To: Home Secretary
Demand for more immigration
Immigration is good for Britain and should be encouraged. The current approach of trying to limit immigration is based on prejudice and myths. The evidence supports increased immigration as an economic benefit to the country.
Why is this important?
Immigration increases the UK's wealth.
Immigrants (especially from the EU) don't sponge off the UK state benefits. Employment rates for immigrants are higher than for UK nationals. They come here to work and as a result are net contributors as tax payers.
BUT - they don't take jobs from UK nationals. Employment among UK nationals is rising not falling.
Nor do immigrants push down wages, as is claimed. The University of London has found no link between the number of immigrants coming into an area and whether average wages rise or fall in those areas. This is still true when looking at low-skill jobs only. It made no difference to the wages in low-skilled jobs whether there was high or low immigration into an area. Other research has found that the falls in the real value of wages experienced across many industry sectors are in fact largely due to the general economic and financial conditions and not to immigration.
In fact immigrants are so good for the UK that they can make the difference between the country being able to manage the national debt and failing to do so in the long term. Over the next 50 years, our national debt, according to the Office for Budget Responsibility is expected to rise
from the current 80% of Gross Domestic Product to just under 90% of GDP. If we limit immigration it ends up nearer 110% of GDP. If we encourage immigration it falls to 70% of GDP.
So, if immigration is good for the country, we should encourage it not continue to spread myths about it that pander to prejudices.
