by Ranjit Sidhu
On the Today programme this morning, Nigel Farage demonstrated that he did not understand his own immigration policy. He talked about targeting annual net migration in the range 20-50,000 while describing measures that would mean net migration under Ukip would actually be over 200,000.
Here’s why Nigel Farage got it so badly wrong.
Last Thursday the latest immigration statistics from the Office of National Statistics (ONS) broke down the figures into the general categories of the reason for coming into: a. work b. formal study c. to join a relative.
When we look at these figures, we see the overwhelming reason for net migration of 298,000 is not those searching for work, but rather those coming to this country to study at our universities (57%). As Nigel Farage has said, Ukip would not stop genuine international students from coming to the UK to study.
Further, this is the group with the most significant difference between inflow and outflow, with 192,000 in the year ending September 2014 coming to the UK to study, with only 22,000 of our own leaving the UK to be educated abroad. This is a long term trend with those coming to the UK for formal study accounting for an average 66% of net migration. In fact, in 2011 the balance of those coming to the UK for formal study was actually larger at 213,000 than the total net migration of 205,000.
How can that be?
Well, the 2011 figures are a good way to show the other trend in immigration that runs counter to the public perception; the breakdown of those coming for work in the UK. The ONS figures this further segment this category by those coming for definite jobs, i.e jobs secured whilst still in their country of origin, and those who are coming and leaving without secured work. The latter category naturally being the figure most worrying politicians in the immigration debate.
The ONS figures show over the last ten years there has been as many people leaving the UK as coming here without having secured jobs. In fact in 2009 and 2011 a far greater number left without having secured work then came in.
This leaves us with the balance of those coming and leaving with definite jobs. Since 2004 this has been on average 37,000 per year, a few tens of thousands for a country of 67 million persons. It is a small inflow of 0.05% which is a healthy figure for a modern developed European economy.
This is the 20-50,000 range to which Farage seems to have been referring when he talked about his target range for migration.
Taking the average net inflow of 37,000 per year (rather than the larger migration in the past year) plus the net numbers of students coming to the UK (170,000) we see that Ukip’s policy would entail annual net migration of 207,000.
Even at the bottom of Farage’s range at 20,000, annual net migration would still be 190,000.
So what conclusions can we draw from these immigration figures?
Well, firstly, we should be proud of our universities. In a very competitive international market they have kept, notwithstanding dramatic change, their position in the world as one of the ‘go to’ places for the world to receive an education worth paying for.
There are indeed hundreds of thousands of foreigners coming to our country and 13,000 are going Oxford, another 4,000 are going to Bristol, and another 10,000 are going to Edinburgh, where they are they paying £29,000 per year to learn veterinary science, or £39,000 per year for a postgraduate course in Clinical Sciences, in effect providing a subsidy for UK students. In addition to this, they are contributing £5.7 billion off-campus supporting the cities the universities are in. In total the international education sector is now worth over £10.7 billion to our economy and more important than whole sectors like Advertising and Marketing.
That only one in five of these students stay for further postgraduate education or highly skilled work is a shame as we are letting go easily of a resource that many countries, like Germany, would love to nab. A fact our entrepreneurs and businessmen echo, as Sir James Dyson succinctly stated:
“It is now too difficult for the brightest graduates to stay in Britain. Rather than sending science, technology, engineering and mathematics graduates packing, encourage them to stay.
“Britain needs their expertise to develop technology for export…”
Secondly, these statistics should clearly put an end to the silliness of the Conservative pledge of reducing net migration to the tens of thousands as to do that would mean the wholesale destruction of our world class university sector.
Thirdly, Nigel Farage and Ukip do not have the faintest idea about how their own policy would work. We can only hope that it dawns on them so that we can finally put an end to the meaningless and factually wrong debate on immigration which Ukip has made so dangerously mainstream.
As much fun as it is to see Mr Cameron squirming on failing to hit net migration figures, it is ultimately counterproductive as it deflects the attention from the real reasons behind our problems which are a failure of governance.
We should be spending our time explaining that the UK transport system is not falling apart because immigrants are blocking up our motorways, but because spending on infrastructure has been so anaemic that we are now living in the 21st century on the transport infrastructure essentially built in the 1960s.
We should be explaining that our schools are not full because of immigrants, but because the government has put too much money into Free Schools meaning money no longer can to be targeted to where the investment is most required due to population flows, but wherever there is a local whim to build a school.
We should be explaining that there is a housing crisis in the south of the UK not because immigrants are stealing subsidised housing, but rather that house building has been catastrophically low since the changes government policy from the 1980s onwards have meant housing has lagged demand.
Reasoned, rational, debates on these important subjects are what is needed rather than blaming every trouble this country has on the nonsensical, statistically illiterate and basically bigoted straw man of immigration.
Ranjit Sidhu is Director and Founder of SiD, Statistics into Decisions (www.sidspace.info) and blogs on tumblr here http://rssidhu.tumblr.com
Tags: immigration, international students, net migration, Nigel Farage, Ranjit Sidhu, UKIP
Are you seriously suggesting that the UK population has increased from 55 million to 64 million in 30 years is due to students from abroad? Has it occurred to you that the extraordinary increase in house prices in London and the South East in the same period is connected to 4 million migrants under the Labour government? Courtesy of Blair/ Brown’s deliberate policy to welcome Labour voters to the UK, without consulting the electorate, has it occurred to you that UKIP is attracting old Labour voters, in droves? Is it too much to ask Statistics into Decisions to work out the consequences of increasing the population by 9 million or more in an already densely populated land area?
“We should be explaining that our schools are not full because of immigrants, but because the government has put too much money into Free Schools meaning money no longer can to be targeted to where the investment is most required due to population flows, but wherever there is a local whim to build a school.”
Absolute codswallop. I take it you’re not a Catholic?
Catholic schools are bursting at the seems due to, wait for it, Polish immigration.
“We should be explaining that there is a housing crisis in the south of the UK not because immigrants are stealing subsidised housing, but rather that house building has been catastrophically low since the changes government policy from the 1980s onwards have meant housing has lagged demand.”
Straw man. Who said anything about immigrants taking subsidised housing?
So, Conservative governments have refused to build crummy state schools and crummy council housing so you can build up your clientele that you are importing?
If I were you I’d keep off this subject. UKIP would have a field day.
You omit that UKIP also want to change the way the figures are calculated, such as not counting foreigners here in university.
You did know that yes?
Chalk and cheese.