UK group says economic benefit from immigration only 'slight'

03 January 2007

UK pressure group Migrationwatch has challenged the government's claim that immigrants bring economic benefits for the nation. It calculated that the net effect of the record immigration levels was no more than 4p a week for each Briton.

Migrationwatch chairman Sir Andrew Green said his group was disputing the British government's claim that the migrant population was contributing £4 billion a year to the GDP. But the policy makers fail to take into account the additional burden on public services, housing, employment, wages and education system, he said.

The group examined several British and international studies on the economic benefit from immigrants and also calculated that the migrants' total contribution to the British economy equaled 0.01 percent of the overall GDP or .10 a year for each of the 60 million Britons.
 
?Many immigrants make a useful contribution to the economy?, the group admits but adds that when the costs are factored in, the benefit amounts to nothing. In contrast, the migrants' gain is much larger and they are able to send home about £1 million a day.

A growing number of MPs warn that large-scale immigration has an adverse effect on wages and results in more jobless people. Unemployment has reached a 6yr high, according to official figures.

The Home Office rejected Migrationwatch's report as flawed. A spokesperson said that ?migration accounted for 10-15 percent of trend growth? based on Treasury figures. Shadow home secretary David Davis said the group's calculations ?betray a chronic deficit of information on immigration."

Between 2004 and 2005, the UK gave work-visas to about 427,000 migrants from EU accession states and more than 318,000 from non-EU countries.