Posted on 03/28/2008 8:46:58 PM PDT by blam
Migration has brought 'zero' economic benefit
By Philip Johnston and Robert Winnett
Last Updated: 1:11am GMT 29/03/2008
Ten years of record immigration to Britain has produced virtually no economic benefits for the country, a parliamentary inquiry has found.
A House of Lords committee, which is due to report next Tuesday, will call into question Government claims that foreign workers add £6 billion each year to the wealth of the nation.
It is expected to say this must be balanced against the increase in population and their use of local services such as health and education, resulting in little benefit per head of the population.
"Our overall conclusion is that the economic benefits of net immigration to the resident population are small and close to zero in the long run," the report will say.
The findings of the Lords economics committee threaten to demolish the key argument made by ministers to justify the highest levels of immigration in the country's history.
The inquiry by the committee, which includes two former chancellors and several former Cabinet ministers, is the first to try to balance the costs and benefits of large-scale immigration.
The population is increasing by more than 190,000 every year, largely as a result of immigration.
Foreign workers now make up 12.5 per cent of the labour force, compared with 7.4 per cent a decade ago. Critics say Labour lost control of the borders, issued too many work permits and should not have opened up the labour market to eastern Europe.
However, ministers say that without large-scale immigration there would have been slower economic growth.
A Whitehall paper produced for the committee said average output growth over the past five years was 2.7 per cent a year and migration contributed an estimated 15 to 20 per cent of this. The Government said this indicated a contribution of £6 billion - or £700,000 a day- from foreign workers.
However, the committee's final report is expected to say the Government should have focused on the impact of immigration on GDP per head, not the economy as a whole.
David Coleman, a professor of demography at Oxford University, said in his evidence to the committee that the Government had excluded costs from crime, security, the race relations process, health "tourism" and imported ailments such as TB.
Richard Pearson, a visiting professor at the University of Sussex's Centre for Migration Research, said: "While migrants have clearly helped alleviate often long-standing skill shortages, they have also filled many low-skilled jobs, often at very low wages.
"These migrants are likely to be displacing, and reducing the incentive on employers to recruit and train low-skilled, indigenous workers.''
All the pig-faced Islamic immigrants haven't brought prosperity like that in their country?
Now it's Jorge Arbusto's turn.
Where do we go to get *our* country back?
Cheers!
Considering that radical imams regularly hold lectures on how to game the welfare system I figured the problems are not being caused by those “polish plumbers” and other eastern europeans.
Londonistan...meet thy distant brother.... Mexifornia
Shoot everyone with a ‘rage’ problem. (Here too!)
I'm looking for a new 'head of security.' Are you (ahem) interested?
Surprise!
Now send them back.
Still, I'm always ready to ride to the sound of gunfire.
I note the use of the term migration, rather than immigration.
Is that a sanitized headline? Or is that the term commonly used by the Brits?
Don't they know its racist to point such things out? Why was this not supressed by the liberal thought police?
Let's see. They allow millions of illiterate, uneducated muslims in. They don't want to work. They are simply there because they get welfare which they consider is a jizya tax paid by christians to muslims. They expect free healthcare. Free education, but only islamic education. And keep popping out kids because its their way to speed up the islamic takeover.
And then the government is shocked to find out their is no economic benefit to such immigration policies.
I didn't change the headline. I often see them use the word migrant instead of immigrant.
I knew that!
Foreign eh? Not since someone signed on to the Euro line.
Related story:
Husbands with multiple wives to get extra benefits after Government go-ahead (Britain)
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1964328/posts
As Mark Steyn has said, something to the affect, that the Muslims are the children that Britain couldn’t be bothered to have.
Why do you call them “pig-faced”?
The same thing applies here. FYI: Many of the UK immigrants come from Eastern Europe.
Just as an insult.
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