Restrictive conditions have made it harder for those legally resident to commit to British society
Since the introduction of the concept by then-Labour home secretary Roy Jenkins in the mid-1960s, integration has never been a priority for UK governments. The anti-racist movement and black communities have been suspicious of the term, seeing it as too close to assimilation.
Integration has had little traction on the right either, where there has been distrust for any accommodation with migrants and minorities. Labour started talking about integration under Blair, but usually as a footnote to cohesion or in relation to refugees.
The Coalition government launched an integration strategy in 2012, but it mainly argued that national government needed to leave it to local governments.
In a time when net migration remains high and has transformed the demographic profile of every region of the UK, when we see persistent gaps in health or employment outcomes for some ethnic groups, when concerns about de facto segregation continue, and when politicians talk about particular minorities ‘quietly condoning’ non-British values – is it time to put integration back on the policy agenda?
The 2015 edition of MIPEX, the Migrant Integration Policy Index, is published today. It measures policy commitment to integration in 38 developed countries.
The timing of this might help us re-frame the integration debate in the UK. The last edition of the index was published in 2010, in the final months of the Brown government, so the new edition offers a timely assessment of the changes made in the Cameron/Clegg half-decade.
The headline is that the UK has fallen from the top 10 to mid-table 15. We have dropped points in areas where we perform strongly, such as education and anti-discrimination, because of austerity-driven cuts.
While there are schools across the country being confronted for the first time with children who don’t speak English at home, the funding which supports them to do this (the EMAG grant) is no longer ring-fenced.
While the gap between mainstream and minority employment is bigger than ever, the requirements to enforce equality law are being loosened and seen as excess red tape.
We have lost points too for the indicators relating to routes to settlement and to citizenship, as restrictive conditions brought in to help meet the net migration target have made it harder for those legally resident to commit to British society.
Most dramatically, we have fallen to the very bottom of the table for family migration, meaning we are the hardest place in the developed world for separated families to reunite; we have the most restrictive definitions and stringent requirements, long delays and high costs.
Separated non-European families are now less likely to reunite in the UK than on average in Western Europe, with numbers falling by 20 per cent after the UK imposed one of the highest income requirements for family reunion in the world, one which 50 per cent of working people in the UK could not afford.
The MIPEX index does not measure integration itself. It measures how favourable a country’s policies are to the level playing field that would make integration possible.
This approach has limits, and a resetting of the integration debate would need to look at other measures too: how social integration and a shared sense of belonging can be promoted, for instance.
But the results of the new index show just how far integration has fallen down the policy agenda in the drive to reduce migration and cut costs. Can we afford to let it keep slipping?
Ben Gidley is a senior researcher at COMPAS. Follow him on Twitter
36 Responses to “It’s time to put integration back on the agenda”
damon
Britain is a growing country as you say. Whether that’s good for the people who live here already is another thing. There’s only so much seaside and National Park that we have, and on bank holiday weekends it can feel like half the country is trying to do exactly what you are trying to do.
The USA has been a big immigration country, with a million or two arriving there every year since WW2. It’s lead to horrible urban and suburban sprawl because of the way that capitalism works there. It can get a bit like that in England too. So a growing country is not always a good thing.
Ask the people of Eastern and Balkan Europe whether they want to increase their populations with millions of immigrants from Africa and south and central Asia. Should they be obliged to become multicultural? Should Slovenia be obliged to create a diverse demographic like London has?
I’m at work so in a bit of a rush, but have a look at this excellent Guardian article by Gary Younge today. After thirteen years in the USA, he’s coming back to England.
It doesn’t sound like a great multicultural society they’ve created there. It sounds totally divided on racial lines.
http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/jul/01/gary-younge-farewell-to-america
stevep
Right wing tosh.
Most migrants come to Britain to work and pay taxes. they are net contributors to our economy. Fact.
Rich footballers were used as a comparison, to challenge the hypocrisy of negating some migrants and acclaiming others. Some of them may well be contributors to our economy, but I`ll bet most of them employ top accountants to offset and avoid as much tax as possible and squirrel away the rest in offshore tax havens where HMRC can`t touch it.
As for “The huge revenue they create for their employers”, a good deal of their employers are foreign companies who own the team they are playing for. Bet they aren’t registered in the UK.
gunnerbear
Where’s your evidence for the assertion that immigrants are net contributors? You need to earn about £3k5 to be a net taxpayer in the UK – that’s right £35K and not take a penny in housing benefits, child benefits, tax credits, have children in education and so on. How many immigrants are in that position? http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/news/article-2215070/Are-contributor-burden-nations-finances–Squeezed-middle-increasingly-dependent-state.html
stevep
This is something I found after about 10 seconds of looking:
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Positive economic impact of UK immigration from the European Union: new evidence
5 November 2014
European immigrants to the UK have paid more in taxes than they received in benefits, helping to relieve the fiscal burden on UK-born workers and contributing to the financing of public services – according to new research by the UCL Centre for Research and Analysis of Migration (CReAM).
Video interview with Professor Christian Dustmann and Dr Tommaso Frattini
European immigrants who arrived in the UK since 2000 have contributed more than £20bn to UK public finances between 2001 and 2011. Moreover, they have endowed the country with productive human capital that would have cost the UK £6.8bn in spending on education.
Over the period from 2001 to 2011, European immigrants from the EU-15 countries contributed 64% more in taxes than they received in benefits. Immigrants from the Central and East European ‘accession’ countries (the ‘A10’) contributed 12% more than they received.
These are the central findings of new analysis by Professor Christian Dustmann and Dr Tommaso Frattini of the fiscal consequences of European immigration to the UK, published today by the Royal Economic Society in The Economic Journal.
Immigration to the UK since 2000 has been of substantial net fiscal benefit, with immigrants contributing more than they have received in benefits and transfers. This is true for immigrants from Central and Eastern Europe as well as the rest of the EU.
Professor Christian Dustmann
The research provides an in-depth analysis of the net fiscal contribution of UK immigrants, drawing a distinction between immigrants from the 10 Central and East European EU member states that joined since 2004 (the A10), other European Economic Area (EEA) immigrants and non-EEA immigrants. Its main findings are:
The positive net fiscal contribution of recent immigrant cohorts (those arriving since 2000) from the A10 countries amounted to almost £5bn, while the net fiscal contributions of recent European immigrants from the rest of the EU totalled £15bn. Recent non-European immigrants’ net contribution was likewise positive, at about £5bn. Over the same period, the net fiscal contribution of native UK born was negative, amounting to almost £617bn.
Immigrants who arrived since 2000 were 43% less likely than natives to receive state benefits or tax credits. They were also 7% less likely to live in social housing.
European immigrants who arrived since 2000 are on average better educated than natives (in 2011, 25% of immigrants from A10 countries and 62% of those from EU-15 countries had a university degree, while the comparable share is 24% among natives) and have higher employment rates (81% for A10, 70% for EU-15 and 70% for UK natives in 2011).
The value of the education of immigrants in the UK labour market who arrived since 2000 and that has been paid for in the immigrants’ origin countries amounts to £6.8bn over the period between 2000 and 2011. By contributing to ‘pure’ public goods (such as defence or basic research), immigrants arriving since 2000 have saved the UK taxpayer an additional £8.5bn over the same period.
Considering all immigrants who were living in the UK over the years between 1995 and 2011, a period over which the net fiscal contribution of natives was negative (and accumulated to about £591bn), EEA immigrants contributed 10% more than natives (in relative terms), while non-EEA immigrants’ contributions were almost 9% lower.
Over the same period from 1995 to 2011, immigrants who lived in the UK endowed the UK labour market with human capital that would have cost about £49bn if it were produced through the UK education system, and contributed about £82bn to fixed or ‘pure’ public goods.
Professor Christian Dustmann, Director of CReAM and co-author of the study, 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.
“Responding to comments on our earlier report on this topic published last year, we performed extensive sensitivity analysis, which does not alter our main conclusions: immigration to the UK since 2000 has been of substantial net fiscal benefit, with immigrants contributing more than they have received in benefits and transfers. This is true for immigrants from Central and Eastern Europe as well as the rest of the EU.
“When we additionally consider that immigrants bring their own educational qualifications whose costs are borne by other countries and that they contribute to financing fixed public services such as defence, these contributions are even larger.
“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.”
Watch a video about this research on UCLTV:
Links
Research paper in The Economic Journal
Professor Christian Dustmann’s academic profile on IRIS
UCL Centre for Research and Analysis of Migration (CReAM)
UCL Economics
Media contact
Ruth Howells
Tel: +44 (0)20 3108 3845
Email: ruth.howells [at] ucl.ac.uk
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Positive economic impact of UK immigration from the European Union: new evidence
5 November 2014
European immigrants to the UK have paid more in taxes than they received in benefits, helping to relieve the fiscal burden on UK-born workers and contributing to the financing of public services – according to new research by the UCL Centre for Research and Analysis of Migration (CReAM).
Video interview with Professor Christian Dustmann and Dr Tommaso Frattini
European immigrants who arrived in the UK since 2000 have contributed more than £20bn to UK public finances between 2001 and 2011. Moreover, they have endowed the country with productive human capital that would have cost the UK £6.8bn in spending on education.
Over the period from 2001 to 2011, European immigrants from the EU-15 countries contributed 64% more in taxes than they received in benefits. Immigrants from the Central and East European ‘accession’ countries (the ‘A10’) contributed 12% more than they received.
These are the central findings of new analysis by Professor Christian Dustmann and Dr Tommaso Frattini of the fiscal consequences of European immigration to the UK, published today by the Royal Economic Society in The Economic Journal.
Immigration to the UK since 2000 has been of substantial net fiscal benefit, with immigrants contributing more than they have received in benefits and transfers. This is true for immigrants from Central and Eastern Europe as well as the rest of the EU.
Professor Christian Dustmann
The research provides an in-depth analysis of the net fiscal contribution of UK immigrants, drawing a distinction between immigrants from the 10 Central and East European EU member states that joined since 2004 (the A10), other European Economic Area (EEA) immigrants and non-EEA immigrants. Its main findings are:
The positive net fiscal contribution of recent immigrant cohorts (those arriving since 2000) from the A10 countries amounted to almost £5bn, while the net fiscal contributions of recent European immigrants from the rest of the EU totalled £15bn. Recent non-European immigrants’ net contribution was likewise positive, at about £5bn. Over the same period, the net fiscal contribution of native UK born was negative, amounting to almost £617bn.
Immigrants who arrived since 2000 were 43% less likely than natives to receive state benefits or tax credits. They were also 7% less likely to live in social housing.
European immigrants who arrived since 2000 are on average better educated than natives (in 2011, 25% of immigrants from A10 countries and 62% of those from EU-15 countries had a university degree, while the comparable share is 24% among natives) and have higher employment rates (81% for A10, 70% for EU-15 and 70% for UK natives in 2011).
The value of the education of immigrants in the UK labour market who arrived since 2000 and that has been paid for in the immigrants’ origin countries amounts to £6.8bn over the period between 2000 and 2011. By contributing to ‘pure’ public goods (such as defence or basic research), immigrants arriving since 2000 have saved the UK taxpayer an additional £8.5bn over the same period.
Considering all immigrants who were living in the UK over the years between 1995 and 2011, a period over which the net fiscal contribution of natives was negative (and accumulated to about £591bn), EEA immigrants contributed 10% more than natives (in relative terms), while non-EEA immigrants’ contributions were almost 9% lower.
Over the same period from 1995 to 2011, immigrants who lived in the UK endowed the UK labour market with human capital that would have cost about £49bn if it were produced through the UK education system, and contributed about £82bn to fixed or ‘pure’ public goods.
Professor Christian Dustmann, Director of CReAM and co-author of the study, 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.
“Responding to comments on our earlier report on this topic published last year, we performed extensive sensitivity analysis, which does not alter our main conclusions: immigration to the UK since 2000 has been of substantial net fiscal benefit, with immigrants contributing more than they have received in benefits and transfers. This is true for immigrants from Central and Eastern Europe as well as the rest of the EU.
“When we additionally consider that immigrants bring their own educational qualifications whose costs are borne by other countries and that they contribute to financing fixed public services such as defence, these contributions are even larger.
“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.”
Watch a video about this research on UCLTV:
Links
Research paper in The Economic Journal
Professor Christian Dustmann’s academic profile on IRIS
UCL Centre for Research and Analysis of Migration (CReAM)
UCL Economics
Media contact
Ruth Howells
Tel: +44 (0)20 3108 3845
Email: ruth.howells [at] ucl.ac.uk
Share
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gunnerbear
The UCL study was funded by a huge chunk of EU cash. Pretend all you want, mass immigration has truly f**ked over those at the bottom of the pile and Labour don’t give a f**k. Or do you see businesses with access to a huge pool of cheap labour ramping up wages and only hiring Brits anytime soon.