Migration Watch UK: News

18 Bogus Arguments for Mass Immigration

11 April, 2013

Immigration Mythology Briefing Paper 12.4 has been updated. The updated paper outlines the many myths that are put forward by the mass immigration lobby in support of the current levels of immigration and dispels each myth in turn.

The Prime Minister's Speech - The Public's View

A recent YouGov survey which received remarkably little media attention has shown striking public support for the Prime Minister's proposals outlined in his speech last week. (See here for the PM's speech)

The key findings in a survey conducted on 25-26 March 2013 were:

70% of respondents supported the policy of only allowing European migrants to claim jobseekers allowance for more than six months if they have a "reasonable prospect" of finding work, including 72% of Liberal Democrat voters.

78% supported a policy which would see the government doing more to charge foreign governments for the cost of treating overseas patients, including 76% of Liberal Democrat voters. 

81% of respondents would support a policy which disallowed migrants from joining the council house waiting list until they have lived in Britain for two years, including 73% of Liberal Democrat voters.

86% of respondents support a policy of increased fines for companies that employ illegal immigrants, including 83% of Liberal Democrat voters.

The survey can be found here. 

Briefing Note on Social Housing and Immigration

Demand exceeds supply

1  The Prime Minister’s speech proposed that immigrants should wait 2-5 years before joining the waiting list which, in England, has grown dramatically in recent years from around a million in 2001 to two million today[1].  

Immigration Status and Eligibility

2  Currently EEA nationals who are habitually resident in the UK have to be treated exactly the same as British citizens in their application for social housing[2]. This in effect means that EEA nationals can join the social housing register from day one.

3  Nationals from outside the EU can join the social housing register if they have Indefinite Leave to Remain or have been granted refugee status.

4  Recent reforms in the localism act allow local authorities to house homeless people in the private rented sector and to give some priority to people with a local connection.  However, most local authorities with large waiting lists have ignored the option of favouring those with a local connection.

The impact of recent immigration

5  Nationally around 1 in 10 new lets goes to foreign nationals but there is huge local variation. For example it appears that nearly half of the lets in the London boroughs of Ealing and Haringey go to foreign nationals[3].  In Peterborough and Boston in the Fens over a quarter of new lets go to foreign nationals[4]. 

6  It is difficult to get a complete picture at the local level because the survey question on nationality is optional. This has allowed some local authorities to avoid answering it. In London less than half the local authority lets had nationality data against them[5]. 

Recommendations

7  We recommend that the nationality question be made compulsory and that there be a public inquiry into the allocation of social housing in recent years, particularly in London.                                                                   

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[1] Local Authority Housing Statistics https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/6910/2039199.pdf

[2] http://www.migrationwatchuk.org/briefingPaper/document/289

[3] Paragraph 22 http://www.migrationwatchuk.org/briefingPaper/document/286

[4] Continuous Recording of Lettings and Sales https://core.communities.gov.uk/ Advanced Analysis of General Needs new lets by local authority where previous tenure not social housing.

[5] http://www.migrationwatchuk.org/briefingPaper/document/286

 

Immigration from Romania and Bulgaria

Immigration from Romania and Bulgaria could amount to 50,000 a year in the first five years.  That is the conclusion of a study issued by Migration Watch UK today.  250,000 is the population of a city of the size of Plymouth or Newcastle. That number could be considerably higher if there were to be a movement of Roma to the UK or if some of the nearly one million Romanians in both Spain and Italy should transfer to Britain.

The government have so far declined to publish their own estimate. They are very conscious of the previous government’s catastrophic under estimate of immigration from Poland and other East European countries in 2004 which Migrationwatch described at the time as “almost worthless”.

This time round, with the experience of the East Europeans in mind, it is possible to offer a ball park estimate of likely immigration from Romania and Bulgaria.  As it happens their income per head is about 1/5^th of that of the UK – as was the case for Poland in 2004.  Furthermore their youth unemployment is very high as was also the case in Poland when they joined the EU and both countries now have established communities in Britain.

The major difference this time is that all other EU countries will also have to open their labour markets to Romania and Bulgaria in January 2014.  Fifteen smaller countries and Italy have already done so. As for larger countries, with youth unemployment in Spain at 56%, Italy at 37% and France at 27% it would seem that only Germany at 8% and the Netherlands at 9.7% are likely destinations for Romanian and Bulgarian migrants. Britain, with youth unemployment at 20%, is nonetheless an attractive destination partly because of its flexible labour market and partly because of the ease of access to its benefits system.

After examining three different methods of estimating the likely inflow of migrants from Romania and Bulgaria, Migration Watch UK has concluded that they would add between 30,000 and 70,000 to our population in each of the next 5 years – giving a central estimate of 50,000 per year. Claims in Parliament that there could be “an increase of some one third of a million over present levels, possibly within two years” seem exaggerated. However, the number of Roma who might come to Britain is a wild card.

A further wild card is the presence of nearly 1 million Romanians in Spain among whom nearly 1/3^rd of a million workers were unemployed in 2011. Even if they had access to unemployment pay in Spain their benefits would run out after one year. There must, therefore, be a significant risk that they will move to Britain where access to benefits does not depend on contributions – only on “habitual residence” which, in practice, is easily acquired. 

One finding of the analysis is that the International Passenger Survey, the basis of the official immigration statistics, only picked up half of the East European immigration to the UK. If this is repeated the official figure for net immigration, which the government are committed to reducing to tens of thousands, would be increased by only 25,000 rather than 50,000 a year.

Commenting, Sir Andrew Green, Chairman of Migrationwatch said “It is not good enough to duck making an estimate of immigration from Romania and Bulgaria. It is likely to be on a scale that will have significant consequences for housing and public services. It will also add further to the competition which young British workers already face. We have therefore produced our own estimate as a contribution to an important debate which must include the ease with which migrants to the UK can currently access the welfare state”.

EU Nationals and access to the British Welfare State

Summary

1 Once an EU National has been granted “habitual residence” the entire UK benefit system becomes available.  Habitual residence is, in practice, very easy to obtain even for the unemployed. In some circumstances it can, in effect, be obtained from day one.

Detail

2 All EU nationals have an initial right to reside in the UK for three months. Thereafter, EU nationals can extend their right of residence if they are:

   a jobseeker

   a worker

   a student

   self-employed person

   self-sufficient person

3 To gain full access to the welfare state the EU national has to be considered habitually resident[1]. Factors considered may include the applicant’s intention to be resident in the UK. This can be can be demonstrated by registering with a GP, putting your name on the electoral roll, registering your children with the Local Authority for school, having accommodation available, having your family with you or joining relatives already here. Cases are decided individually based on the applicant’s circumstances– there are no firm criteria which indicate habitual residence.

4 The time an applicant has been resident in the UK is also a factor. However some EU nationals, such as those who have worked in another EEA state, can be accepted as habitually resident immediately on arrival; for others the period of actual residence required is between one and three months[2]. 

5 EU nationals habitually resident as workers can access all the work related benefits in the same manner as a British national; these include working tax credit, child tax credit, contribution-based Job Seekers Allowance (JSA) and Employment and Support Allowance. They can also claim housing benefit and council tax benefit and be considered for social housing[3]. The local authority has to treat any application for social housing in the same way as it would treat an application from a British resident.

6 EU nationals unemployed and habitually resident as job-seekers can claim all the benefits an unemployed British resident can claim. This includes income-based JSA, child benefit, housing benefit and council tax benefit. There is no time limit to being a job-seeker and the benefits can be claimed for as long as someone is considered to be seeking employment.

7 This access to the welfare state will be fully extended to Romanian and Bulgarian nationals when transitional arrangements come to an end on 31 December 2013. Currently the easiest way for nationals of these countries to access the welfare state is to gain habitual residence as a self-employed person. Once habitual residence has been granted it is retained - regardless of whether the person remains self-employed or not.

8  There is no information on the amounts paid to foreign nationals as the UK’s benefit system does not currently record the nationality of claimants since nationality itself is not a condition of entitlement.   The government intend to record nationality when the Universal Credit system is introduced, beginning in October 2013.

Recommendation

9 It would be greatly preferable if benefits were conditional on an EU national acquiring “permanent residence”; this requires five years.

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[1] Students and people considered self-sufficient do not have access to the full range of benefits.

[2] House of Commons Library Note, SN/SP/416 www.parliament.uk/briefing-papers/SN00416.pdf

[3] http://www.migrantsrights.org.uk/files/publications/FAQ-rights-benefits-A8-May-2011.pdf

Rule Change Opens NHS to the World

A recent government decision threatens to turn the NHS into the ‘World Health Service’ and should be rescinded as a matter of urgency, says a think tank in a report out today.

Its provisions allow illegal migrants and foreign visitors full and free access to primary care services, which can be the first step to costly and lengthy secondary treatment in hospital.

The report, from Migration Watch UK, said the decision, taken in July this year and quietly slipped out as Parliament rose for the long Summer recess, will result in primary medical care being provided to anyone in the UK, whether they are here legally or not, and regardless of whether they have made any contribution by way of tax or National Insurance.

‘At a time of intense pressure on the NHS this is an incredible decision. It is an open invitation to the whole world to come and take free advantage of a health service paid for by the taxes of the people of this country, ’ said Sir Andrew Green, Migration Watch UK chairman.’ ‘Tax payers will regard this as an insult and will want it reversed at once.’

The previous government had wanted to see a closer link between access to the NHS and UK citizenship or residency - but for six years took no action to achieve it.

‘The Coalition government eventually issued guidance in July 2012 which took the extraordinary decision to go in exactly the opposite direction by granting access to GP’s services for all foreign visitors and also to illegal immigrants,’ said Sir Andrew.

The guidance states that an overseas visitor can register with a GP provided that he or she is in the area for more than 24 hours. This applies whether or not the visitor is lawfully in the UK. A GP is paid £64 per head for each patient on his register; there is no means of knowing whether a visitor has subsequently left the UK.

The guidance further states that registration and a doctor’s appointment should not be withheld because the patient does not have proof of residence or personal identification and that past or present payment of taxes or National Insurance is not to be taken into account.

A GP practice is required to offer free treatment to anyone who requests it (if they have not been accepted on the list) if, in the opinion of a health care professional, it is immediately necessary.

All this applies to illegal immigrants but not to refugees and asylum seekers whose cases are undecided as they are not illegal immigrants and already have the right to free NHS care both by GPs and hospitals.

In respect of hospital treatment it is the duty of the hospital, not the GPs, to establish entitlement to free hospital treatment.

‘In theory, admission to hospital is a different matter,’ said Sir Andrew. ‘The new regulations make it clear that the responsibility is one for the hospitals themselves. However, a Freedom of Information Act request submitted on behalf of Henry Smith MP found that most NHS Trusts only cursorily audit the treatment of foreign nationals who are not entitled to automatic free healthcare.

‘Many hospitals do not even ask whether patients are foreign nationals. In addition, a Panorama programme broadcast in October found extensive evidence that no proper checks were made,’ he said.

‘In practice therefore there is a very good chance that someone who is not entitled to hospital care could receive extremely expensive treatment without having to pay for it.

‘The implications of these changes are wide ranging. They are an open invitation to “health tourism” at a time when the NHS is obliged to make substantial savings. Nearly eight million non EEA visitors arrive in Britain every year not to mention up to perhaps one million illegal immigrants already here,’ said Sir Andrew. ‘It cannot be right that we encourage illegal immigration in this way.

‘It will not be long before substantial numbers of visitors seek free treatment while they are here, especially if they come from countries such as the United States where most medical treatment is both private and very expensive.

‘There could also be an inflow of visitors from EU countries where health standards are not as high as in the UK. The recent rapid rise in births to mothers born in Poland could be a pointer to the future’, he said. (EU nationals who come to the UK to settle are entitled to NHS care in any case but they could now come as visitors)

‘The Government claim to be reviewing the matter but the fact is that they have already caved in to the BMA. They should now perform a very rapid ‘U’ turn on this issue and ensure that the NHS is available only to those entitled to it. It is extremely unfair that tax payers should wait in a queue behind those who have never contributed and never will.”

Immigration Mythology

1     Introduction

This paper outlines the many myths that are put forward by the mass immigration lobby in support of the current levels of immigration and dispels each myth in turn.

2    ‘Immigration provides great economic benefit’

For many years the government claimed that immigration added £6 billion a year to GDP. However, the House of Lords Economic Affairs Committee, reporting in April 2008, said that what mattered was GDP per head. They concluded that:

             “We have found no evidence for the argument, made by the government,

            business and many others, that net immigration generates significant

            economic benefits for the existing UK population”.

 In January 2012 the Migration Advisory Committee went further. They said that even GDP per head exaggerated the benefit of immigration because:

              “It is the immigrants themselves rather than the extant residents who arethe main gainers”. 

 They suggested that the GDP of residents should be the main focus.

 They recognised that the resident population would gain via any “dynamic effects” of skilled immigration on productivity and innovation – these “exist and may be large, but they are elusive to measure”.

 To see the 14 Myths and Rebutals go to Briefing Paper 12.4on Migration Watch UK web site.

The Impact of Immigration on Maternity Services in England

Summary

1  Between 2000 and 2010 births in England increased by over 114,000 – from 572,826 to 687,007.   Immigration has been the key factor fuelling this increase: three quarters of the increase in births was to women born outside the UK. Overall, in 2010, over a quarter of all live births in England were to mothers born abroad. The proportion of such births has grown consistently every year in succession since 1990, doubling over the past decade – from approximately 92,000 in 2000 to almost 180,000 in 2010 – this is nearly 500 on average every day

2  Midwife numbers have not kept pace with the overall growth in numbers of births because governments before 2010 permitted high levels of net migration without making sure that maternity services received adequate staffing; consequently, there has been an acknowledged severe shortage of midwives for several years which has, in turn, led to concern about the quality of midwife services. Key indicators of pressures on maternity services and the resulting shortfall in midwives are shown in Table 1 of the complete Briefing Paper No 5.10 on Migration Watch UK's web site. 

NHS Risks Becoming ‘World Health Service’ as Lax Controls are Admitted

The Government has admitted that access to the NHS for anyone outside the UK and EU is so lax that, say campaigners, it leaves it wide open to abuse.

In a written Parliamentary reply, Simon Burns MP, the Minister of State for Health, confirmed that there is no formal requirement for anyone to provide documentation when registering with a GP

‘A decision on whether to register a foreign national who has a six month visitor visa is therefore currently for the GP to consider,’ he said.

‘What this means is that someone getting off a plane with a valid visitors visa, is, in effect, able to access the GP services of the NHS without ever having paid a penny into the system.  Over one and a half million such visas were issued last year, ’ said Sir Andrew Green, chairman of think-tank Migrationwatch.

‘And once registered with a GP it is, in practice, an easy step to potentially highly expensive and long term treatment - all at the expense of the UK taxpayer with little or no prospect of the beneficiaries ever being charged for it.’

Sir Andrew said that as it was left to the discretion of the GP there is no reason why people who are in the country illegally should not also benefit from this policy.

‘It is clearly not the job of Doctors to act as an arm of the immigration service but there are clear and substantial risks of abuse in such a lax system and controls must be put in place,’ he said.

Sir Andrew said it was clear that the London public were deeply concerned over this issue. An opinion poll conducted among London adults found that 74% believe that everyone, including foreign nationals, should provide documents before gaining access to primary care under the NHS; only 14% disagreed.

Asked whether Boris Johnson had been right to issue a leaflet drawing attention to the fact that no documents were required, 52% said no and 33% said yes.

There was strong support for a Migrationwatch proposal that anyone who cannot supply a British passport or Birth certificate should have to apply to a regional office for a document to prove that they have a right to the NHS before they could be registered with a GP. 66% were in favour. 18% against and 16% did not know.

Said, Sir Andrew, ‘The present situation is outrageous. Everyone knows the pressure the NHS is under and its ever increasing cost to the taxpayer. To allow such easy and potentially hugely expensive access without any entitlement must be stopped at once, otherwise the NHS risks becoming the ‘World Health Service’. The government must act with urgency to close this gaping hole in the system.’

Ends

Notes to editors:

 

• The Parliamentary Answer referred to can be found at URL: http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201212/cmhansrd/cm120423/text/120423w0006.htm#1204246000666
• 1.6 million visitor visas were issued in 2011. Visitor visa numbers can be found at the following link:
  http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/publications/science-research-statistics/research-statistics/immigration-asylum-research/immigration-tabs-q4-2011/before-entry-q4-2011-tabs
• All figures, unless otherwise stated, are from YouGov Plc. Total sample size was 1,138 adults. Fieldwork was undertaken between 20th - 22nd April 2012.  The survey was carried out online. The figures have been weighted and are representative of all London adults (aged 18+). To see the results click here

Boris Advertises Foreign Access to the National Health Service

A new booklet issued by the Mayor of London detailing how groups including illegal immigrants and foreign visitors can access the NHS - whether or not they are entitled to use it - has been branded an ‘absolute disgrace’ by think-tank Migration Watch UK, which is demanding its immediate recall.

It is estimated that there are some ½ million illegal immigrants in London and the number of foreign visitors to Britain is nearly two million of whom many, of course, come to London. Most of them come on six month visas which is plenty of time for free medical treatment.

The booklet was issued by the Mayor of London in March 2012 and purports to inform people how to access primary care. It is available on line in nineteen languages.

The weasel words are the clue: 'Sometimes general practices ask for proof of address or proof of ID. If you do not have any documents, they can still register you”.

Later the pamphlet says “overseas visitors do not legally have to prove their identity or immigration status to register with a practice”.

‘To encourage this further pressure on an already overstretched service is an absolute disgrace and will be greeted with anger by UK taxpayers,’ said Sir Andrew Green, Migration Watch chairman.

The leaflet continues that GP’s can only turn down an application if the Primary Care Trust has agreed that they can close their list to new patients, or if they have other (unspecified) reasonable grounds. There follows a long list of grounds on which they may not refuse an application. This is a clearly implied invitation to challenge a refusal to register; indeed the leaflet goes on to suggest that the foreign national asks for the reasons for refusal in writing and then goes on to explain where such a complaint should be made.  GPs are bound to feel under pressure to register applicants without asking any questions.

Said Sir Andrew: ‘What other country in the world would register someone for free medical treatment without any documents at all? Boris risks turning the National Health Service into an International Health Service – paid for by the British taxpayer.

‘From Primary care it is a small (and poorly policed) step to secondary care in hospitals. We call on the Mayor to withdraw the booklet and we call on the government to take effective steps to restrict NHS access, except for emergencies, to those who have contributed to it.

‘With the service already struggling, it is ridiculous to have an open door policy towards all foreigners in Britain, including those who have no right to be in Britain at all. The government should also insist that foreign visitors should take out health insurance before being granted a visa as is the case for visas to EU countries who are members of the Schengen area,’ he said.

Notes to Editors:

1 The latest semi official estimate of the illegal population of London was contained in a report by the LSE for the GLA dated May 2009. The central estimate (page 7) of 442,000 at the end of 2007 will have been reduced by the grant of settlement to some backlog asylum seekers but increased by further overstayers. A ball park figure of half a million is therefore as useful a figure as is available.

2 1.7 million visitor visas were issued in 2011. See:

http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/publications/science-research-statistics/research-statistics/immigration-asylum-research/immigration-brief-q4-2011/before-entry