The immigration debate: everyone ignores the inconvenient facts

As you may have read today, migrants are more likely to pay taxes and less likely to take benefits than Brits. Of those who arrived since 2000, immigrants from the European Economic Area contributed 34 per cent more in taxes than they received from the state. Non-EEA immigrants who arrived since 2000 contributed 2 per cent more in taxes than they have received from the state, but this still compares very favourably with British people who paid 11 per cent less in tax than they received. Rather than bankrupting the welfare state, immigrants are funding it.

Those were the headline figures from the Centre for Research and Analysis Migration's comprehensive report into the effects of immigration. Unambiguously, immigrants who have arrived since 2000 are contributing more to the state than they are extracting from it. It's an important fact, and one that politicians frequently give the impression of being scared to voice. It mirrors the conclusions of the OECD's report this year which found that the net fiscal impact of immigration was worth 0.46 per cent of GDP (and it was even higher if pensions were excluded).
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But it's also not the full story. Hidden away on page 41 of the Centre for Research and Analysis Migration's report – and something which the press release conspicuously ignores – were these figures. From 1995-2011 all non-EEA immigrants (rather than just the new arrivals) took £104 billion, in 2011 prices, more from the state than they brought it in tax revenues. The ratio of state revenue to state expenditure from non-EEA immigrants was 0.864 – that is, the state got £8.64 back for every £10 it spent on non-EEA immigrants. By way of comparison, the figure was £9.26 for native Britons (not my phrase). There is an element of crudeness in the figures, of course – note that it includes all immigrants' children, even those born in Britain. And 23 per cent of state spending is fixed – it doesn't vary if population grows, so a higher population will spread the load around more evenly. Yet a report into a subject as emotive as immigration cannot airbrush out facts just because they are inconvenient: something both sides are often guilty of.
Still, the media isn't obliged to just rewrite the press releases. Nothing stops them from scrutinising what's going on. We too often see reports quite clearly designed with a particular angle in mind reported by the media as fact. Those opposed to immigration constantly cite the number of immigrants on benefits without contextualising the figure – pointing out that immigrants are more likely to be in work and less likely to be on benefits than natives. The Countryside Alliance recently commissioned a poll on how voters were ditching the Tories for Ukip – but when my colleague Tim Bale asked them how they conducted their poll, they didn't get back to him. By then, of course, it had already been reported unquestionably. Mission accomplished.
Immigration is a topic that deserves better than to be reported with half-truths. And there is much in today's report to show the benefits of immigration. Immigrants are exceptionally well educated – 32 per cent of recent EEA immigrants and 43 per cent of recent non-EEA immigrants had a university degree, compared to 21 per cent of UK natives. That's a big reason why recent immigrants are having a positive impact on the public finances. A ban on immigration would mean higher taxes, lower spending and a higher deficit.
Yet that doesn't mean it's OK for a report to whitewash out inconvenient facts. Doing so makes everyone less likely to believe what it does come up with. And leaving out the facts which the report fears undermine its argument stops us asking the awkward and uncomfortable questions we need to ask. Yes, new immigrants are doing very well for themselves and the UK. But older immigrants are not. Why not, and what can we do about it – to improve their lives and the government finances?