New research questions viability of capping immigration

As we approach a general election, all three main parties are keen to emphasise that they would be tough on immigration. But the Conservatives have gone a step further and made a cap on immigration a flagship policy. Although they have not yet provided much detail about their plans, they have talked about reducing annual net immigration to 'tens, rather than hundreds of thousands', and have hinted that they support calls (for example from the Cross-Party Group on Balanced Migration) for annual net immigration to be reduced to around 40,000.

The ippr briefing says that while delivering a cap on net immigration of 100,000 or less would be challenging enough, reaching the lower figure of 40,000 would require drastic measures which could damage the economy; it would require very significant restrictions on high-skilled migration and international students, as well as further limiting the scope for family members to join relatives in the UK.

The author of the paper, Sarah Mulley, a Senior Research Fellow at ippr, said:

"A cap on immigration after many years of high numbers of migrants coming to the UK may look superficially attractive, but strictly limiting numbers is far from straightforward. To get to anywhere near a figure of 40,000 the government would have to target groups such as highly-skilled migrants and students. To avoid 'busting' the cap in anyone year, ministers could find themselves having to stop Premiership football clubs buying top foreign players or major British companies bringing in the overseas experts they need to preserve their global competitiveness. It is far from clear that this is what voters want when they say they want stricter controls on immigration."

The briefing paper is called The Limits to Limits: Is a cap on immigration a viable policy for the UK?

Read Sarah's blog post on this issue (Mon 29 March) at http://ippr-policycritical.blogspot.com/

Contact
For further details contact: Tim Finch, ippr, 020 7470 6106 / 07595 920 899 / t.finch@ippr.org
Monica Evans, ippr, 0207 4706212 / m.evans@ippr.org