EU immigrants 'add £5 billion to UK economy'
New research says that European Union immigrants contribute more to state than they take.
A new paper from University College London’s Centre for Research & Analysis of Migration has found that EU immigrants made a net positive impact on the UK’s economy.
Up to 2011, immigrants from the 10 member states that joined the EU in 2004 and 2005 generated £4.96 billion more in taxes than they received in public spending.
The impact of immigration
The 10 countries who joined the EU during 2004-05 include the likes of Romania, Bulgaria and the Czech Republic.
The figure of £4.96 billion takes into account expenditure on both variable and fixed costs.
Variable costs are those that increase as the population increases, such as health services or education. Fixed costs are those that remain the same. And if fixed costs such as the armed forces are excluded from the calculations, the net benefit more than doubles to £10.5 billion.
The “net fiscal contribution of EEA [European Economic Area] immigrants is positive in all years from 1996 to 2011 (except 2009, when it is zero)” the report states, “even in those years in which the native net fiscal contribution is negative.”
The costs
In the worst-case scenario the academics writing the paper estimated the total cost of non-European Economic Area (EEA) immigrants could be up to £150 billion from 1995-2011, while EEA immigrants would cost up to £8 billion.
However in two scenarios which assume better circumstances, and therefore lower costs, immigrants from the EEA would have made around a £3 billion contribution to the UK.
To put that in context, UK citizens cost almost £600 billion in the years 1995-2011.
One of the main reasons for this difference is that many of the EU immigrants are well-educated young workers, and are therefore paying taxes as they earn, while the UK’s population is aging and many are either pensioners or children.
However, critics of the report have argued that the figures are selective. They also say that, longer-term, immigrants settling here are likely to receive more from the state in terms of education and healthcare than they contribute.
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