The public should have more of a voice in the debate on Britain’s immigration choices after Brexit, according to a new report today from the National Conversation on Immigration, the biggest-ever public consultation on the issue – released as Parliament’s Home Affairs Committee publishes the report of its own inquiry on immigration.

Co-ordinated by British Future and Hope not Hate, the National Conversation has conducted citizens’ panels in over 40 towns and cities in every nation and region of the UK, from Southampton to Shetland. It asks citizens what they think about different flows of migration, its impacts and benefits nationally and in their local area, and what approach Britain should take to immigration after it leaves the European Union. It examines common themes as well as local differences.

It will visit a total of 60 locations overall, holding over 130 meetings with members of the public and with local stakeholders concerned with immigration.

This model of public engagement with important policy decisions is one that could be taken up by government on an ongoing basis and replicated across a range of issues.

Interim findings from conversations to date include:

• Most of the public are ‘balancers’, seeing both pressures and gains from immigration. While there is disagreement on immigration, there is much agreement too.
• Getting integration right and addressing local pressures on housing and schools emerged as key themes across many locations.
• As well as some common themes there are significant differences from place to place. People view immigration, positively and negatively, through its impact on the place where they live.
• Contribution is important: people want migrants to make a contribution to Britain, through the skills they bring, jobs they do and through taxation.
• Participants had strikingly different views about different types of migration, such as high-skilled and low-skilled migration, international students and workers who do specific jobs such as fruit-picking and care work.
• People lack trust in the Government to control who comes into the UK through checks to exclude criminals and enforcement of immigration rules.

The National Conversation provides an opportunity for members of the public to have their say on immigration policy after Brexit in a way that will be heard by decision-makers. Its interim findings are submitted as evidence to the Home Affairs Committee’s Inquiry. The report draws on the first 30 locations visited.

As well as the citizens’ panel, in each location the National Conversation researchers meet local organisations, councillors and business leaders to hear their views. National opinion polling will take place in 2018 and an open online survey allows everyone in the UK to have their say in the National Conversation.  A final report will be published later this year, incorporating the poll findings and survey results together with recommendations.

Which industries can bring in migrant workers – and which cannot – will be one of the defining questions in migration policy if the UK Government ends free movement after Brexit, according to a new report from the Migration Observatory at the University of Oxford.  The new report, Labour Immigration After Brexit: Trade-offs and Questions about Policy Design, considers the options for post-Brexit labour immigration policy and their potential ramifications.

The report notes that reducing EU migration after Brexit is a key government objective. However, deciding how and where to achieve such reductions is not a simple statistical exercise but involves a series of subjective, political decisions. Some industries and businesses will see bigger impacts than others, and deciding which ones should be allowed to bring in migrant workers could be a contentious process.

Perhaps the single biggest question about migration policy after Brexit is how much—if any—of the demand for low- and middle-skilled workers the Government will satisfy, the report argues. The Government has indicated that high-skilled EU workers are not likely to be the main target of measures to reduce migration after Brexit.

The report notes that the Government faces a choice between implementing a tailored migration system which is responsive to differing policy goals (such as supporting specific industries like agriculture or reducing the cost of social care) and a simpler set of rules that can be applied more uniformly across all industries. There are pros and cons to each approach: a tailored system enables the government to put immigration policy at the service of other government objectives like industrial strategy or supporting public services, but is also more complex and harder to implement.

Madeleine Sumption, Director of the Migration Observatory and author of the report, said: “There’s no single, objective metric to decide which industries should continue to receive new migrant workers after Brexit. The Government will need to juggle several different objectives, like the desire to reduce migration, support particular sectors, or to negotiate a new relationship with the European Union. Some of these objectives will inevitably conflict, so the challenge will be deciding how to prioritise them. Ultimately, a fair amount of political judgment will be needed.”

 

The public does not believe that the UK will meet its net migration target, even after leaving the EU, according to a new report published by independent thinktank British Future.

The report, What next after Brexit? Immigration and integration in post-referendum Britain, is released as new ONS immigration statistics are published, likely to show that the Government remains no nearer to its manifesto commitment to reduce net migration to ‘tens of thousands’.

It finds that only around a third of people (37%) think we are likely to meet the net migration target in the next five years, even after Brexit, according to ICM polling. More think we are not likely (44%). Of those who take a view (ie excluding those who say ‘Don’t Know’) 54% think it is unlikely, 46% likely.

The report says it would be unwise to predict what levels of immigration are best for Britain until the details of the Brexit deal are clear. But Brexit could offer “an opportunity to get immigration policy right” and the report calls for a comprehensive immigration review, once the shape of Brexit is known. This should involve the public through a “national conversation on immigration”, modelled on the consultation launched last month by the Canadian government. New research shows that such a review would reveal UK public attitudes to immigration that are more moderate and nuanced than most might think:

• Only 12% of people would like to see a reduction in the numbers of highly skilled workers migrating to Britain; nearly four times as many (46%) would like to see more of it, with 42% saying that it should stay the same. Among people who voted Leave in the referendum these numbers remain broadly the same: 45% would like to see an increase, 40% say that the numbers should stay as they are and just 15% would like to see them reduced.

• Only a fifth of people (22%) would like the number of international students coming to study at Britain’s universities to be reduced, less than the 24% who would be happy for them to increase. The majority (54%, including 50% of Leave voters) would rather the numbers stayed the same. Students made up over a quarter of immigration flows to the UK last year (1).

• Most people (52%) would be happy for the number of people joining immediate family in the UK to remain the same. 13% think it should be increased while 35% would prefer it reduced.

• People are less positive about low-skilled workers moving to the UK, however: while four in ten (38%) would be happy for numbers to stay the same (31%) or increase (7%), six in ten (62%) would prefer the numbers to be reduced.

The report calls for increased investment in a system that works.  It recommends improved funding for the Home Office to handle borders and immigration while coping with a higher workload as a result of Brexit. It also calls for the Government to honour a Conservative manifesto commitment for a fund to manage the local impacts of migration, particularly in areas of rapid population increase, focusing on housing, school places and pressures on NHS services.

The Comprehensive Immigration Review, the authors argue, must be undertaken at the highest level of politics, considering top-level issues and not just micro-policy. It should examine how migration can help provide the economy with the skills that it needs, as well as hearing the case for reductions in other areas. It also needs to consider family migration and public support for increasing the number of international students.

 

With more than 3 million EU migrants currently living in the UK, the Government faces an immense administrative exercise in securing their residence rights, according to a new report published today by the Migration Observatory at the University of Oxford.

The analysis – Here Today, Gone Tomorrow? The Status of EU Citizens Already Living in the UK – looks at the existing process that EU citizens can use to apply for permanent residence, which gives an indication of some of the issues the Government may face in any new registration scheme post-Brexit.

The report finds that while the Government has signalled that it ‘expects’ to protect the long-term status of EU migrants already living here if the UK decides to end free movement, the process of doing this may be complex.

If all EEA citizens already living in the UK in early 2016 applied for permanent residence at once, this would represent the equivalent of around 140 years’ worth of work at recent rates of processing for this type of application.

If existing rules for registering EU citizens as permanent residents are used as the model for a post-Brexit registration process, a substantial minority of EU citizens could find themselves ineligible despite having lived in the country for several years.

Immigration lawyers report that there is particular confusion around the current permanent residence rules for students and self-sufficient people such as retirees, who may not know that they are expected to have comprehensive sickness insurance while in the UK.

As Brexit negotiations are still at an early stage, the Government has not yet laid out what any registration process for EU citizens would look like and who would qualify. It is possible that this process will be similar to the current permanent residence application, but it is also possible that a different and potentially simpler procedure will be introduced.

Read the full report