L'immigrazione in Gran Bretagna?Non sta portando alcun beneficio

[Dragonball (POL)]

Immigration 'small benefit' to UK

Record levels of immigration have had "little or no impact" on the economic well-being of Britons, an influential House of Lords committee has said.

It says competition from immigrants has had a negative impact on the low paid and training for young UK workers, and has contributed to high house prices.

The peers want a limit on immigration levels - a view backed by the Tories.

Minister Liam Byrne says migration has added £6bn to the economy and a points system is preferable to a cap.

In their report, The Economic Impact of Immigration, the peers said the government "should have an explicit target range" for immigration and set rules to keep within that limit.

'Inconsistencies'

They raised the prospect of cutting the rights of people to follow relatives who have settled in the UK.


And they rejected claims by ministers that a high level of immigration was needed to prevent labour shortages as "fundamentally flawed".

The peers also warned that the government's new Australian-style points-based immigration system carried a "clear danger of inconsistencies and overlap".

The Lords Economic Affairs Committee, whose members include two ex-chancellors and other Cabinet members, took eight months to consider government immigration policies.

Inquiry chairman Lord Wakeham said: "Looking to the future, if you have got that increase in numbers and you haven't got any economic benefit from it, you have got to ask yourself, is that a wise thing to do?

"That is why we want the government to look at it."

House price rises

Committee chairman Lord Vallance of Tummel, a former CBI president, said the government's analysis of the economic impact from immigration was "very shaky".


They show unequivocally that the benefits of the current immigration policy to ordinary UK citizens are largely non-existent

But Immigration Minister Liam Byrne said the report confirmed the government's assessment that migration had added £6bn to the economy in 2006.

"That's important in anyone's book," he said.

It also "echoed" the government's belief that migration had to benefit the wider community and not just business, he said.

"The key question we have got to answer is how do we make sure we only get the skills we need in this country and no more? That's why we need the points system," he told the BBC.

He said newcomers would also be asked to contribute "a little bit extra" to public services before they became British citizens and unskilled workers from outside the EU would be banned.

'Clear danger'

The report claims that if net immigration of 190,000 people per year continued over the next 20 years, it would contribute to a 10% increase in house prices.

It adds: "The available evidence suggests that immigration has had a small negative impact on the lowest-paid workers in the UK and a small positive impact on the earnings of higher-paid workers."

And there was a "clear danger" immigration had hit training and apprenticeships offered to British workers.

Of the government's new points-based system, which breaks immigration into five new tiers based largely on earning power, the report says: "It is not clear whether the new system will in fact constitute the radical overhaul of the UK's immigration system suggested by the government."

The use of GDP as the measure of immigration's economic contribution was "irrelevant and misleading".

Instead, GDP per capita - or income per head of the population - would be a better measure, the report said.

"Our general conclusion is that the economic benefits of positive net immigration are small or insignificant," it said.

'Lost track'

Sir Andrew Green, of pressure group Migrationwatch, said the report had "torn to shreds the government's economic case for the massive levels of immigration which they have actively encouraged".

And shadow home secretary David Davis said the peers had shown "unequivocally that the benefits of the current immigration policy to ordinary UK citizens are largely non-existent".

"We are delighted they say there should be an explicit target range for immigration through controls on non-EU applicants," he said.

"This is a policy that we have been arguing for, for years and which the government has consistently rejected."

Chris Huhne, the Lib Dem home affairs spokesman, said the report made clear that "the government has completely lost track of the number of people who live in this country".

"No wonder there is a total inability to manage immigration or create policies that deal with its effects."

'Motivated workers'

Ex-Tory chancellor Nigel Lawson said: "Population increases make countries bigger, but they don't make countries more prosperous.

"The increased size of the economy is neither here nor there if it doesn't bring increased prosperity. And the reason it doesn't is because there are more mouths to feed, more people there."

But Dr Danny Sriskandarajah, head of migration at the Institute for Public Policy Research, said that to say there were no economic benefits was "simplistic and misleading".

"Recent immigration has brought immense benefits to the UK in terms of economic growth, increased competitiveness and the delivery of public services," he said.

Supermarket chain Sainsburys was among those to praise foreign workers in evidence to the committee. It said it had found foreign-born workers to be highly motivated with a strong work ethic which rubbed off on the British-born staff.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/7322825.stm



Lords' report exposes Labour's lies on the 'benefits' of mass immigration
Last updated at 15:19pm on 1st April 2008


Gordon Brown today rejected heavyweight calls for a cap on immigration, saying workers from abroad were vital to the economy.

He dismissed a major report that attacked Government claims that migrants boost the economy, saying they were as important as foreign investment in the City.

“Most people in London know we benefit substantially, not just from inward investment, but from the number of workers who come in to join them,” Mr Brown said.

Scroll down for more...
Immigration


He spoke out after a study by senior peers, including two exchancellors, concluded that Government claims of a £6 billion boost to national earnings from immigration were misleading.

The devastating cross-party report went on to:

•Dismiss Ministers' "preposterous" assertion that migrants boost the economy by £6billion a year;

•Reject Government claims that foreigners will help to defuse the pensions timebomb;

•Demolish the "fundamentally flawed" Downing Street argument that migrants fill vacancies in the economy;

•And warn that migrants will force up house prices by 10 per cent in the next two decades.

Immigration minister Liam Byrne has also waded into the row this morning by claiming the inquiry put forward many of the points he had made when he was first appointed in 2006.

"The report actually confirms that about £6billion was added to the economy in 2006, that is a big number," he told GMTV.

"What it is also saying, though, I think, is that we should be taking into account the wider impact of immigration when we set immigration policy - now I think that is absolutely right."

His remarks came as the report, by the Lords economic affairs committee, which includes former Chancellors Nigel Lawson and Norman Lamont, economists and captains of industry, said immigration had had "little or no positive impact" on the living standards of the existing population.

In fact, the big winners were the migrants themselves who earn higher wages than in their homeland and can also send money home.

Some British workers were even seeing their incomes fall, while up to 100,000 youngsters have been unable to find work.

And, by pushing up house prices, migrants will keep young families off the housing ladder, the committee found.

With migration swelling the population by 190,000 every year, Labour has been keen to stress the economic benefits, not least over pensions.

But the peers said the argument did not "hold up to scrutiny" because the migrants will grow old and claim pensions of their own.

The committee has among its ranks Labour and Liberal Democrat members with impeccable economic and business credentials. Many of them were the most trenchant in their remarks.

Downing Street's claim that migrants fill job vacancies in the economy was ruthlessly exposed.

The peers said that despite the influx of more than 700,000 workers from eastern Europe since May 2004, the number of vacancies has remained at between 600,000 and 700,000.

Allowing more and more migrants into the country created the need for ever more jobs because the new arrivals consume as well as provide services, the study found.

It called on the Government to set an "explicit target range" for immigration and set the rules to keep within that limit - effectively a cap.

Such a move has been stubbornly resisted by Ministers, who say it could damage the economy.

But committee member Lord Layard, a Labour peer and globally-respected economist, said the population would increase by around 190,000 a year for the next 50 years without a limit.

Scroll down for more ...

He warned: "We will have permanent pressure of people to move in our direction. Britain has an extra resource, which is the English language, for attracting people here.

"There is no doubt whatever that the pressure will remain for half a century or more.

"We are suggesting that the Government should set a target range for net immigration and then the rules should depend on the target range, rather than the numbers following from the rules as at present."

The language used by the peers to dismiss evidence given by the Home Office was devastating.

They described the department's economic case - principally that migrants boosted overall Gross Domestic Product by £6billion in 2006 as "shaky" and a "bad argument".

Lord Wakeham, the Conservative former Cabinet Minister, was chairman of the inquiry.

He said: "The Government's use of impact on overall GDP as the key measure is preposterous and irrelevant because it does not reflect the economic well-being of the existing population."

The committee said: "There has been little or no positive impact on the living standards of the existing population."

Asked if the economic policies pursued by Labour over the last decade had been a mistake, Lord Wakeham replied: "We have made it abundantly clear we do not believe there has been any great economic benefit from the policy it has pursued."


Myth exposed: Despite the influx of 700,000 workers from eastern Europe since May 2004, the number of job vacancies has remained at between 600,000 and 700,000

The report said the yardstick of economic success should be income per head of population, or GDP per capita, and here there was little or no proof of significant benefit.

"In the short term, immigration creates winners and losers in economic terms," said the report. "The biggest winners include immigrants and their employers in the UK.

"The losers are likely to include those in low-paid jobs and directly competing with new immigrant workers."

The destruction of the case for mass immigration leaves the Government in what critics say is an impossible position.

Ministers have accepted migrants are placing pressure on schools and hospitals, but have balanced this against the so-called "huge" economic benefits.

Now they will be forced to accept the social harm from migration, with little or nothing to fall back upon.

David Coleman, an Oxford University academic, says the wider costs of immigration are almost £8.8billion a year.

Professor Coleman said that the costs to the public sector are £1.5billion to run the asylum system, £280million to teach English to migrants and at least £330million to treat illnesses such as HIV.

Shadow Home Secretary David Davis said the report showed "unequivocally that the benefits of the current immigration policy to ordinary UK citizens are largely non-existent.

"There are a series of long-term risks to the economy, not least the disincentive to train, and it presents absolutely no answer to the pension crisis".

The inquiry, which took nine months and runs to more than 500 pages of evidence, said the low-paid, some ethnic minorities and some young people looking for a foot on the job ladder may have suffered because of competition from immigrants.

It also warned that the Home Office's much-trumpeted new points-based immigration system carried a "clear danger of inconsistencies and overlap".

But Chris Hannant, head of policy at the British Chambers of Commerce, criticised the study's findings: “The report ignores the contribution made by migrant labour in plugging skills gaps that blight our economy.”

Immigration Minister Liam Byrne said: "This report is a welcome contribution to our huge immigration shake-up, and we are already acting on practically every single recommendation.

"It proves we were right to set up the independent Migration Advisory Committee to tell us which workers our new Australian- style points system should keep out or let in.

"We're glad to see the committee welcome the system as well as our ban on low-skilled migration from outside Europe."




http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/liv...e_id=1770&ct=5


Dedicato agli immigrazionisti nostrani.
Altro che ci pagano le pensioni!

[Dragonball (POL)]

Devastating demolition of the case for mass immigration
By SIR ANDREW GREEN - More by this author » Last updated at 23:16pm on 31st March 2008


Today's report on immigration from the House of Lords Economic Committee strikes a devastating blow against years of blatant government propaganda. It rejects outright the Government's argument that a high level of immigration is of economic benefit to the UK.

This is exactly what we in Migrationwatch have been saying for at least three years in the teeth of opposition and, indeed, insults from the immigration lobby.

Now, at last, after the first major inquiry of its kind in this country, our view has been endorsed by the considered verdict of one of the most heavyweight committees of Parliament, including, as it does, two former Chancellors, a former Governor of the Bank of England, and several distinguished economists as well as captains of industry and finance.

The committee's findings are devastating. The report takes each of the arguments that the Government has been putting forward for years, and tears them to shreds one by one. It is a watershed in the debate on immigration.

Most pertinently, the Government's key claim that immigration increases Britain's overall gross domestic product (GDP) is dismissed as "irrelevant and misleading" - even though, as the report points out, it is a claim that has been "persistently emphasised".

Far from focusing on GDP, the report says, the real issue is whether immigration has boosted income per head of population; and concludes that the effects on per capita income are "very small, whether positive or negative".

So if the Government's principal argument in favour of unprecedented immigration - namely that it has made us individually richer - is found to be disingenuous, how can it justify the extra 2.5 million immigrants it has permitted to enter Britain on its watch? Particularly in the light of the all-too-evident strains on public services that this influx has caused.

It is no good repeating yet again the Government's claim that immigration has contributed £2.5billion to the Exchequer, for this too is questioned. The report concludes that the impact on the Exchequer "is likely to be small".

And what of the Government's argument that immigration is needed to fill job vacancies? Such claims, the committee judges with admirable restraint, are "analytically weak". Immigration, it continues, is unlikely to be an effective tool for reducing vacancies other than in the short term.

In fact the employment statistics prove the committee's point beyond doubt. It is some five years since the Government started to argue there were 600,000 vacancies that needed to be filled by immigration. In that time, we have had net foreign immigration into Britain of nearly one-and-a-half million and guess how many vacancies we still have - 600,000!

The reason, as the report points out, is that immigrants fill some vacancies but their extra demand for services and goods creates others. The Government's argument on job vacancies would, therefore, lead to a continuous cycle of immigration.

How about the Government's claim that, because we are an ageing population, we need immigrants to provide the wealth that will pay our pensions?

This, too, is dismissed with contempt. It "does not stand up to scrutiny," says the report, for a reason that should be obvious to the Government: namely that immigrants themselves grow old and draw pensions.

The way to tackle pensions, the committee suggests, is not unlimited immigration but an increase in the retirement age.

In last-minute evidence to the committee, the Government stressed the "dynamic" economic benefits from having a more diverse society. This sounds plausible in theory, says the report, but there is no empirical evidence.

Taking the report as a whole, it is hard to imagine a more comprehensive demolition of the Government's case for massive levels of immigration - a policy pursued in the face of deep public concern.

Why then has it taken so long to blow these false government claims out of the water?

Part of the answer lies in a widespread reluctance even to discuss immigration.

A recent Newsnight poll of white British adults found that 77 per cent felt that they could not criticise immigration without being labelled racist. Times are now changing, thank goodness, but the multicultural enthusiasts have had it all their own way for far too long.

Why has the Government continued to pursue its immigration policy when it must have known that it was deeply flawed?

Some ministers may have believed their own propaganda on multiculturalism. Others, notably Gordon Brown at the Treasury, were keen to see impressive economic growth figures (yes, Britain's GDP does improve with increased immigration but, as the committee itself pointed out, not income per head). And, of course, it helps to keep inflation down to have a ready supply of cheap labour from overseas.

Furthermore, the importation of skills covered up the Government's own failures over the education and training of Britain's workforce.

One has to ask, too, whether there could be a political aspect. Immigrant communities are predominantly Labour voters. If they had all been budding Conservatives, one wonders whether the situation would have been allowed to continue for so long.

There is one more question raised by this report. Where was our supposedly independent Civil Service while the Government's misleading claims were being repeatedly trotted out? Political aspects are not matters for the Civil Service, but it does seem to have been complicit in the output of misleading information over a period of some years.

Here, I think, one can detect the malign influence of political advisers who have undermined both the independence and the self-confidence of the Civil Service. In the past, it has not always paid to stand up to government ministers; it certainly doesn't pay to do so now.

Set on its political course of increased immigration, all seemed to go swimmingly for the Government as it trebled the number of work permits and later lifted all restrictions on the entry of East European workers.

Then the politics started to fall apart as the white working class, which felt threatened by immigrants prepared to accept lower wages, began to desert Labour, often for the BNP - a development largely explained by the same Newsnight poll which found that 58 per cent of the white working class felt that "nobody speaks out for people like me in Britain today".

The Government is now in a serious bind. Its traditional supporters are deserting, 80 per cent of the public disbelieves it on immigration and, with this report, its underlying justification is in ruins.

We should not be misled by the Government's claims to be introducing the most far-reaching immigration reforms for a generation. Having lost control of our borders (and allowed the asylum system to collapse into chaos), the Government's response so far has been to form two more committees to assess the economic 'need' for, and the social impacts of, immigration.

This will not remotely restore confidence. It does not address the real issue which, as the report says, is how much net immigration is desirable. The committee calls for an explicit and reasoned indicative target around which immigration policies can be adjusted, but this is something the Government seems unable to address, perhaps for ideological reasons.

What we need is not more committees but a clear shift of policy towards the concept of "balanced migration" between immigration and emigration. Setting this as the key objective would provide a sensible way forward for a public increasingly desperate for practical solutions to a developing crisis.

Achieving such an objective would stabilise the population of the UK at 65 million, quite enough for a small island, thus easing the growing pressures on our health, education and transport services and on our environment as a whole. It would also ease the very serious strains on our society about which the Government seems to be in denial.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/liv...e_id=1770&ct=5

[tucidide]

E' un problema di tasso di natalità che sfavorisce l'occidente; inoltre la sua crescita economica non ha bisogno di forza lavoro di basso livello nè di alto visto che ci sono caterve di disoccupati in europa sia di bassa istruzione sia di alta.

[Kraut]

L avevo postato io almeno 2 giorni fa, non rispose nessuno.

[Kraut]

Mi son sbagliato, e' stato ieri:

http://www.politicaonline.net/forum/...d.php?t=420657

[Cesare]

Ci credo, a Londra sono di un lassismo assurdo. Letteralmente, a chi entra in Inghilterra è come se dicessero "porta pure le tue usanze più retrograde, isolati in ghetti, odiaci, sarai comunque il benvenuto e ti daremo protezione".

C'è modo e modo di attuare politiche d'immigrazione. Quelle di Londra sono palesemente ed obiettivamente errate (lo stesso dicasi, purtroppo, per quasi tutta l'Europa).

[Solid Snake]

Io credevo che l'Inghilterra, avendo la stessa cultura e mentalità dell'America, avesse un sistema di immigrazione valido come quello americano, visto che lì la società multirazziale, funziona molto bene.

Ma davvero gli inglesi stanno così male, con gli immigrati?

[Sunix]

Evidentemente e' un eufemismo... gli UK vengono superati solo dall'Olanda in quanto a distruzione del tessuto sociale causato dall'immigrazione. E nemmeno gli USA stanno meglio da che c'e' la psicosi dell'invasione dei "latinos". Perlomeno hanno piu' spazio fisico il che procrastinera' il problema. Ma in Europa siamo ben oltre il livello di guardia. Comunque esiste una qualche forma di giustizia, dato che quest'idea di rimescolamento mondiale e' stata promossa dalla cultura anglosassone. Contenti loro.

[Generale gothic]

Effettivamente , l'atteggiamento britannico rispetto ai problemi dell'immigrazione ha un qualcosa di autolesionistico, per usare un pallido eufemismo ....mah

[Demogorgon]

Io credevo che l'Inghilterra, avendo la stessa cultura e mentalità dell'America, avesse un sistema di immigrazione valido come quello americano, visto che lì la società multirazziale, funziona molto bene.

Ci sono alcune differenze enormi. Quasi il 100% dei neri negli USA sono americani da molte generazioni. I loro antenati erano stati in larga parte forzati a immigrare in nord america, caraibi e brasile come schiavi, non avevano volontariamente lasciato il loro paese d'origine. E comunque per un paio di secoli sono vissuti in condizione di sfruttamento e segregazione, e ancora oggi c'e' comunque un retaggio di razzismo anacronistico nei loro confronti.

Piuttosto, la situazione degli immigrati in UK si avvicina a quella degli ispanici negli USA.