The government’s decision to impose an income requirement suggests that the true motivation is simply to reduce numbers, as every British family 'stuck' abroad, or separated, helps to reduce net migration.
Jenny Pennington is a Researcher at IPPR
New research published today lays bare the negative impact of the UK’s management of immigration on British people. The report, from the All Party Parliamentary Group on Migration, shows that the government’s efforts to bear down on immigration numbers through tightening rules on family migration has led to hardship for many.
Examples include British families ‘stuck’ abroad, young British children growing up without a parent and in one case a breast-feeding mother separated from her British baby. According to calculations in the report, as many as 47 per cent of people in employment in the UK would fail to meet the income level needed (£18,600 p/a) to sponsor a non-EEA partner to come to the UK.
The report shows how the government’s target to reduce net migration is dominating policy making in this area. The stated aim of the rules is to ensure that migrants coming through the family route are not a ‘burden’ on the state.
However there are much more direct ways of doing this, for example restricting access to benefits or applying higher visa fees. The government’s decision to impose an income requirement (with entirely predictable consequences) instead suggests that the true motivation is simply to reduce numbers – every British family ‘stuck’ abroad, or separated, helps to reduce net migration.
In response to the research, Mark Reckless, a representative of the Home Affairs Select Committee, was keen to speak to the latter point. Speaking on the Today programme he argued that the limits on family migration are vindicated by their contribution to reducing overall ‘net migration’.
However falling migration doesn’t necessarily reduce public concerns. Polling figures released last week show that even though net migration has fallen by almost 40 per cent across the last year, almost two thirds of the population continue to believe that immigration is still rising
Instead of its single-minded focus on net migration, the government needs to confront the difficult trade-offs that migration policy raises, some of which have been clearly illustrated by today’s report. The government should take action to ensure that family migration contributes to life in the UK.
Rather than an arbitrary income test, the government should focus on ensuring that all family migrants come with a satisfactory level of English to be able to participate in and contribute to society, on making sure that the UK welfare system and labour market are fair for everyone, and on supporting integration in local communities.
The APPG report shows how we all lose when migration policy is led by blunt targets about migration numbers. The consequences of the government’s family migration policy may have been unintended, but they were predictable.
37 Responses to “Family Migration: Brits lose out when policy is led by blunt targets”
LB
Re-read please.
What matters to people, and pushes them in or out of poverty is take home pay.
IT IS TAKE HOME PAY THAT MATTERS.
Just for emphasis.
Tax taken out of wage packets makes people poorer. Pure and simple.
You are correct. Wages are also driven down by a lack of bargaining power.
The biggest effect here is supply and demand. Even if demand is stable, by increasing the supply, you drive down wages. Collective bargaining won’t work. It can also have bad effects. e.g Preserve the jobs of those in work, and the expense of those out of work. Driving up wages costs will result in a move to automation with a loss of jobs.
You can legislate for higher wages, but then you have to deal with the consequences.
1. Prices go up.
2. Jobs go to low wage areas
3. Firms go bust because they cannot charge the new prices required to be profitable under the new price regime.
4. Inputs are preferfed to locally made, because its cheaper.
Here’s an example. If Tescos are paying low wages, why don’t you and others tip the check out staff a tenner every time you use a till? Spot the problem? If wages go up, you have to pay them. If you tip them you have to pay them. One is overt, you see the effect. The other is hidden in the price. Or you could make them richer by cutting tax, so they take home more money.
Cut tax for the poor. It is entirely within the government’s control. It doesn’t risk companies going bust. It doesn’t put up prices. It doesn’t offshore anything.
Taxing people who are poor is immoral.
So why do you want to tax them and make them poorer?
The obvious question. Are you making a living off their money?
steven
Take home pay is increased by higher wages.
Australia has higher arbitrated wages as well as better bargaining rights for collective agreements, The result? Higher REAL wages. Yes, prices are higher too, but in real terms wages are still higher than in the UK, US and other countries with lower nominal wages, lower prices and lower taxes. The average working person is better off in Australia which according to your neo-classical textbook quotes shouldn’t be the case. PS – in effect I do tip a lot of Tesco workers because my taxes have to subsidise their low wages to stop them falling into poverty. Make Tesco pay more and the benefit bill would fall so you probably have lower taxes as well, it’s a win-win, except for Tesco.
Real wages declined in countries in the US and UK when unions were smashed and bargaining power reduced. That is the number one factor in the UK’s low wages. The obvious question, why do you not want to increase bargaining power for workers? Are you making a living off them?
steven
Evidence please?
LB
PS – in effect I do tip a lot of Tesco workers because my taxes have to subsidise their low wages to stop them falling into poverty.
=============
its not a tip, its taxes. Stop trying to pretend otherwise.
Now of that tax going to pay them, 5% of your money has gone in admin charges. Not efficient, If you had the tax, you could pay them directly, cutting out the middle man. However, I expect you will find that lots of people would rather choose to spend money on other things. So you have to force them to do things they don’t want to do.
If you look at Australia, they are doing two things right that make a difference.
Top of the list, is migration. They aren’t allowing in low skilled workers. So demand for people to work at the equivalent of Tescos goes up, because there isn’t the supply. That means the prices rises for them, and that means higher wages, and higher prices.
There is bargaining power. Tescos allows people to join unions. I’m all in favour of people collectively organising. I’ve a libertarian bent, and included in that is the right of free assembly.
However, the employer’s have a right to ignore.
Then you have a right to withdraw your labour.
However, the employer has right then to say, I don’t want to employ you.
Now you get more bargaining power, if your services are in short supply. Like Australia.
So curtail low skilled migrants, and you get a rise in wages.
I’m not making a living off them.
However you haven’t answered my question to you. Are you employed directly or indirectly by the public sector, or are in in receipt of money from the state. For example, tax credits, child benefits, income support, … I’m interested in whether or not your attitude to cutting the taxes of people in poverty is affected by your receipt of that money.
steven
For your information, I have always worked in the private sector, at times for very low pay, and for the past few years have worked for private sector unions in Australia. Even so, I reject your assumption that everyone who works in the public sector or is in receipt of tax credits (possibly due to low wages) is some kind of sinister self-interested vampire on poverty. I’m not against tax cuts for those in poverty per se (that’s basically what a tax credit is), but it can only be a small measure in fixing a much bigger problem. You seem to think it is a panacea in itself.
That’s why I reject your low-tax, little-England libertarianism, because it is simplistic and it wouldn’t deliver the things you claim it would.
Also, Australia has less low-skilled immigration but it still has quite a lot of immigration and getting a spouse visa is easier there than here (I know, I’ve got one). That is what this was all about in the first place. You think lower taxes and less immigrants would usher it a new Jerusalem for working people and I think it would make next to no difference at all without proper representation in the workplace and support for that from government.
I’m also interested in why you think raising wages through collective bargaining would force companies to move towards automatism, offshoring etc. to reduce costs but you don’t think this would happen when driving up wages by cutting immigration & reducing supply. Balance sheets don’t care what causes a cost to rise.