EU immigration levels is a hot topic in the UK with many British citizens airing concern at the levels of immigrants coming to the UK from Europe.
It’s creating a rift in the social and political cohesion of the country and a more far right political view point has started to take hold of the political sphere even within the main political parties, but it would seem the influx of EU immigrants could be good for the UK.
EU Migrants Contribute to the British Economy
It’s been found that the contribution to the British economy added 5bn to the UK coffers from migrants with EU immigrants giving far more than then they took out of the system in benefits according to a new study.
The report suggests they’ve added £4.96bn more in taxes in the years they have been coming to the UK than they took out of the public purse.
EU Immigrants and UK public services
The study was conducted by the University College London’s Center for Research and Analysis of Migration. Their analysis includes migrants share of public service costs, of all services.
The report included costs that increase when the population increases such as education and health care, and services like the armed forces and defense spending that stay at a fixed rate.
The study found that if the fixed costs are excluded, the net benefit of EU immigration would double to £10.5bn.
The University College London’s Centre for Research and Analysis of Migration study also found that –
- European Economic Area immigrants made a positive fiscal contribution of £4.4bn between 1995 and 2011, non-EEA immigrants made a negative net contribution of £118bn, and British people a negative net contribution of £591bn
- More recently, between 2001 and 2011, European arrivals contributed £20bn and those from outside Europe £5bn
- Immigrants who arrived since 2000 were 43% less likely than British people to receive state benefits or tax credits, and 7% less likely to live in social housing
Immigrants Contribute Their Fair Share to the UK
Co-author Professor Christian Dustmann, said “A key concern in the public debate on migration is whether immigrants contribute their fair share to the tax and welfare systems. Our new analysis draws a positive picture of the overall fiscal contribution made by recent immigrant cohorts, particularly of immigrants arriving from the EU.”
He also added “European immigrants, particularly, both from the new accession countries and the rest of the European Union, make the most substantial contributions. This is mainly down to their higher average labour market participation compared with natives and their lower receipt of welfare benefits.”
Negative Contribution by EU Immigrants Increasing at UK Cost
The study isn’t without it’s critiques the campaign group Migration Watch criticised the report for it’s selective use of dates.
Sir Andrew Green the chairman of the group said “If you take all EU migration including those who arrived before 2001 what you find is this, you find by the end of the period they are making a negative contribution and increasingly so and the reason is that if you take a group of people while they’re young fit and healthy they’re not going to be very expensive, but if you take them over a longer period they will be.”
He continued – “This report confirms that immigration as a whole has cost up to £150bn in the last 17 years for recent European migrants, even on their own figures ‘which we dispute’ their contribution to the exchequer amounts to less than £1 a week per head of our population.”
The main question by the reports critiques is to ask is it worth the levels of EU migrants into the UK for £1 extra a week per person when taking into account the extra pressure put on schools, maternity units, and other services and the social change to the UK culture which is happening at an unprecedented rate.
Immigration Minister Airs Concern Over Report
The University College London’s Center for Research and Analysis of Migration report has been flagged by the Immigration minister James Brokenshire who said the report “had taken a very narrow focus”.
