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The Facts about Immigration (9 April 2014)

Date: 09/04/2014
Duncan Lewis, Legal News Solicitors, The Facts about Immigration

As solicitors with a focus on immigration, we represent a wide range of clients who are affected by migration rules. There has been a large backlash against immigration in the media and online and our clients have been feeling this every day. It would be a start to separate fact from fiction regarding this hot topic.

Immigration is a heavily politicised issue at the moment but it is usually a life changing issue for most immigrants who have either fallen foul of the rules or are escaping harrowing situations in their home countries. There are a lot of figures being brandished about by pro-immigration organisations and anti-immigration organisations. So how do we gain some solid information from all this data?

Five Facts about Immigration

1.Does immigration cost British nationals their jobs?

No. From an article published on HuffPostUK, according to Jonathan Portes, director of the National Institute for Social and Economic Research and former Cabinet Office chief economist said that ‘periods of high immigration during the 90s coincided with periods of high employment for British workers.’ After 2008, employment fell in the UK and politicians were quick to attribute it to high levels of migration into the country but the declining employment levels were actually due to the recession. Also a report from Jonathan Wadsworth, member of the Migration Advisory Committee, shows that "there is little evidence of overall adverse effects of immigration on wages and employment for people born in the UK."

2.Does immigration benefit the economy?

Yes. An article published on the Guardian.co.uk highlighted that independent advisers to the Treasury showed that immigration actually benefits the UK economy because foreigners coming to this country were more likely to be of working age and contribute to taxes. They wouldn’t be a burden on tax payers and actually contribute to the NHS and help balance the books.

3.Does immigration negatively affect schools in the UK?

No. According to a report by balancedmigration.com, large scale migration puts new pressures on schools in the UK. The report shows that at 1,338 schools 51% of the pupils do not have English as their first language and there are 652 schools where 70% of children have English as a foreign language. Although according to the government’s official website gov.co.uk, the number of schools in the UK totaled 24,372 in 2012. That means that the figures by blanacedmigration.com relate to only 8.1% of all the schools in the whole country.

4.Does immigration affect the NHS?

No. The same report published by balancedmigration.com stated that immigration is placing long term pressures on the NHS. Yet according to the same report immigrants are generally younger than the native population and are generally healthier so less of a strain on the NHS except for certain services such as maternity. The report also states that foreign born doctors and nurses have undoubtedly helped the NHS with ‘approximately one third of doctors and dentists registered to practice in the NHS qualified abroad.’

5.Does immigration affect policing and crime?

No. Coming back to the same report by balancedmigraiton.com and to the section that relates to immigration and policing, they highlight the findings of a report by the Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO) that found “the nature of the society we police is changing due to the level of migration we are experiencing now and will probably change more dramatically in the future.” The problem with this assertion is that it doesn’t mention crime levels in the country and whether migrants cause crime levels to increase. Another report published by the Migration Observatory found that ‘the share of asylum seekers and migrants to the local population brought about no change to the levels of violent crime in the UK.’ The report did find that property crime rose 1.1% due to asylum seekers and actually fell by 0.4% due to increases in migrants. As asylum seekers only make up 0.1% of the population this percentage increase is so miniscule as to not make any statistical difference to the numbers.

Despite all the facts and figures above, the interesting aspect of statistics is that people can interpret them in many different ways and bend them to suit their needs. But looking at immigration overall, it can only be seen as having a positive impact on the economy and society of the UK.

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