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News Articles for September 2007
September 4, 2007
The TUC Report on Immigration
September 3, 2007
Amnesty for illegals not a 'benefit' but a major liability
Full Text of Press Release : September 2007
September 27, 2007
Sir Andrew Green, Chairman of Migrationwatch points out that the new ONS assumption, released today, at last recognises that the present very high levels of immigration are likely to continue unless the government moves from rhetoric to really effective measures.
He highlights that it means that our population will increase by about 8.7 million between 2004 and 2031 of which 7.2 million, or 86% will be due to immigration.
Furthermore, housing demand simply for new immigrants will increase from 200 a day to 260 a day throughout the next twenty years.
This is not remotely "managed migration". Continued immigration on this scale is completely unacceptable to the vast majority of the public.'
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September 4, 2007
The TUC Report on Immigration
The TUC have not woken up to the impact of mass immigration, despite the arrival last year of nearly three quarters of a million foreign workers. Indeed, they are failing to defend the interests of their own members by promoting the ‘benefits’ of the current mass immigration while largely ignoring the downsides, says a report out today.
The report, by think-tank Migrationwatch, analyses the TUC paper on migration published with great fanfare in June. It finds that the paper is simply a selective rehash of previous research. The best the TUC can conclude is that "overall levels of employment and wages are slightly higher as the result of immigration". The report admits, however, that in some sectors such as construction British workers are losing out.
Significantly, it entirely ignores the effect of immigration on GDP per head which is the best measure of the benefit to the host community. All major international studies have found this to be extremely small as most of the benefit goes to the immigrants themselves. In Britain it amounts annually, on the government’s latest figures, to less than £1 per head per week.
‘The report fails to address the serious effects that the highest levels of immigration in our history are having on Trades Union members, such as pressure on housing, transport, schools and health services,’ said Sir Andrew Green, chairman of Migrationwatch. ‘By pretending that these important issues are of little consequence they do their members a great disservice as well as harming the credibility of their case.’ Said Sir Andrew: ‘The TUC are putting political correctness before the interests of their own members. Mass immigration is holding wages down, as the Bank of England keep telling us. And more worryingly for the long term, skilled immigration reduces the incentive for employers to train British workers which should be a matter of great concern to the TUC at their Congress in Brighton next week. Ironically, it has been left to employers to speak out. In June the Director General of the British Chambers of Commerce warned that “skilled work hungry migrants are masking the tragic lack of skills so many of our school leavers have.” The paper even describes a policy of limiting immigration, supported by 75% of the public, as "an unacceptable challenge to free movement. This tells you where the authors are coming from – an approach for which there is very little support among the public or, indeed, among their own members,’ he said.
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September 3, 2007
Amnesty for illegals not a 'benefit' but a major liability
Instead of “netting” £1 billion pounds annually for the Treasury an amnesty for illegal immigrants would in fact cost the taxpayer between £0.8 billion and £1.8 billion a year, says a new report out today.
A recent paper from the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) claimed that an amnesty for illegal immigrants could provide extra revenue of around £1billion a year but, when their figures were examined in detail by think-tank Migrationwatch, the very opposite of this turns out to be the case.
‘Our analysis, based on their own figures, blows their claims out of the water,’ said Sir Andrew Green, Migrationwatch chairman. ‘They have presented a thoroughly biased and misleading case. They have very conveniently taken absolutely no account of the additional expenditure involved in, for example, Tax Credits, Unemployment Benefits, Child Benefit, Housing Benefit, Education and Health which turns this ‘benefit’ into a major liability, all of course footed by the UK taxpayer.’
In the longer term, as families are formed and become entitled to a higher level of benefits, the cost to the tax payer could be more than £5 billion a year, or £15 million every day.
Sir Andrew said it was clear that the IPPR paper had been taken up by supporters of liberal immigration policies to persuade the public that an amnesty would be a ‘good’ thing but it was high time that the claim that it would benefit the tax payer was exposed as utterly bogus.
‘The more recent claim by the Liberal Democrat's spokesman that the Treasury is "losing out” on £3.3 billion of unpaid tax each year is even more ridiculous while the so called "earned legalisation" they are touting makes no difference to these costs,’ he said.
‘The true effects of an amnesty would eventually be to cost the tax payer £15 million a day, add hundreds of thousands to the waiting lists for council housing, and encourage still more illegal immigration. The public are right to dismiss this absurd proposal as they have done so decisively and repeatedly,’ he said.
‘Let us have a debate about whether or not we should have an amnesty for the hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants now in this country, but let us do so on the basis of accurate facts,’ he said.
‘It is very clear from previous amnesties across Europe that their effect is to encourage yet more illegal immigration leading inevitably to calls for yet more amnesties, with yet more asked of the taxpayer. The public are getting very tired of hearing that those who have broken our laws for long enough should receive benefits, leading even to citizenship, rather than face penalties,’ he said.
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