At last, hard evidence that can't be ignored: Immigration is reducing jobs for British workers and David Cameron must act now


There are few more explosive issues at Westminster – and across the rest of the country – than that emotive question: ‘Do immigrants take jobs from British workers?’

For years, politicians have debated whether or not Labour’s open-door policy was responsible for an influx of workers which led to tens of thousands of Britons ending up on the dole.

This week alone, there have been two entirely contrasting reports on the subject.

First the think-tank MigrationWatch said it would be a ‘remarkable coincidence’ if there were no link between a surge in Eastern European migrants working in the UK – a rise of 600,000 since May 2004 – and a 450,000 increase in the number of young people unemployed over the same period.

British workers are being forced out by the numbers of people coming in from overseas, reports have now proved

Competition: British workers are being forced out by the numbers of people coming in from overseas, reports have now proved

Barely 24 hours later, the National Institute of Economic and Social Research (NIESR) boldly announced that ‘even during the recent recession, increased immigration was not associated with increases in claims for Jobseekers Allowance’.

Thus, yesterday we had a Left-leaning newspaper trumpeting the fact that immigration did not lead to higher unemployment among Britons while a Right-leaning paper announced that it did. Confused? The public has every right to be.

The major problem, when it comes to immigration, is that it is near-impossible to find an ‘independent’ piece of analysis which has not been generated by an organisation with a particular agenda.

For example, the NIESR report was co-authored by Jonathan Portes, who was one of the most senior advisers to the last Labour government and the man who accompanied Labour ministers to select committees to help them justify their hugely contentious migration policies.

Clearly, the NIESR report was unlikely to conclude mass immigration had ruined the job prospects of a generation of Britons.

Yesterday, however, came a watershed moment in the debate: a genuinely independent report by the Home Office-sponsored Migration Advisory Committee (MAC).

Reliable: Professor David Metcalf has produced a solid report on immigration

Reliable: Professor David Metcalf has produced a solid report on immigration

Led by one of the country’s most respected labour market academics, Professor David Metcalf, MAC was established by the last government, so it cannot be accused of pro-Tory bias.

MAC deals in cold, hard economic facts. And yesterday’s findings were little short of dynamite. The committee found that, between 1995 and 2010, the size of the foreign-born workforce grew by an extraordinary 2.1million. Crucially, the experts went on to say that there is a link between immigration from outside the European Union and job losses among UK workers, and the impact is particularly acute in a downturn like the one we are currently experiencing.

According to the MAC, 160,000 British workers were ‘displaced’ by non-EU workers between 2005 and 2010. In other words, Britons who could otherwise have found work were made jobless, and most of them will have been forced to claim benefits.

What is striking about the MAC report is   it says that only arrivals from outside the EU have had an impact on British workers.

The panel says the arrival of hundreds of thousands of Eastern Europeans has not had a ‘displacement’ effect on Britons, primarily because the new arrivals take low-skilled jobs.

The implication is that Poles and other hard-working migrants from the former Eastern Bloc are performing jobs which UK citizens are simply unwilling to do either because the pay is too low, or because they refuse to work the long hours required.

In one sense, this is a relief for the Government which, because of EU freedom of movement diktats, would not have been able to do anything to help Britons losing out in the jobs market to Eastern Europeans.

BUT ministers do have total control over the foreign workers who are displacing British workers, because anybody arriving from outside the EU needs a work permit.

Prime Minister David Cameron
Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg

Clash: David Cameron's immigration policies are full of concessions to please Nick Clegg, right, and his Lib Dems

To date, the Coalition has done precious little to stem the number being dished out.

True, a ‘cap’ has been placed on the number of workers who can enter the country from overseas.

But, to appease the Liberal Democrats, it is full of loopholes, such as an exemption for so-called ‘intra-company transfers’, which allow firms to bring in thousands of their existing staff from abroad.

Tory MPs will be praying that David Cameron will seize upon yesterday’s MAC report and use it to coerce the Coalition’s pro-immigration junior partner into submission.

Surely even Nick Clegg can see it is economic madness if, as MAC suggests, we are paying benefits to unemployed Britons while simultaneously inviting in workers  from abroad to fill the limited vacancies which exist in the fragile UK economy.

In the longer term, the most significant conclusion reached by MAC concerns the way ministers decide migration policy.

Professor Metcalf points out that under Labour (and, indeed, during the early months of the Coalition) huge weight was given to the impact which migration has on Gross Domestic Product, or GDP.

Polices were judged good or bad based on whether they would increase the overall size of the economy, with Labour ministers repeatedly boasting that migration had increased GDP by £6billion a year.

Yet allowing unrestrained immigration with the aim of boosting GDP is wrong-headed and largely meaningless, since an increase in the size of a country’s population will almost inevitably lead to a rise in GDP.

Professor Metcalf says that the Government should instead decide its policies based on their effect on the ‘economic wellbeing’ of the resident population.

It should be asking whether immigration will lead to more congestion, increased house prices, or a strain on schools and hospitals? Will British workers find themselves excluded from the jobs market?

The answer to all those questions is becoming painfully apparent.

By accepting MAC’s recommendations, Mr Cameron has a chance to change the system in favour of the British electorate.

MAC has provided the Prime Minister with the evidence he needs to get a grip on immigration.

The question is: will he take it?