The introduction of an Australian-style points-based immigration system or any other policy to regulate European Union migration will not guarantee that net migration to Britain will be reduced to the tens of thousands, experts have warned.
Oxford University’s Migration Observatory said some of the immigration policies advocated by Brexiters, such as more liberal policies towards non-EU migration, could lead to an increase in overall migration to Britain.
In a new review of what UK immigration policy would look like if Britain left the EU, the Migration Observatory’s director, Madeleine Sumption, said the question of Britain adopting a points-based system was a red herring in the referendum debate.
“The important question is whether the UK leaves the single market and introduces restrictions on EU migration,” said Sumption.
“If it does, designing a new immigration system will be a hugely complex task. A points-based system would be one of several options, but it would be a surprising choice in some respects. After all, an ‘Australian-style’ points system was introduced under Labour and closed by the Conservatives because of their concerns that it was not well suited to the UK’s needs or their goal of reducing net migration.”
The Migration Observatory analysis says it is important not to overstate the impact of restrictions on EU migration to Britain on the drive to meet the government’s target of reducing net migration to the tens of thousands.
Their commentary points out that EU net migration to Britain stood at 188,000 in 2015 and non-EU net migration at 184,000 so “net migration would not have been below 100,000 even if net EU migration was zero – unlikely even in a Brexit scenario”.
Reducing net migration to the UK to “tens of thousands” would be even more unlikely if less restrictive policies on non-EU migration, such as from India as some post-Brexit policy advocates have suggested, were introduced as they would offset the impact of cutting numbers from Europe.
“In other words, it is correct that EU migration has contributed to recent high levels of net migration and that new restrictions on EU citizens could reduce overall flows. However, it is important not to overstate the impact of any new such restrictions. On their own and under current economic circumstances, they would not be adequate to reduce net migration to the ‘tens of thousands’.
The migration experts note that the one factor that could reduce both EU and non-EU migration in the medium term would be if the UK economy stalled and performed less well relative to migrants’ country of origin.
The Migration Observatory concludes that there is enormous uncertainty over what immigration policy would look like outside the EU: “What is clear is that if free movement came to an end, the task of designing a new immigration system would be hugely complex.
“Fundamental questions such as whether and how to satisfy demand for migrant labour in low- and middle-skilled jobs, as well as how to manage trade-offs between the costs and benefits of different types of migration, would need to be resolved,” say the migration experts.
