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| Is Michael Gove's points-based system for immigration realistic? Is Michael Gove's points-based system for immigration realistic? | |
| (4 months later) | |
| Question: Anti-EU campaigners have claimed that George Osborne’s Treasury analysis of Britain’s membership contains the “bombshell admission” that immigration will add 3 million to Britain’s population if the UK does not leave Europe. Michael Gove has used this to declare his support for Ukip’s policy of introducing an Australian-style points-based immigration system for Britain. Is this project fantasy or a crucial reality check? | Question: Anti-EU campaigners have claimed that George Osborne’s Treasury analysis of Britain’s membership contains the “bombshell admission” that immigration will add 3 million to Britain’s population if the UK does not leave Europe. Michael Gove has used this to declare his support for Ukip’s policy of introducing an Australian-style points-based immigration system for Britain. Is this project fantasy or a crucial reality check? |
| Answer: The figures for net migration contained in the Treasury analysis are based on regularly published projections from the Office for National Statistics. These are not forecasts but projections of what has happened over the past 15 years thrown forward to the next 15 years. As the Treasury document says, these show total net migration to the UK falling from 320,000 a year in 2014 to 185,000 a year from 2021 onwards. | Answer: The figures for net migration contained in the Treasury analysis are based on regularly published projections from the Office for National Statistics. These are not forecasts but projections of what has happened over the past 15 years thrown forward to the next 15 years. As the Treasury document says, these show total net migration to the UK falling from 320,000 a year in 2014 to 185,000 a year from 2021 onwards. |
| The Daily Mail’s claim that these projections show that immigration will add 3 million to Britain’s population rests on extrapolating them to 2030, ie that what has happened over the past 16 years will be repeated again over the next 16 years. That assumes that the unprecedented expansion of the EU in 2004 by 10 eastern European states, including Poland, following the collapse of the Soviet Union will happen all over again. I think we can assume that is highly unlikely. | The Daily Mail’s claim that these projections show that immigration will add 3 million to Britain’s population rests on extrapolating them to 2030, ie that what has happened over the past 16 years will be repeated again over the next 16 years. That assumes that the unprecedented expansion of the EU in 2004 by 10 eastern European states, including Poland, following the collapse of the Soviet Union will happen all over again. I think we can assume that is highly unlikely. |
| Question: What about an Australian-style points-based immigration system for all EU migrants as Gove now suggests? Wouldn’t that “win back control” of Britain’s borders? | Question: What about an Australian-style points-based immigration system for all EU migrants as Gove now suggests? Wouldn’t that “win back control” of Britain’s borders? |
| Answer: Britain already operates an Australia-style points system for non-EU migrants but anti-EU campaigners seem strangely unaware of its existence. It means that skilled migration to Britain from outside Europe is capped at 20,700 a year, and from this month such people cannot settle in the UK unless they are in a job earning £35,000 a year or more. Extending it to EU citizens would apply as much as to the 500,000 Irish community in Britain as to those of any other EU state. | Answer: Britain already operates an Australia-style points system for non-EU migrants but anti-EU campaigners seem strangely unaware of its existence. It means that skilled migration to Britain from outside Europe is capped at 20,700 a year, and from this month such people cannot settle in the UK unless they are in a job earning £35,000 a year or more. Extending it to EU citizens would apply as much as to the 500,000 Irish community in Britain as to those of any other EU state. |
| Question: Has any other country introduced such quotas for EU migration and kept full access to the European market of 500 million consumers? | Question: Has any other country introduced such quotas for EU migration and kept full access to the European market of 500 million consumers? |
| Answer: Switzerland voted in 2014 to introduce immigration quotas for EU nationals. The EU has made clear that such a restriction of free movement was a breach of its bilateral agreement and a “guillotine clause” means access to a number of EU markets could be blocked if free movement is restricted. Norway also has to maintain free movement as the price of access to the European market for its goods and services. | Answer: Switzerland voted in 2014 to introduce immigration quotas for EU nationals. The EU has made clear that such a restriction of free movement was a breach of its bilateral agreement and a “guillotine clause” means access to a number of EU markets could be blocked if free movement is restricted. Norway also has to maintain free movement as the price of access to the European market for its goods and services. |
| Question: But if it means blocking access to Britain for low-skilled EU migrants isn’t that a good thing in sectors and areas where there is evidence of undercutting local labour? | Question: But if it means blocking access to Britain for low-skilled EU migrants isn’t that a good thing in sectors and areas where there is evidence of undercutting local labour? |
| Answer: David Cameron has tried to address some of these concerns with his “emergency brake” which means new EU migrants in the lowest-paid jobs won’t get access to top-up in-work benefits for up to four years after coming to Britain. | Answer: David Cameron has tried to address some of these concerns with his “emergency brake” which means new EU migrants in the lowest-paid jobs won’t get access to top-up in-work benefits for up to four years after coming to Britain. |
| Question: But what about that “bombshell admission” from Osborne that the government won’t hit its target of getting net migration down to below 100,000 any time soon? | Question: But what about that “bombshell admission” from Osborne that the government won’t hit its target of getting net migration down to below 100,000 any time soon? |
| Answer: The level of net migration reflects the reality that Britain has been a country of mass net migration for at least 15 years and yet politicians have failed to make the positive case that mass migration is partly fuelling the UK’s relative economic growth. The more typical EU migrant today is a French or Italian graduate working in the City or creative industries rather than a Polish plumber. | Answer: The level of net migration reflects the reality that Britain has been a country of mass net migration for at least 15 years and yet politicians have failed to make the positive case that mass migration is partly fuelling the UK’s relative economic growth. The more typical EU migrant today is a French or Italian graduate working in the City or creative industries rather than a Polish plumber. |
| Instead of talking about mass migration as a policy failure it is time politicians including Cameron and Osborne highlighted the economic damage that would be inflicted by cutting levels of mass migration. The Office for Budget Responsibility has said mass net migration will fuel growth by £4.5bn by 2019-20 and by £6bn by 2020-21. Cutting levels of migration will bring the British economy closer to recession. The latest Treasury analysis adds that leaving the EU will mean a painful adjustment for the British economy away from high value added-on sectors towards lower-value activity. This will mean, it says, “many workers losing their jobs and having to find ones at lower wages”. | Instead of talking about mass migration as a policy failure it is time politicians including Cameron and Osborne highlighted the economic damage that would be inflicted by cutting levels of mass migration. The Office for Budget Responsibility has said mass net migration will fuel growth by £4.5bn by 2019-20 and by £6bn by 2020-21. Cutting levels of migration will bring the British economy closer to recession. The latest Treasury analysis adds that leaving the EU will mean a painful adjustment for the British economy away from high value added-on sectors towards lower-value activity. This will mean, it says, “many workers losing their jobs and having to find ones at lower wages”. |