This report examines the interaction between free migration and a European-style welfare state, with particular reference to Sweden. It considers whether rich-country welfare states act as a magnet for migrants from poorer countries, examines immigrants’ net impact on public finances, and suggests ways of reconciling free migration with a generous welfare state. It looks at how the broader economic impact of free migration would affect the affordability of the welfare state and examines the claim that greater diversity reduces political support for the welfare state. It concludes that while free migration may pose challenges to a European-style welfare state, the two are not incompatible. On the contrary: by boosting economic growth, free migration could actually make the welfare state more affordable.
To mark the report's publication, Dagens Nyheter, Sweden's most prestigious newspaper, has just published an article that outlines some of my reasoning and conclusions. Swedish speakers may be interested in reading it here
Another myth is busted: immigrants are not "jumping the queue" for social housing
There is no evidence that new migrants to Britain are jumping the queue for
council and housing association homes to the detriment of any other
group, including white families, according to new research published by the Equality and Human Rights Commission and the Local Government Association.
out of the 10.1 million council and housing association tenants in
Britain, 9 million are UK-born and just over 1 million were born
outside the country. It adds that only 183,300 - less than 2% - of
tenants arrived in Britain in the last five years and most of the 1
million are long-settled migrants who have been here for years and may
have become British citizens.
The
study, conducted by the excellent team at IPPR, found that more than 60% of new migrants
to Britain in the last five years are living in private rented
accommodation, with most newly arrived migrants banned from access to
social housing.
In any case, as Chris Ames rightly points out on the Guardian's Comment is Free, government minister Margaret Hodge's argument that "We should look at policies where the legitimate sense of entitlement felt by the indigenous family overrides the legitimate need demonstrated by the new migrants" is spurious.
As usual, this type of proposal was dressed up in arguments about "promoting tolerance" rather than "inviting
division". It amounts to saying that immigrants should be discriminated
against for their own good and the goal of social cohesion.
The party politics of the proposal run along similar lines. In order to counter the British National party, some argue that mainstream parties should take also take a "rights for whites" line. But many, including Hodge's next-door neighbour Jon Cruddas, have argued that feeding such prejudices just plays into the hands of racists.
Surprise, surprise. All the tabloid scare stories and wider fears about a migrant crime wave are unfounded, a police report says:
The Association of Chief Police Officers (Acpo) canvassed the views of detectives and community officers across the UK. It found no evidence that crime is more prevalent among East Europeans
than other groups. It said the sheer number of migrants in some areas
has caused tensions and policing pressures - but the problems are few
and far between.
Of course, that won't stop the xenophobes making hay about the issue. The few crimes committed by migrants - who are, after all, human and so, regrettably, sometimes commit crimes, just as some British people do - will still be hyped by the press. Yet tarring a huge and varied group of people for the actions of a few is utterly despicable.
The horrific death by suffocation of 54 Burmese migrants when the ventilation failed in an airtight containter taking them to the tourist resort of Phuket is briefly in the headlines.
As a tourist, you have doubtless seen others like them against the backdrop of your fairy-tale holiday. It is a sharp reminder of the grim reality that lies behind seemingly normal and desirable "border controls".
Lest we forget, a similar tragedy killed 58 Chinese people in a container lorry in Dover a few years back. And Mexicans often suffer the same fate trying to reach their US destination.
We should not forget. Nor can we wash our hands of these deaths. They are caused by our callous but ineffective border controls.
Building more houses is the only way to make them more affordable
An excellent article by Tim Leunig of the London School of Economics in today's FT points out that the fall in UK house prices due to the credit crunch is not making housing more affordable for the less well-off.
On the contrary: while banks are still ready to lend on good terms to wealthier borrowers with a good credit history and plenty of capital, they are restricting their loans to first-time buyers with small deposits and charging more for them. So lower house prices will not benefit most first-buyers.
His conclusion:
If we want to make housing more affordable for all, there is only one thing that will work: building more houses.
America's annual dash to hire skilled foreign professionals is already over. It began, perhaps appropriately, on April Fool's Day and within a week the 65,000 quota was filled.
High-tech employers said their inability to get visas to import workers
would force them to expand their operation overseas. Robert Hoffman,
vice president of Oracle
Corp., said the company last year sent jobs to Ireland and India when
it couldn't get enough H1B visas and that the company has 1,000
openings for skilled jobs it can't fill locally.
Supporters of an immigration cap in Britain - the Conservatives, UKIP, MigrationWatch, and now the House of Lords economic select committee - try to bolster their position by referring to the fact that other advanced economies, notably the US, impose one.
Slough is often cited as an example of a town struggling to cope with the strain of increased migration, notably on public services. Yet an excellent article by David Rose in the Observer paints a very different picture.
The town is booming, and while public services have encountered some difficulties, migrants are not - as opponents of immigration claim - dragging down standards. On the contrary:
At GCSE last year, Slough pupils achieved 56.5 per cent grades A* to C,
the 10th highest score of any education authority nationally and more
than 10 percentage points higher than the English average. The town
also has one of the lowest rates of student exclusion. The underlying
lesson, Pyper said, is that, with careful planning and targeted
provision for migrants' special needs, children who arrive not speaking
English can end up as positive assets.
The headmaster of a local secondary school remarks that while foreign students start at a disadvantage,
once they learn English, they
fly. You get into a virtuous circle, because teachers get much quicker
feedback from the work they put in, the warm feeling that comes with
sense of having made a difference. Foreign children have improved our
results, and one consequence is that their numbers have now slightly
dropped - because the white British parents who live close to the
school want their children to come here again.
are less inclined to make America – or, for that
matter, any country besides their own – their permanent home. Like
Western professionals, they increasingly regard stints abroad as
personal growth opportunities, not permanent moves – a change in
attitude with profound implications.
says an interesting article by Shikha Dalmia in the Wall Street Journal.
The same is increasingly true for Polish plumbers too.
Willem Buiter has written an excellent post on why he disagrees with Martin Wolf's recent column on immigration, and why he agrees with me that freedom of movement is a fundamental human right.
More interestingly, he develops at length how he believes countries should function as "open clubs". While I have quibbles with some of the details of his argument, I think the broad thrust is right. Anyone should be free to move to Britain, but all - those born in this country and those born elsewhere - must abide by the fundamental principles of liberal democracy, such as equality before the law and tolerance of differences.
He concludes with the crucial point about the benefits of a dynamic, open society:
Today the UK, especially in its creative urban centres, is one of the
most ethnically, racially, culturally and religiously diverse countries
in the world. While this creates huge tensions, it also makes it the
most exciting, creative and innovative place on earth. It is
immigration that revived the UK and immigration that will keep it
alive, if the country is confident enough to let it happen. Those who
don’t like what the country has become are, of course, free to leave
and go elsewhere - to join a club more to their liking.
The small-minded and short-sighted House of Lords select committee report gave no weight to this whatsoever in reaching its misguided conclusion that immigration has little or no economic benefit to Britain.
WorldWrite, an educational charity that promotes global equality, is launching The More The Merrier, its new documentary on the case for the free movement of people worldwide on Sunday 20 April at 6pm at the New Vibe Lounge in Brick Lane, London E1.
I'll be speaking at the launch, as will Claire Fox of the Institute of Ideas. If you want to see a trailer of the film, or book tickets, see here.
A non-economic summary of the House of Lords immigration report
1. We don't have enough evidence on the economic impact of immigration on the UK.
2. We didn't commission any new data or research.
3. We didn't put our hands up and admit: "Sorry guv, we don't know". We are Lords: we know.
4. We ignored the main arguments for why immigration may be beneficial.
5. We focused on the arguments for why immigration may have little or no impact, or be harmful.
6. We declared, with all the certainty of our ignorance, that our prior belief - sorry, our careful research - conclusively demonstrates that we don't need or want more immigrants in Britain.
One of immigration critics' favourite arguments is that Britain is full up. Even if immigrants might have something to contribute to this country, they argue, we simply can't house a larger population.
The argument is superficially attractive to anyone who is often stuck in traffic or on a crowded train. Yet it is flawed in all sorts of ways.
For a start, there are more Britons living abroad than foreigners living in Britain, so the UK population is now lower, not higher, because of net migration.
The strains on public infrastructure have more to do with decades of underinvestment than excess population. The Netherlands is more densely populated than the UK yet its trains are not over-crowded; Paris is more densely populated than London yet its Metro is less cramped than our Tube.
While the Office of National Statistics recently projected, by extrapolating recent trends decades forward, a 10 million increase in the UK population by 2031, there is no reason why this should turn out to be true. The ONS projection is simply a possible scenario, not a forecast, let alone a certainty.
There is good reason to think that the recent rate of population growth will not be sustained. The increase in the population in recent years is largely due to the one-off opening of our borders to Poland and the other new EU member states - and it appears to be mostly temporary. Many Poles are, in effect, international commuters who split their lives between Britain and Poland - and with the Polish economy looking perkier while Britain’s slows and the falling pound devalues wages here, many Poles are returning home.
Seemingly inexorable trends often reverse unpredictably. Lest we forget, as recently as the 1990s, many were worried about the prospect of a falling population. In 2001, as the oil price plunged below $10 a barrel, analysts did not envisage that it would soon soar to over $100 a barrel. So yes, the UK population may rise a lot over the next 25 years. Or it may rise a little. Or it may not rise at all.
Even if the population does rise, since when are other people such a bad thing? While population growth can cause strains on infrastructure and public services unless it is matched by correspondingly increased investment, it is not inherently undesirable. Many British people do not appear to think that living at close quarters is terrible: they opt to live in Glasgow rather than the Grampians, and flock from Lincolnshire to London.
Far from being a problem, more people can be a boon. Other people are what make our lives special; and the more people there are, the greater the chances of coming up with the new ideas that transform our lives for the better. Nobel laureate Douglass North, for instance, argues that the reason why innovation (and thus living standards) have soared over the past few hundred years is because there are more people able to contribute valuable new ideas.
If you are worried about the environmental impact of population growth, migration is not necessarily a problem. From a global perspective, migratory flows merely alter where people are located, not the total number. And it is difficult to argue, if you care about the planet, that Britain is less able to cope with extra people than, say, Bangladesh. Moreover, there is no reason why a rising population cannot go hand-in-hand with more eco-friendly living. For instance, while London’s population has risen considerably in recent years, traffic congestion has fallen thanks to the congestion charge.
It is a myth that Britain is full up. The Daily Mail used to argue likewise in the 1930s as a pretext for keeping out German Jews, yet somehow Britain has accommodated over 10 million extra people since. While parts of the country are more densely populated than others, there is still plenty of space: nearly three-quarters of Britain is agricultural land.
At the government’s target density, the 3 million new homes that it is planning to build - mostly to accommodate pent-up demand due to more people living apart rather than recent immigration - would take up a measly 0.31% of Britain’s total surface area – and even less if they are built on brownfield sites.
While some people are no doubt genuinely worried about the prospect of a rising population – and I am not imputing their motives for being so – others are using it as a convenient cover for their dislike of allowing in foreigners. After all, we don't hear the Conservatives proposing a one-child policy to keep the population down, do we?
FT commentator Martin Wolf, a man I respect immensely, has written another column questioning the benefits of immigration. I respectfully disagree. You can read his article here.
I have written this letter to the FT in reply:
I have immense respect for Martin Wolf, but his analysis of the economics of immigration leaves a lot to
be desired. The case for freer international labour mobility is
analogous to that for freer trade, which Mr Wolf strongly supports. When
Britons go abroad for surgery, it is considered trade; when foreign
surgeons come here, we call it migration - yet the economic impact of
the operations on the existing UK population is identical.
Moreover, since it is economically desirable for people to move from
Liverpool to London if their labour is in demand, the same surely
applies to those moving from Warsaw or Manila. Mr Wolf - and the Lords
report - also neglect the potentially huge dynamic gains from an open
society. Immigrants' diverse perspectives and experiences help stimulate
the new ideas and businesses on which our future prosperity depends. The
Lords made no attempt to quantify these (and other) benefits; Britain
still needs a rigorous Stern-style report to do so.
Mr Wolf has previously admitted that his fear that illiberal immigrants
pose a threat to liberal values caused him to change his mind about the
desirability of immigration. He is entitled to that cultural opinion,
but he should not allow it to cloud his normally impeccable economic
judgment.
Danny Finkelstein of the Times, who incidentally favours immigration controls for other reasons, points out that the House of Lords report is not definitive in any way.
The House of Lords Select Committee on Economic Affairs has examined
the available evidence on the economic impact of immigration. The media
coverage suggests that the report has shredded the argument of those
who believe imigration boosts prosperity. It's a big event this. But
read the report and it is clear it hasn't come close to shredding
anything.
The... impression you may have gained is that immigration has
failed to increase the income per head of the existing resident
population. But the report does not reach that conclusion... It
does not have the data to do so.
He adds:
I would expect the arrival of new immigrants has helped Britain to
become a more vibrant, competitive economy... But doesn't the
report firmly stamp on the idea that there are any such dynamic effects
from immigration? No. That's another of the things it doesn't say.
What
the authors have to say about such effects is this: “We found no
systematic empirical evidence to suggest that net immigration creates
significant dynamic benefits for the resident population in the UK.”
And they add: “This does not necessarily mean that such effects do not
exist.”
I debated this with Andrew Green of MigrationWatch on Radio 4's World at One programme on Thursday 27 March. Unfortunately, my contribution to the pre-recorded discussion was severely cut, so that many of the important points I made went unsaid, while Green was allowed to speak at length.
UPDATE: The BBC have very kindly published an extended version of the interview. Listen here
The House of Lords' report on the economic impact of immigration to the UK concludes that it has "little or no impact" on the economic wellbeing of Britons, and backs the Conservatives' demand for a cap on immigration. But their findings and recommendations are deeply flawed - which is perhaps not surprising considering the committee is chaired by Tory has-been John Wakeham and also includes two Conservative ex-Chancellors, Black Wednesday Lamont and boom-and-bust Lawson.
Since the old duffers can't work it out, here is a quick and easy guide to the economic benefits to Britain of allowing in foreign workers.
First, it makes the economy more flexible and adaptable. Job shortages can quickly be met by foreign workers, who tend to be more willing, once arrived, to more to where the jobs are, and to change jobs as conditions change. How else would the massive increase in doctors and nurses over the past decade have been achieved? How else will preparations for the 2012 Olympics be finished on time?
I'm sure the Lords would agree that it is a good thing for people to move from Liverpool to London if there are jobs that need filling there. The same applies to people moving from Warsaw or Manila.
Second, because migration makes the economy more flexible, it can grow faster for longer without running in to inflationary bottlenecks. That means higher living standards for British people and lower mortgage rates. The opening of borders to Poland and the other new EU member states is a big reason why the economy is enjoying its longest-ever period of growth. Over the past five years, GDP per person - a good measure of average living standards - has risen by 2.2% a year, faster than in any of the other G7 rich countries.
Third, immigration makes the economy more dynamic and competitive. Hard-working foreigners stimulate greater productivity gains by native workers: British builders and plumbers have to up their game because there are now Polish alternatives.
Fourth, like international trade, international migration permits greater specialisation and a finer division of labour. All the high-skilled professionals whom the government - and the Tories - are so keen on depend on a whole host of other less-skilled workers: office cleaners, minicab drivers, au pairs, waiters, and so on. Without them, the professionals wouldn't be able to work (as much). So, contrary to the conventional wisdom that skilled migrants are a boon but that poor low-skilled ones are a drain on society, Polish labourers and Chinese cleaners actually make a huge contribution to the British economy.
What's more, as the population ages - the UN forecasts that the share of over-80s in the population is set to double to 8.7% by 2050 - the need for care-workers will soar. Care for the elderly is already among the fastest-growing areas of employment. Yet retirement homes cannot find suitable British staff - even Brits with few qualification would prefer to work in a shop - so without migration, your granny will have to make do with less care.
Fifth, migration creates economies of scale and scope from a larger population and clusters of certain types of worker and industry. London would be a local financial centre, not a global one, if it wasn't open to bankers from around the world; Silicon Fen around Cambridge, the closest Britain has to Silicon Valley, would be much less successful without foreign talent.
Sixth, migrant workers' efforts are often complementary to those of British ones: a foreign childminder can enable a British nurse to go back to work where her productivity is enhanced by hard-working foreign doctors and cleaners;
Seventh, migration creates gains to owners of capital - which includes every Briton who contributes to a pension fund - from complementarities with migrant labour.
Eighth, migration makes consumers better off through lower prices and greater choice. Polish builders have allowed many less well-off people to afford home improvements they would otherwise have had to do without; British fruit would go unpicked, or would be prohibitively expensive, without immigration; ethnic restaurants - from curry houses to sushi bars - are already suffering from shortages of chefs because of the government's efforts to curb immigration from outside the EU.
Ninth, and most important in the long term, migration stimulates innovation and enterprise, and thus faster long-term productivity growth. Without new ideas, new technologies and new businesses, our living standards would stagnate. But where do these new ideas come from? The exceptional individuals who come up with brilliant new ideas often happen to be immigrants. Instead of following the conventional wisdom, they tend to see things differently, and as outsiders they are more determined to succeed. Twenty-one of Britain's Nobel-prize winners arrived in the country as refugees.
Migrants' contribution is vast - but inherently unpredictable. Nobody could have guessed, when he arrived as a refugee from the Soviet Union aged six, that Sergey Brin would go on to co-found Google. Had he been denied entry, and Google not been founded, America and the world would never have realised the opportunity that had been missed. The British government will doubtless turn away many potential Brins with its misconceived new points system for vetting migrants - not to mention deterring ambitious types from trying to come in the first place.
Immigrants' collective diversity is also vital. Most innovation comes from groups of talented people sparking off each other - and foreigners with different ideas, perspectives and experiences add something extra to the mix. If there are ten people trying to come up with a solution to a problem and they all think alike, those ten heads are no better than one. But if they all think differently, then by bouncing ideas off each other they can solve problems better and faster, as a growing volume of research shows.
Just look at Silicon Valley: Google, Yahoo! and eBay were all co-founded by immigrants who arrived not as graduates, but as children. Nearly half of America's venture-capital-funded start-ups have immigrant co-founders. The value of diversity does not apply only in high-tech: an ever-increasing share of our prosperity comes from solving problems - such as developing new medicines, computer games and environmentally friendly technologies, designing innovative products and policies, providing original management advice.
The economic benefits of opening our borders are vast. Just look at cosmopolitan London, the richest place not just in the UK, but in Europe, The social and cultural benefits are huge too, as anyone with a foreign-born parent, partner or friend can testify. Ultimately, migration is about creating an open, dynamic and progressive society, rather than a closed, stagnant and reactionary one.
Britain urgently needs a heavyweight, economically rigorous report into the economics of migration, along the lines of the Stern report on the economics of climate change. The House of Lords report is certainly not it.
My old friend Edward Lucas has written an excellent call to arms, The New Cold War, about the dangers to the West and Russia itself of the country's fascist turn under Putin.
For Europe, in particular, the risks of becoming dependent on a hostile Kremlin through its growing dominance of gas supplies to the continent are huge. Yet the Russian industrial-military complex is successfully proceeding to divide and rule Europe: witness Gazprom's hugely expensive plans for a gas pipeline under the Baltic Sea from Russia to Germany, bypassing the Baltics and Poland, which the former German chancellor, Gerhard Schroder, is ignominiously chairing. Since a pipeline on land would cost a fraction as much, the Nordstream pipeline makes no commercial sense. It's true purpose is surely to give Russia greater power to blackmail its former vassals.
In today's news, consider the divisions over whether NATO should grant Ukraine and Georgia "membership action plans" that would open the door to their eventual membership. Russia aggressively objects. While there is a reasonable debate to be had about whether Ukraine and Georgia should be admitted to NATO - personally, I think they should - Russia should not be given a veto over what its neighbours and NATO do. Appeasing Russia for the sake of NATO "unity" would be shameful and unwise.
For those of you who haven't had the pleasure, check out Tyler Cowen's Marginal Revolution blog. Combining incisive thoughts about economics, philosophy and everyday life with an incredibly broad cultural canvas, this is my favourite blog by a mile. Hope you enjoy it too.
at a conference by CEPOS, the Danish Centre for Political Studies, along with George Borjas, an immigration critic at Harvard University. Fingers crossed my flight from Heathrow's new Terminal 5 is not cancelled..
Indians account for 38% of doctors in the US, 36% of scientists at Nasa, and 34% of employees at Microsoft, 28% at IBM and 17% at Intel, Prospect reports, quoting The Times of India, 11/3/8.
Earned citizenship? Yet another misguided initiative
What proportion of women with children (of school age) in Britain are in paid
work? Is it: a) half; b) one quarter; c) three quarters; or d) two
thirds?
Stumped? Try this one. How many children are estimated to be working
in the United Kingdom? Is it: a) 8 million; b) 5 million; c) 1 million;
or d) 2 million?
I challenge Gordon Brown, Jacqui Smith or Liam Byrne
to answer correctly (without prior briefing) either question - or the
many others on which prospective British citizens are tested.
Journalists who attend the prime minister's televised monthly press
conference should spring questions from the "Life in the UK test" on
him. No doubt, the self-styled definer of all things British could not
pass his own Britishness test. I'd be astonished if many people whose
ancestry here stretches back to 1066 - or even to Cheddar Man - could
answer such questions correctly. And why on earth should a British
citizen be required to know?
The Britishness test is part of a much broader package that the government, in its mad rush to appease the moral panic about immigration stirred up by the likes of the Daily Mail, is implementing
to define and defend Britishness from the onslaught of dastardly
foreigners who actually want - how dare they! - to contribute to this
country and feel that they belong.
While the government's decision to allow the Poles and other new EU
citizens to come work here freely was brave and right - and is an
important reason why Gordon Brown can boast to have overseen Britain's
longest-ever economic boom - it has since produced one idiotic,
knee-jerk, xenophobic immigration-policy initiative after another. Take
the proposed
ID cards for foreigners. They are not just discriminatory, but absurd:
if someone claims to be British, and therefore does not (yet) require
ID, how on earth is a relevant official meant to determine whether they
need to show some?
Then, there is the government's pride and joy: the new skills-based points system,
which is being phased in from the end of this month. This involves
officials from the department deemed "not fit for purpose" by Jacqui
Smith's predecessor trying to divine how foreigners will contribute to
Britain in future and slams the door on low-skilled migrants from
developing countries: the equivalent of a new 11-plus exam for vetting
immigrants. There goes Britain's chance of admitting the father of a
future Barack Obama. Surely a Labour government that purports to
believe in opportunity for all should realise that you can't - and
shouldn't - determine people's life chances based on their background.
And now we have "earned citizenship" - another misguided aptitude test. That the proposals were leaked
to the Neanderthal Daily Telegraph tells you everything you need to
know about the government's intentions. Since only a green paper has
been published, the details of the proposals will doubtless change
considerably. But the government's thinking is clear.
"Citizenship is not an abstract concept, or just access to a
passport. I believe it is - and must be seen as - founded on shared
values that define the character of our country," Gordon Brown said today.
"I stand for a British way of life where we, the people, are protected
from crime, but in return we obey the law, and where we, the people,
expect and receive services, but in return pay our fair share in taxes
and have the obligation and gain the skills for work where we can."
Now that may superficially seem fine - even banal; after all, who
favours a way of life where people are not protected from crime, don't
obey the law, don't work, don't pay their fair share of taxes and don't
receive public services in return? But think again: what exactly are
the "shared values" that, Brown claims, distinguish British people from
others? This is not an abstract debate: the government seeks to
prescribe these values. "In the future, the aspiring citizen should
know and subscribe to a clear statement of British values," Brown said.
But if immigrants are to conform to British values, should they
model themselves on Jade Goody or Trevor MacDonald, Melanie Phillips or
Boy George, Margaret Thatcher or George Monbiot? Britain is inescapably
- and wonderfully - diverse, not just thanks to recent immigration, but
because human beings are all different, and because people are freer to
express their differences since the liberating 1960s. This is something
to celebrate, not stifle. Moreover, irrespective of immigration, in our
globalising world of foreign holidays, Facebook and fusion food, the
bonds of nationality are inexorably loosening. Is that so terrible?
Increasingly, we all have multiple, overlapping and increasing
self-defined identities: a British citizen may also identify as a
European, a Christian, of Irish origin, a Londoner, a student, a
trainee doctor, a woman, a mother, a wife, a supporter of gay rights,
an environmentalist and, above all, an individual. And if society is
broad enough to include nuns and transsexuals, Marxists and
libertarians, radical environmentalists and oil executives, surely it
can embrace immigrants, too? After all, we don't all need to be alike
in order to live together. We just need to respect the basic principles
on which our societies are based, such as freedom within the law,
equality before the law and tolerance of differences.
Contrary to what Brown might think, these are not "British values":
they are liberal ones. They are shared by many non-Britons, and
rejected by some Britons, Islamist bigots, for instance, as well as the
BNP. And while people cannot be forced to believe in them, they can be
required to respect the law: even those who believe that women are not
equal to men must treat them as such.
Now, if integration means anything - and often, when ministers use
the word, they appear to have no clear idea what they mean by it - it
is a two-way street. If people are expected to fit in, they have to be
treated equally and made to feel welcome. Liam Byrne's stated mantra
is: "Treat everyone the same: just make sure no one's dodging their
dues." But treat migrants the same is precisely what the new
earned-citizenship proposals do not do.
Byrne recently said
that newcomers should "speak the language, obey the law and pay their
taxes like the rest of us". Certainly, it makes sense for immigrants to
learn English, but why the need to require it? It is astonishing that
the birthplace of the world's language of choice should display such
linguistic insecurity. And the implication that migrants - whatever
their citizenship status - don't tend to obey the law or pay their
taxes is pure malice.
Ministers speak as if aspiring British citizens are potential
benefit-cheats and criminals, rather then overwhelmingly decent,
hard-working and law-abiding people who already make - and want to
continue to make - a big contribution to British society. That is
xenophobic prejudice - and hardly conducive to fostering the sense of
Britishness that the government claims to aspire to.
This article also appears on the Guardian's Comment is Free site here.
I was in Stockholm earlier this week speaking at a conference organised by Sweden's Globalisation Council, making the case for open borders in front of an audience including the country's immigration minister, the head of its trade-union federation and the deputy head of its employers federation.
I have also written a paper for the Council on how free migration is compatible with a European-style welfare state. A brilliant young journalist (he's 29, I'm 34, so he makes me feel old) called Peter Wolodarski wrote a leader for Dagens Nyheter about it. Read it here.
Legrain holds the moral upper hand, while his
economic arguments are sound. This is not new territory, but it is
eloquently argued and, one hopes, will one day be a majority opinion.
The government famously forecast a trickle, opponents (less memorably) a flood, yet recent years have instead seen a steady stream of Polish plumbers, builders and other handy migrants. They have helped fuel Britain’s recent boom, providing the manpower to build new housing and do up old, making home improvements affordable for the less well-off, and keeping many a shopkeeper in clover.
Thank goodness the government got its figures wrong back in 2004: where would Britain be without its reliable, hard-working Poles?
We may soon find out. As The Timesreveals today, the tide is turning: the Poles are increasingly going home. This leaves officials with egg on their face – again.
So much for the ONS projection, extrapolating decades ahead from a few untypical years of high migration, that Britain’s population would rise inexorably to 100 million and beyond: the equivalent, after Chelsea won the Premiership twice in a row, of assuming that they would do so indefinitely, until Manchester United stole their crown. So much for the swivel-eyed men at MigrationWatch who warn darkly that Britain is being overrun.
So much for the geniuses at the Home Office whose whizzy new skills-based points system for vetting migrants’ entry into Britain – being phased in from March – assumes that Poles will continue to do the dirty jobs and slams the door on non-EU migrants. Their half-baked system – which involves a committee of wise men trying to second-guess where future job shortages might occur – was meant to restore confidence in the government’s handling of the immigration system; instead, it is likely to exacerbate shortages, cause gluts and turn away potential Barack Obamas.
So much too for the fear, as the credit crunch bites, the housing bubble deflates and the economy loses its fizz, that the Poles would end up swelling the dole queues. With the Polish economy looking perkier while Britain’s droops and the flaccid pound devalues wages here, Poles want to go home – which sought not to astonish critics of immigration who place such importance on roots and nation.
This about-turn highlights how migration in the age of Ryanair and open borders has changed since the days when migrants arrived on steamships from the dying Empire. Most Poles are like the British brickies in Auf, Wiedersehen Pet who went to work in Germany in the 1980s: they came for better-paid jobs, not to settle. Some, like the Polish doctor featured on Newsnight who spends alternate weekends in Scotland providing the out-of-hours care that British GPs neglect, are international commuters – just like the bankers who jet between London and New York, or the Brits who commute from France. Many are young people wanting to learn English and experience life abroad, like the British working holidaymakers who flock to Australia for a year or two. Because the churn of migrants is so high, and the government counts the cumulative total of job applicants rather than those coming and going, Polish migration seemed like a deluge, when it is actually an ebb and flow.
This more fluid labour market greases the wheels of the economy, helping it speed ahead without sparking inflation and keeping mortgage rates down. And now the economy is heading south, the Poles’ departure will cushion the blow: unemployment will rise less than in previous downturns, making the recession shorter and shallower than otherwise.
In our globalising world where opportunities no longer stop at national borders and the economy is in perpetual flux, the need for a flexible, flying workforce has never been greater. If Britain had to rely solely on London builders, the 2012 Olympics would never be finished on time. So instead of urging people to get on their bike to look for a job, ministers should be encouraging them to hop on a plane.
Yet this new mobility is unsettling for politicians and many voters. Their mindsets are stuck in a bygone era where people generally stayed put, those who moved did so for good, and ossified state bureaucracies relied on the world standing still.
Our attitudes and institutions need to adapt. The government needs to learn to cope with a large, transitory foreign population on British soil – a task the private sector, which accommodates 30 million foreign visitors a year, manages fine. While better planning based on more accurate statistics would certainly help the NHS, above all it needs to become more responsive to local people’s changing needs: whether it is for Polish interpreters or patients’ desire to choose who treats them when and where.
Unlike the Poles, this newly mobile world is here to stay.
As a politics junkie, I find the US presidential race exciting - certainly better than
Gordon Brown's ignominious coronation - but not particularly inspiring. I'm not wild about any of the candidates.
I find Hillary Clinton uninspiring: a robotic, machine candidate, with a nasty streak and an offputting sense of entitlement. That's a pity. Her policies are a mixed bag; I preferred Bill's.
I think Obama is a great speaker, but I'm not hugely enthusiastic about him either.
Being for "the future" "change" and "hope" is all very well, but
tell me which candidate is in favour of "the past" "more of the same"
and "despair".
There is something worryingly content-free about his message. Apart
from his symbolic opposition to the Iraq war (which is more a
consistency issue than a policy difference, since Clinton's current
position on the war is not very different to his), there is not much to separate him from Hillary on policy. Instead, he is basically selling
himself as him: "Vote for me because I represent change, I represent unity", rather
than "Vote for me because this is how I want America to change, this is how I will
somehow unite a deeply polarised country."
"Yes, we can" is a great slogan, but how exactly does Obama plan to heal the deep divide over immigration, for instance?
Of course, having a non-white president whose father was a Kenyan immigrant would be hugely symbolic, a credit to American society, and a powerful example of the benefits of immigration. But the most powerful person on earth is more than a symbol - and I would like to have a better idea of Obama's world view before he is granted such power. Symbolic figures are not necessarily good decision-makers.
I also find Obamamania disconcerting precisely because it
is a mania: half-way between a Britney Spears concert and the Nuremberg
rally. (In case anyone tries to draw silly conclusions, of course I am not comparing Obama to Hitler.)
On a separate point, the media cycle is becoming somewhat predictable: first Hillary is miles ahead, then Obama is catching up quickly, then Obama is going to beat Clinton convincingly. When the results come in, the reality that Obama's score-draw is a huge achievement given Clinton's entrenched advantages is reinterpreted as disappointment compared to the hype immediately before Super Tuesday itself.
If you discount the fact that expectations overshoot because of herd behaviour, Obama did remarkably well in neutralising what was designed to be Clinton's sweeping victory.
I was a guest on Little Atoms on Friday 18 January. It is a show about ideas on London's Resonance 104.4 FM.
This great radio show's motto is George Orwell's remark that "If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear".
I presented my ideas on immigration to Norway's minister of labour and
social inclusion, Bjarne Håkon Hanssen (far right in picture, a social
democrat politically), at a seminar in Oslo this week organised by Civita. He is preparing (hopefully progressive) immigration reforms.
I gave a talk tonight at the Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA), a free-market think-tank in London, and had the dubious pleasure of being repeatedly heckled and interrupted by that old battle-axe Norman Tebbit.
The man who told jobless Brits to get on their bike to look for a job is not in favour of foreigners hopping on Ryanair to do so. As I said in my speech:
Psychological studies confirm that opposition to immigration tends to stem from an emotional dislike of foreigners. Intelligent critics then construct an elaborate set of seemingly rational arguments to justify their prejudice.
Nicolas Sarkozy won last year's French presidential elections on an anti-immigration platform designed to curry favour with the voters of Jean-Marie Le Pen's racist National Front. Since his election, he has tightened France's immigration laws. His talentless lackey of an immigrant minister, Brice Hortefeux, loves talking tough about how France will deport Africans who dare risk their lives trying to come work in France. What, then, are we to make of reports that the commission looking at how to boost the French economy set up by Sarkozy and headed by Jacques Attali, a confidant of the late Socialist president Mitterrand, plans to recommend an increase in immigration as means of revitalising the French economy?
Attali's logic is impeccable. Just consider how Britain, Ireland, Spain
and Sweden have boomed in recent years, as migrant workers from Poland
and the other new EU member states, as well as from further afield,
have given their economies a new lease of life. Spain's foreign
population has soared in recent years - and so has the employment rate
among Spaniards. France and Germany, meanwhile, continue to fret about
the threat from the much-maligned Polish plumber.
With France's growth slowing, its sclerotic labour market could do with
an infusion of foreign blood - of hard-working, enterprising people who
are willing to do the jobs that French people can't or won't. In so
doing, they would create new jobs for French jobs, both through their
increased spending power, and in complementary lines of work. France's
economy would grow faster - a priority for Sarkozy and voters.
Although Sarkozy is notoriously erratic and opportunistic - a political
jackdaw, rather than a man of principle - it seems unlikely that he
will perform an about-turn on immigration. But here's hoping that when
Attali presents his report to Sarkozy on 23 January, the president sees
sense.
I don't have anything particularly insightful or sophisticated to say about the results of Australia's election. I just want to celebrate John Howard's defeat.
What fantastic news!
Let's hope Labor delivers a fairer and more humane immigration policy that restores Australia's tattered reputation and heals the wounds to the country's vibrant multicultural society.
An article in ABC Nyheter. Click here Dag Ekelberg of Civita writing about what I said in Dagbladet. Read it here Sofie Mathiassen interviewed me for Dagens Naeringsliv. Read it here
Muslims aren't all the extremists that many non-Muslims think they are
Amid all the hysteria among Muslims in Western societies, many people seem to think that every Muslim is a potential terrorist. The gap between prejudice and reality is huge.
A new survey of attitudes in Norway, for instance, shows that Norwegians' idea of
what Muslims think is very different from what they actually think.
While Norwegians thought that only 38% of local Muslims wanted to
integrate into Norwegian
society, 93% of Muslims in Norway said that
they wanted to. Read more on Johan Norberg's blog
I debated the issue of Britain's population is unsustainably large with Crispin Tickell on BBC Radio 4's Today programme this morning. Listen to it here.
I spoke at a breakfast meeting in Oslo this morning organised by a Norwegian think-tank called Civita, along with Per-Willy Amundsen of the anti-immigration Progress party and Olaf Thommessen of the Liberal party. I got a fantastic reception. Thanks
The Office of National Statistics forecasts that Britain's population will reach 70 million by 2030, with half of the 10 million rise due to migration. If this forecast proves to be correct, is it a bad thing? I debated this on Channel 4 News:
The British government is in a muddle over immigration – and it shows. Its
decision to allow the Poles and other east Europeans who joined the EU
in 2004 to come work here freely was brave and right. It has given the
economy a new lease of life, filling shortages, revitalising ageing
communities, and allowing growth to continue for longer without running
into inflationary bottlenecks. Gordon Brown should be crowing about it
– it is a key reason why the economy continues to enjoy its
longest-ever boom.
Instead, the Romanians and Bulgarians who joined the EU this year were denied the same labour rights granted to other east Europeans, while Brown harrumphs about “British jobs for British workers” and immigration minister Liam Byrne curries favour with the Daily Mail brigade with his tough talk about deporting asylum-seekers, ID cards for foreigners and more stringent border controls. Far from making a positive case for immigration, the government is in shambles, appearing in turn weak, defensive and outright hostile. No wonder it is in danger of losing the argument.
It needn’t be so. When the government takes policy seriously, it can commission heavyweight research that changes hearts as well as minds: the Stern report on the economics of climate change, for instance, or the Turner report on pensions. Considering the current angst about migration, and its importance to Britain’s future, surely it is time the government commissioned some serious analysis of the issue? Instead, it trots out flimsy, half-baked reports that are a gift to opponents of immigration such as MigrationWatch and its soulmates in the Conservative Party.
Its latest effort, billed as a “comprehensive cross-government report” on the economic and fiscal impact of immigration, is a case in point. One of the few things going for it is that it skewers the Gordian notion of British jobs for British workers: “it is not true to say that there are only a fixed number of jobs to go round,” it says. Migration has had “no discernible impact” on unemployment and “only a modest dampening of wage growth for the poorest British workers”. But in most other respects, the study is pathetically poor.
Its headline figure is that the economy gained £6 billion in 2006 from recent migration. That may sound impressive, but it amounts to only £100 per person a year, or £2 each a week. And since it is basically arrived at by adjusting the size of the economy upward in line with the increased number of immigrants working here, it will allow critics such as MigrationWatch to claim that, according to government figures, immigration merely boosts the size of the economy, rather than actual living standards.
But the true contribution that immigrants make to the economy is far greater than government figures allow for. Foreigners benefit Britain because they are different, and that something extra they add to the mix enriches the economy, culture and society.
For a start, immigrants tend to be enterprising and hard-working, because it takes courage to uproot yourself in search of a better life and because those with most grit have most to gain from doing so. They are more willing to move to where the jobs are, and to change jobs as conditions change, making the economy more adaptable, and thus keeping inflation and interest rates lower than otherwise.
Those who come from countries that offer fewer opportunities to their citizens than Britain does are more willing to do the low-skilled jobs that our ageing and increasingly wealthy society relies on, but which Britain’s increasingly well-educated and comfortable citizens are unwilling to take – essential services, such as caring for the young and the old, construction work, and cleaning homes, offices and hospitals, that cannot readily be mechanised or imported. Their efforts often complement those of British workers: a foreign child-minder may allow a British doctor to return to work, where her productivity is enhanced by hard-working foreign nurses and cleaners.
Others bring exceptional individual skills that British companies need if they are to compete in a global marketplace. And immigrants’ collective diversity and dynamism help spur innovation and economic growth, because if people who think differently bounce ideas off each other they can solve problems better and faster, as a huge volume of research shows. Twenty-one of Britain’s Nobel laureates arrived in the country as refugees.
What does the government’s report have to say about all this? It recognises all these factors, but fails to make any attempt to quantify their benefits. On living standards, it says that: “There is no quantitative evidence available on the impact of immigration on GDP per head,” but that “Wage data suggest migrants may have a positive impact directly through their own output and indirectly through raising the productivity of others.” So why on earth hasn’t it commissioned further research to provide this evidence?
It then undermines its own headline figure of a £6 billion gain, by adding that “it would not be right to estimate the total contribution of all migrant workers simply by subtracting their productive output and numbers respectively from the numerator and denominator of the GDP per head ratio calculation. The integration of migrant workers in the economy, and their ability to complement the activities of other workers, means that the impact on national output of a total withdrawal of migrant labour would be likely to be very substantial.” If the impact would be “very substantial”, surely it would be worth trying to get a measure of it?
Liam Byrne trumpets “a new balance” in migration policy: “On the one hand we must list the benefits,” he says. “But we have to list the impacts on public services and communities too. Then we make decisions by balancing the two.” In effect, he implies that the impacts of immigration on public services and communities are negative. But that is nonsense. The NHS would grind to a halt without foreign workers. London would not be the exciting cosmopolitan metropolis that attracts go-getting people from around Britain and the world were it not for immigration.
Immigration brings big economic, social and cultural benefits to Britain. But by being so half-hearted in highlighting them, the government is putting them at risk.
This article was commissioned by the Guardian's Comment is Free blog.
A British migration expert said yesterday Australia should open its
borders to unskilled rather than skilled Asian migrants to do the
dirty, difficult and dangerous jobs locals shunned.
Philippe Legrain, a visiting fellow at the London School of
Economics' European Institute, also accused the Government of racism
over its approach to African refugees.
"I think it's the most crude, electioneering racism," he said.
A spokeswoman for Mr Andrews said opening the borders to unskilled migrants would be catastrophic.
"The idea of bringing in people to do low-skilled, low-paid jobs is, frankly, un-Australian," she said.
Rubbish. Indeed, some people might say that the Howard government's policy towards refugees' is not only un-Australian; it's unethical and inhumane.
I am currently in Melbourne, attending and speaking at the 12th international Metropolis conference on migration. Yesterday I spoke about migration and the global economy, and tomorrow I'll be speaking on the benefits of diversity.
Melbourne's leading newspaper, The Age, published a leader yesterday praising my contribution:
Immigration is not as simple as its critics make out: the these-foreigners-who-come-in-and-take-our-jobs argument has long
been discredited in favour of a more optimistic reality. Another
delegate, Philippe Legrain, visiting fellow at the London School of
Economics European Institute, says that foreigners create jobs,
too, as well as creating future generations of talent just as
deserving of opportunity and success as other Australian children.
Mr Legrain makes a valuable contribution in criticising Australia's
much-copied points system for vetting immigrants as "wrong-headed
… government officials picking winners", and too narrow to
embrace diversity or changes to the nature of immigration. The
phrase "international mobility" — whereby people, encouraged
by economic opportunities and less strict entry requirements, can
move freely between various countries — is indicative of a new
progressiveness rather than permanency. Sadly, it seems that it
will be a while before Australia adopts such a progressive
attitude. Eleven-and-a-half years of conservative government have
tightened, not loosened, the wire on the fence, and the
small-minded and prejudicial parts of society continue to act
accordingly.
As Britain's pre-election fever hots up, David Davis, the Conservatives' home affairs spokesman, has ratcheted up his party's anti-immigration rhetoric. He said:
