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The Cragged

Break out of the echo chamber

The immigration debate – does the UK need more immigrants?

Immigration is possibly the single most divisive issue in UK politics today. Net migration has increased fourfold since the 2000s. Why do some people back higher levels of immigration, while others argue the UK should raise the drawbridge? Here are the key arguments on either side.

The Cragged
24–35 minutes

Contents

Immigration is possibly the single most divisive issue in UK politics today. 

Over 1.2 million people arrived in the UK in total in the year ending June 2024. That figure stirred much debate among politicians and the public.

In fact, net migration has increased fourfold since the 2000s. While the numbers are starting to trend down, as a result of policy changes, the ONS expects net migration of nearly 5 million by 2032.1

Why do some people back higher levels of immigration, while others argue the UK should raise the drawbridge? Here are the key arguments on either side.

The Context

Overview

Net migration is the total number of people arriving in or leaving the UK in a given year. The most recent figures are for the year until June 2024:

Immigration1,200,000
Emigration479,000
Net migration728,000

These 2024 numbers are still described as ‘provisional’ by the ONS, but are likely to be about 20% lower than the previous year, for which net migration was 906,000.2

Here’s the picture for migration over the past decade: a little over 10 million people arrived in the UK, while 4.3 million left, giving a total net migration of roughly 6 million – accounting for over four-fifths of total population growth in the UK.

Source: Borders and Immigration data from the Home Office, Registration and Population Interactions Database from the Department for Work and Pensions and International Passenger Survey data from the Office for National Statistics

The UK has one of the highest immigrant population rates in comparable European and North American countries, when measured by size/rate of total migrant population, and based on recent migration trends.

Source: International Migrant Stock 2020, United Nations; World Population Prospects (2024), UN, 2024.
Origins

Net migration was fairly stable between 1960 and and the late 1990s. 

It increased sharply under Blair’s Labour Government, partly due to EU expansion in 2004.3 There was another significant increase after Brexit, during the Johnson Government.4 Here’s a longer term view of migration in the UK:5

Sources: ONS, Long-Term International Migration into and out of the UK by citizenship, 1964 to 2015; ONS, Long-term international migration, provisional: year ending June 2024
Purpose

Work and study are the two biggest reasons for immigration, with asylum and the Ukraine/Hong Kong resettlement schemes prominent in recent years, also:6

Source: Tessa Hall, Alan Manning and Madeleine Sumption, Why are the latest net migration figures not a reliable guide to future trends?, The Migration Observatory, 2024

Immigration advocates argue that it fills gaps in the workforce, stimulates economic and cultural growth, and provides a port of safety to those fleeing persecution or war zones.

Governments have both encouraged immigration and failed to calculate quite how much immigration their policies would lead to.7

Nearly all UK Governments have argued that legal migration is too high in the past 15 years and pledged to reduce it – from Cameron’s to Starmer’s.891011

The Arguments

For

Immigration is vital for demographic, economic and social stability in the UK

Based on hard demographic truths, immigration will have to fuel the economy if the UK is to avoid damaging economic decline – even looking beyond the long-term sickness rate and skills shortage that the country is currently struggling with.12

The UK has an ageing population – the percentage of the population over 65 is projected to be 27% by 2070, compared to 19% today – and its birth rate of 1.59 isn’t producing enough children to supply the labour market.13

One economist projects a ‘demographic gap’ of 19.5 million people by 2050 – currently the UK has 2.75 workers for every retiree; unless something changes, there’ll be 1.69 workers for every retiree by 2050 –  which would likely spell the end of the social contract we expect of publicly provided health and pensions, due to the high degree of economic dependency.1415

The economic effects of this are profound. One model by the OBR, which assumes high migration levels with people staying for a three-year duration, forecasts UK national debt will be 23% of GDP lower in 50 years time. This would contribute to an important reduction in the UK’s (currently unsustainable) debt trajectory.161718 Taxpayers and service users will soon feel the impact of this.19

Here’s how different immigration scenarios would affect the public debt in the next 5 years:

Source: The impact of migration on the fiscal forecast, Office for Budget Responsibility, 2024

These realities are inevitable because of Britain’s economic and demographic trajectory, and critics have failed to put forward an alternative economic vision that doesn’t include immigration.2021

Immigrants drive innovation, entrepreneurship, and productivity – and the benefits are global

Time and again, studies have shown that immigration fuels economic productivity and supports innovation.2223 Immigration is associated with:

  • Innovation, as shown by the higher percentage of patents they provide.
  • Greater economic growth – a 1% increase in the share of migrants in the adult population leads to approximately a 2% increase in GDP per capita in the long run, all things controlled.
  • Higher productivity compared to British born workers.24
  • A higher set of skills for production – even low-skilled migration has ancillary benefits such as freeing domestic workers to work on more productive jobs, or providing childcare which expedites the return to work of British mothers.25262728
  • Migrants on skilled worker visas contribute almost 15% more to public finances than the average UK-born working adult.29
  • Higher productivity, with non-EU migration associated with a 1.5% increase.30

Immigrants are the ‘lifeblood’ of entrepreurship in the UK, amd more likely to start a company than British-born workers: companies like Wise, Gousto, Deliveroo, and Oddbox are success stories that were founded by immigrant talent.31 In 2023, 39% of the fastest growing companies were started by foreign-born founders; in the twenty years before that, immigrants are 1.6 times likelier to be involved in early stage entrepeneurship.3233 London is the most prosperous and dynamic city in Britain because of its high levels of immigration.34

The macro data backs this up. If you assume higher net migration, you see higher GDP forecasts:

These economic benefits are global: immigrants send money home through remittances, benefitting their families and economic development internationally.35

There’s a workforce crisis – especially in health and social care

Essential services depend on immigration: one in five NHS staff is an immigrant; of the 286,000 work visas granted in the year to June 2023, 90,000 were for health and social care workers.3637 The UK needs more workers.38 NHS and social care providers have implored the Government to make it easier, cheaper and faster for them to recruit internationally.39 The Commons’ Health and Social Care Committee has warned:

The National Health Service and the social care sector are facing the greatest workforce crisis in their history.40

There were 124,000 vacancies alone in the NHS in 2022. Meanwhile, retention is poor, British nurses are leaving the NHS and while training is increasing, it’s not outstripping demand.41 The paths towards fixing this all include sustained international recruitment.42

Migrant doctors, nurses and healthforce workers served the British through the pandemic – while contributing their NHS surcharge, on top of their taxes.43 The UK should be celebrating its international workers, not rejecting them. 

Beyond these critical industries, the construction, hospitality, IT and agriculture industries have all reported glaring labour shortages and skills gaps, which only migration is fixing at the moment.444546

Immigrants contribute more than they take out

Several academic studies have concluded that immigrants make a net fiscal contribution.47

  • Immigrants on a Skilled Worker visa contributed on average £16,300 to the public finances, compared to a UK-born adult who had an average net contribution of £800.4849
  • More working immigrants provide more labour, which generates more taxes – the OBR forecasts £6.2 billion by 2029, while leaving public services spending largely unchanged.5051
  • Immigrants are ineligible for welfare benefits for at least their first five years in the country (except for Irish and asylum seekers).52
  • In contrast to UK-born residents, immigrants typically pay in taxes than they receive in transfers and benefits.53
  • High ‘outmigration’ rates (immigrants leaving the UK after exiting the workforce) reduces the impact on public services.54
  • Immigrants tend to be younger and less likely to use expensive healthcare services.5556

Since immigrants don’t incur education costs, are ineligible for benefits in their first five years residence, and a percentage leave before drawing a pension, they incur lower fiscal costs than British citizens.575859

Immigration critics point to the pressure on services like education and healthcare, but the data suggests that perception outweighs reality.60 Immigrants are net contributors to the NHS, and domestic policies like austerity are behind the failure of the education and housing systems to keep pace with demand – immigrants are simply being scapegoated.616263646566

Asylum is a right. Anti-immigration sentiment is manufactured by a xenophobic media

Asylum is a right and the UK should be doing more to provide safe legal routes to the UK, rather than deterring arrivals. Other countries such as Germany and Spain take considerably more refugees and asylum seekers than the UK.67686970

Sources: Refugee Data Finder, UNCHR

Negative feelings about immigration have been exaggerated and excarbated by the British media’s continual ‘hysteria’ about the issue.71 Anti-immigration sentiment is closely associated with racist attitudes, which are ‘manufactured’ by an out-of-touch ruling class, including political and media elites.7273 People are ‘bludgeoned daily’ with headlines about how immigration negatively affects the UK – that’s why anti-immigration sentiment has spread.7475

In reality, anti-immigration politics are a straw man for governmental mismanagement: it’s easier for leaders to blame immigrants than it is to tackle the root causes of economic hardships and social inequalities.7677

Fears about illegal migration have been conflated with legal immigration by lazy media coverage.78 When people see the benefits of immigration, their attitudes change:

  • Only 42% of people are in favour or reducing immigration levels.
  • While pro-immigration sentiment has dipped since 2020, it has broadly increased significantly since 2000.798081
  • 59% believe the NHS should be free to recruit as many migrant workers as needed.82
  • After Brexit, hardline views on stopping immigration more than halved.83
  • The UK has one of the most positive views of immigration in the world.84
  • The UK doesn’t have a disproportionate volume of immigration – a 14% foreign born rate is similar to France, Spain and Germany.85

Immigration critics are fearmongering and using policy concerns to mask racial profiling.86878889When critics of immigration warn about a lack of cultural ‘integration’ they often conflate immigrants with negative behaviours – which suggests that their warnings about immigration are a straw man for an insidious racism.9091 For example, during the reaction to the 2024 Southport stabbings, immigration critics repeatedly pointed to the Rwandan heritage of the British-born suspect, as if his Rwandan heritage caused the violence, even though violence is something that occurs in all societies.92

When you look at the reality, diverse neighbourhoods are often cohesive: Ash Sarkar of Novara Media has argued that areas in London like Tottenham are positive examples of this.9394 9596 The data back this narrative up:

Neighbourhood ethnic diversity in London is positively related to the perceived social cohesion of neighbourhood residents with control for economic deprivation.Were the UK to focus on the issues that affect people’s lives, such as corporate power, workers’ rights and housing inequality, immigration would be less of a focus.97

Were the UK to focus on the issues that affect people’s lives, such as corporate power, workers’ rights and housing inequality, immigration would be less of a focus.98

Against

Immigration won’t tackle the UK’s long term problems — it must invest domestically

Employers prefer overseas recruitment because of the UK labour market’s skills gap. 99 But supplying this demand with government-sanctioned immigration only perpetuates economic short termism and subsidises companies looking to make greater profits from cheap labour. While a causal link hasn’t been found here, the MAC has acknowledged it’s potentially a cause.100

The focus should be on training and retaining British workers, who are currently emigrating due to better conditions abroad.101102 However, in 2021, 85,000 Brits applied for 7,000 places at UK medical schools – at the same time the UK hired thousands of foreign doctors.103104

Besides, the benefits of the skills immigration provides are wildly overstated. Of the millions of visas granted in the past few years, few were to entrepreneurs, innovators or technically sophisticated workers.105

Immigration won’t make Britons richer – and it worsens conditions abroad

Multiple reports have shown that even if GDP growth correlates with increased immigration, it is unlikely to lead to improve living standards or yield a higher GDP per capita – a crucial indicator of whether the economy is serving Britons (and not a new one in the immigration debate – a House of Lords report concluded this in 2008).106107108109

There’s been an economic focus on how economically productive migrants are, but it’s misguided because the OBR has failed to project how many people stay in the UK and have families.110111 The subsequent costs of education, retirement, housing and healthcare over the lifespan of immigrants are much higher – which ultimately makes British taxpayers worse off.112113114

Source: Fiscal risks and sustainability, Office for Budget Responsibility, September 2024 

The benefits that advocates proclaim about immigration’s impact on reducing the public are overstated: the OBR’s analysis shows high migration won’t fundamentally change the trajectory of Britain’s spiralling debt, partially because higher tax revenues would be in part offset by higher public spending:

Sources: The fiscal impact of immigration to the UK, The Migration Observatory, 2024; Economic and fiscal outlook – March 2024, OBR

A stronger long term plan is needed, rather than relying on cheap labour as an easy, short term economic fix.115 As David Miles from the OBR’s Budget Responsibility Committee argued:

A greater supply of labour from the population in the UK, particularly if it reflected fewer people not participating because of health issues and fewer people under-employed (or not employed at all), is fiscally highly advantageous. Not only do these sorts of rising employment generate more incomes and tax revenues they can also reduce the welfare payments bill. It is much less clear that persistently high levels of net immigration to boost the labour force can generate sustained fiscal improvement.

116

Besides, the UK’s immigration fix is costing other countries. For example, doctors in Nigeria are in short supply, but two-thirds of emigrating doctors move to the UK. It’s not ethical for the UK to plug its labour shortage with overseas talent at the scale it is.117118

Population growth and pressure on public services is unsustainable

Large scale immigration puts most pressure on the poorest areas: immigrants settle in poorer areas, increasing competition for jobs, housing, schools, and public services.119120

Overall, population growth is too high – and often underreported – and net migration is the root cause for that.121122Housing, transport infrastructure, healthcare, and schools are ill-equipped for the strain the surge in demand has placed on them by a rapidly growing population.123124125126 Migration has increased housing and rental prices, and is contributing to increased homelessness.127128129

Health:

  • 7 in 10 Britons believe immigrants place extra pressure on the NHS.130
  • There were nearly 700,000 new GP registrations by migrants in 2019-20.131
  • The UK’s dependence on international labour is actually a vulnerability: foreign doctors are more likely to be struck off; quality is at risk with language and practice differences; an unforeseen exodus of foreign nurses and doctors would be a huge risk to the NHS’ workforce.132

Housing:

  • In London, 67% of private rented households are now headed by someone born overseas, which has helped put pressure on housing stock
  • Even if the Government exceeds its historic housing targets, it’ll not keep up with projected housing growth requirements.
  • Social housing is ‘disproportionately occupied by people born overseas’ – 10.4% in 2022.133

Schools:

  • English is an additional language for 1.7 million pupils. Funding and resources have been directed at support and specialist tuition for children who have arrived in the UK without speaking English.134135
  • Overseas teachers are often arriving with a language level of ‘competent’. There’s a risk to the quality of English language standards in education and to the quality of teaching outcomes.136
Claims about migrants’ contributions are inflated

There have been several studies claiming immigrants contribute significantly more than they put in, but the reality is that whether there’s an economic cost or benefit, the overall impact is likely small. Here’s a breakdown of several studies:

Sources: Carlos Vargas-Silva, Madeleine Sumption, Ben Brindle, The Fiscal Impact of Immigration in the UK, Robert Jenrick, Neil O’Brien, and Karl Williams, Taking Back Control: Why Britain needs a better approach to immigration, Centre for Policy Studies, 2024

Moreover, the headline figures for immigration are misleading. The contribution made by different immigrant groups differs wildly. For example, an immigrant from New Zealand or Poland is almost twice as likely to be in work compared to a migrant from Iraq and 50% more likely than a Bangladeshi or Somali migrant; meanwhile, English speakers are far more likely to be economically active. Studies from other countries, such as Denmark and the Netherlands, have provided similar outcomes.137

The UK should be much more selective with its migration goals, and more realistic about the expected outcomes. The target should be for a ‘large earnings premium…[to] offset the broader costs of immigration.’138 However, the UK is importing lots of cheap, unskilled labour, which isn’t contributing to economic innovation or productivity.139

Similarly, foreign workers send money home through remittances, reducing the amount they contribute to the public purse: the MAC report acknowledged that ‘indirect tax receipts for Skilled Workers were lower than the average for all UK adults’ as a result.140141142

Integration isn’t possible at the current scale and the UK is increasingly divided

Survey data shows that Brits increasingly feel immigration has been too high over the past decade:

Source: Yougov, Do Brits think that immigration has been too high or low in the last 10 years?, 2024

Too much rapid immigration creates division: people feel like strangers in their own communities.143144145146 While the UK has been relatively tolerant of migration historically, studies have shown that rapid increases in immigration increase anti-immigrant sentiment even among people who express tolerant views of migration.147

Immigrant communities are increasingly ‘self-segregating’, meaning the multiculturalism ideals of the past few decades need review – a pause on immigration is the solution.148149

People who raise this issue are often labelled ‘racist’ or ‘xenophobic’. This is a smear tactic that shuts down debate. However, the reality is that, while Britain retains a relatively open attitude to immigration, that is hardening at present because the current levels are unsustainable.150151152153

Integration depends on people speaking English but the Census data shows the number not speaking English is rising.154 71 percent of Britons believe that immigration has made the communities where migrants have settled more divided – up to 78 percent in areas with large-scale migration.155

Immigrants bring cultural practices, which are unacceptable in British culture, including ‘medieval attitudes to women’ according to Robert Jenrick MP.156157158

People have voted time and again – in elections and the referendum – for policies to limit immigration. Successive governments have failed to respect the democratic will of the British people and breaking their promises.159160161162163164

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