Unprecedented levels of immigration to the UK have focused interest in trying to assess the financial and other impacts of immigration. Numerous reports have been published by a range of organisations, and the Government has set up a new body, the Migration Impacts Forum, to collect and discuss evidence on the effects which immigration is having on communities and public services throughout the UK. One of the main findings of these reports is that current statistics are inadequate for properly assessing the range and depth of impacts of immigration. Local authorities, schools and the police appear particularly affected and are seeking extra funding. But there seems to be an emerging consensus that the overall economic effect of migrant workers – whether positive or negative – is not likely to be large. Perhaps as important as the actual impacts of immigration is the public perception of it. It is increasingly recognised that Government policy must deal with both.

The growth in global migration in the last 20 years has led to immigration becoming one of the most prominent public policy issues in the UK. Net immigration - defined as immigration minus emigration from the UK – has reached an unprecedented scale, and has been the main driver of UK population growth since the mid-1990s. The Government has responded with increasingly major changes to immigration law and policy. Although migration routes for workers were expanded for a while, this policy direction has now been somewhat reversed. Human rights grounds for staying in the UK have been expanded but appeal rights and legal aid have been severely limited and asylum law and procedure significantly tightened. Aspects of immigration control are increasingly being shifted to airlines, employers, colleges and sponsors. But perhaps the most obvious change in immigration to the UK in this decade was the enlargement of the EU to the Baltic and Eastern Europe. In the 2004 enlargement, when the UK opted to allow people from the accession countries to work freely in the UK under European law, nearly four times as many people as even the largest estimates had predicted came to the UK in the first three years (though there are signs that this flow is slowing and even reversing). The Government has now begun to take action on the broader financial and social effects of immigration. A Migration Impacts Forum and a cross-governmental Migration Impacts Plan have been established, and the Department for Communities and Local Government now takes the lead on these issues. It has a difficult task ahead. The proportion of adults who considered immigration as the most important issue facing Britain has increased from less than 5% in the mid-1990s to over 40% today. Opinion polls showed that for most of 2006 and 2007, immigration was the number one issue of concern to the British public. Attitudes to immigration appear to vary according to region, and to be more influenced by the perceived impact of immigration than by its actual impact. Other factors which influence attitudes to immigration include income and educational background, contact with ethnic minorities and political and media debate. The recognised inadequacies of statistics for measuring both immigration and its impacts make it harder to address those impacts and public concerns about the issue. The Office for National Statistics is working to improve migration statistics. Despite the inadequate statistics, a number of reports indicate that some public services are experiencing heavy demands as a result of increased migration:

• Although in general local authorities have risen successfully to the challenges posed by recent surges in migration, funding remains a major concern.

• Translation and interpretation costs have risen hugely for a number of public service providers, but they are being encouraged to think twice about when translation is actually necessary.

• Schools have been given some increased funding to help deal with the increasing numbers of pupils who do not speak English as a first language.

• High numbers of overseas students pose some challenges to colleges and universities, but make a large economic contribution to the country.

• Increased immigration has led to a high demand for English language tuition which is not being met. Government funding is being redirected towards those who have made a long-term commitment to live in the UK.

• There is very little hard data about the impact of immigration or ‘health tourists’ on the use of NHS services, but on the other hand, there is data to suggest that the NHS is particularly dependant on migrant workers.

• Although one of the main public concerns about immigration is that immigrants are a burden on the benefits system, there are in fact significant restrictions on what they can access.

• Social services departments are feeling the burden of looking after destitute adults from overseas, as a result of Home Office policy to remove support from persons subject to immigration control, as well as vulnerable immigrant and asylum-seeking children.

• There is no evidence that recent migrants are given preferential access to social housing, but immigration increases the demand for housing and there are concerns about the concentration of migrants in overcrowded houses in multiple occupation.

• Immigration has created pressures on police forces in some areas which has resulted in calls for increased resources. However, the Association of Chief Police Officers has stated that the evidence does not support theories of a large-scale crime wave generated through migration. There has been a lot more focus on the macroeconomic, fiscal and labour market impacts of migrant workers. There are now twice as many non-UK-born individuals in employment in the UK as there were ten years ago, and their rising employment rate suggests that they are increasingly making an economic contribution. A Home Office report had suggested that migrants make a net fiscal contribution of £2.5 billion, but this research has been criticised on various grounds. The House of Lords Economic Affairs Select Committee, for instance, concluded that the main economic effect of immigration is to enlarge the economy, with relatively small costs and benefits for the incomes of the resident population, and that the overall fiscal impact of immigration is likely to be small, though this masks significant variations across different immigrant groups. It is important to note that this recent increase in migrant workers has coincided with a period of strong economic growth in the UK. What is less clear is the impact migrant workers will have in the future should the UK experience a sustained period of economic instability and weakened growth. As the number of migrant workers increases, so too do concerns about the particular vulnerabilities that some of them face. There are also fears that the abuse of agency workers is fuelling racism and that the lower wages of migrant agency workers are used as a benchmark by employers in pay negotiations to reduce the wages of permanent staff. Although immigration itself is a reserved matter, dealt with by Westminster rather than the devolved administrations, many services affected by immigration have been partially or wholly devolved in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. This paper considers the position in England.

RESEARCH PAPER 08/65

25 JULY 2008

Edited by Arabella Thorp

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