Britain misses targets on immigration control

The British government has missed its targets on immigration control, which was a key pledge by Prime Minister David Cameron. He had promised in 2011 to cap immigration at 100,000 by the end of the current Parliament.

The figure for net migration (inflows minus outflows) stood at 298,000 for the year 2014 till September, according to figures released by the Office of National Statistics.

According to opinion polls, immigration has emerged as a key issue for voters — ahead of the National Health Service, the economy, unemployment and crime — in the run-up to a closely-fought general elections this May.

However, while immigration into the United Kingdom has substantially risen, there is no evidence to suggest that this has had a negative impact on jobs, wages, housing and other public services for the U.K.-born.

This are the findings of a study done on the latest U.K. immigration statistics by the Centre for Economic Performance (CEP)of the London School of Economics, and the first in a series of background briefings by the CEP on important policy issues in the run up to the general elections.

The report ‘Immigration and the U.K. Labour Market’ by author Professor Jonathan Wadsworth finds that rising immigration in the last 20 years means that there are now around 7.8 million individuals – and 6.5 million adults of working age – living in the U.K. who were born abroad.

“This is a large, but not unprecedented, rise in the U.K. population,” he states.

Indeed, the doubling of the share of immigrants among working age adults in the U.K. between 1995 and 2014 – from 8% to 17% “is not particularly different from many other rich countries in terms of its share of immigrants,” he argues.

European Union (EU) countries account for one-third of the total immigrant stock, and new inflows of EU immigrants are almost as large as inflows from outside the EU. While EU arrivals are for work-related reasons most non-EU arrivals are for study-related reasons.

While 30 years ago 30 per cent of all immigrants came from just two countries, Ireland and India, today these two countries account for just 13 per cent of all immigrants.