Labour's three million immigrants and the chaos in which they have left the immigration system have set in train an escalator for our population and for the immigrant element within it.

The previous government tried to brush aside the impact of immigration on population, claiming that official projections are not forecasts.  Of course not.  But to leave it at that would be just indolence.  There are only three factors, birth, death and migration.  The official assumptions on the first two are very cautious so, if immigration is allowed to continue at present levels, it is a racing certainty that our population will reach 70 million in 20 years time and 80 million in about 50 years. 

Sir Andrew Green: The impact of recent immigration on our education system runs into tens of billions of pounds

Sir Andrew Green is Chairman of MigrationWatch.

In many parts of England children are now being turned away from the school of their parents choice as primary schools come under growing pressure of numbers.  For both the children and their parents this can be hugely disruptive.

A report for London Councils predicts that the capital “faces reception place shortfalls of more than 18,300 in total by 2014”. Birmingham, is estimated to have a shortfall of 3,000 places. Slough’s birth rate has increased by 873 children a year over the last six years, equivalent to 29 reception classes. Bristol, Leicester, Manchester, Nottingham – the list of councils clamouring for extra funding for school places is growing. Overall, leaked Whitehall documents suggest an additional 350,000 primary places will be needed over the next four years.

Why has this happened? The i word – net immigration. Under Labour, immigration quadrupled. Many of those coming here were young people, hoping to do that most natural of things, to have children. Between 1998 and 2008, total births increased by 11%. Births to women born in the UK fell by 3% - while births to women and fathers born outside the UK more than doubled, increasing by 134% per cent.  We now find that in 2009 one quarter of all births in England and Wales were to a mother born abroad.  For London that figure was over 50%

The impact on our education system is now becoming clear. There are now more than 1,500 schools in England where more than half of pupils speak English as a second language – up from 866 in 1997. One in seven primary school pupils does not speak English as their first language. But these facts, disturbing enough for our social cohesion say nothing about the costs of all this.

New research by Migrationwatch has found that, so far, educating the children of immigrants who have arrived over the past twelve years has cost more than £15 billion. And the impact of this baby boom is set to be felt for years to come. Over the next five years, over half a million more school places will be needed for the children of recent immigrants – costing a further £39 billion.  And, over the next ten years when public expenditure will be under intense pressure, we are likely to need one million extra school places.  The cost of this will be of the order of £95 billion.

Sir Andrew Green: The cost of an amnesty for illegal immigrants would be astronomical

Sir Andrew Green is Chairman of MigrationWatch.

Nobody has given much thought to the implications of an amnesty for illegal immigrants in the UK.  Both the "old parties" dismissed it out of hand - and rightly so.  It was left to Boris Johnson to promote the idea for rather transparent reasons of political advantage. 

Then up pops the new bright star of the political firmament pushing the Lib Dem proposal for "earned regularisation” after ten years illegal presence in Britain.

The idea is absurd but it is now worth listing why that conclusion is inescapable.   Essentially, amnesties do not "work" and have been shown not to do so.  Italy has had five amnesties in 25 years and Spain six. Here is the number of applications on each occasion;

It is, to put it mildly, self evident that amnesties encourage further illegal immigration.  Ah! says Clegg but we will tighten up the borders. Quite how is not explained and, in any case, is irrelevant.  Most illegals arrive here legally on visas and stay on to work illegally and send money home.  With wage rates in Britain between 5 and 25 times those in sub-Saharan Africa that incentive is unlikely to change. 

Sir Andrew Green: The Government's Points Based immigration system is a potential disaster

Sir Andrew Green is Chairman of MigrationwatchUK.  He was formerly HM Ambassador to Syria and Saudi Arabia.

Ministers have perfected a patter when talking about immigration. “We’re sorry – we’ve made mistakes, but we’re now getting it under control with our new, tough, Australian-style Points Based System”, they say. Last week, in his first speech on immigration in two years, Gordon Brown trumpeted the merits of the Points Based System (PBS) for immigration and citizenship.  He claimed that "together they constitute a fundamental reform of a decade's old system - a reform founded on the British values of personal responsibility and civic duty."

Sadly, this “reform” fails entirely to address the central challenge we face: by 2029, official forecasts show that our population will hit – and then exceed – 70 million. 70% of this growth will be due to immigration. Put another way, in 25 years we will need to build seven cities the size of Birmingham to house new migrants. To avoid that, migration needs to be reduced dramatically – down from the 237,000 net migration in 2007, down also from the 150,000 net migration forecast for 2008, to around 50,000 – as the graph below shows (click it to enlarge). Bear in mind that even this cut would mean our population will rise by nearly 4 million.

The Points Based System fails completely to meet this challenge. Like a fake Rolex, look at it closely and it is fatally flawed. Its coverage is very limited, it is very complex, there is enormous scope for abuse and there is every risk that it will collapse in chaos.  If it does, our ability to remove those who have fooled the system is pathetically weak.  So, if our challenge is to stop the population hitting 70 million, the PBS is not fit for purpose.