The House of Lords economic affairs committee usually goes about its business in happy anonymity, but has emerged blinking into the spotlight after producing a report on one of the moment's hot topics - immigration. It has recommended that the number of newcomers to the UK be capped, arguing an economic case based on "irrelevant and misleading" data does not add up.
The report has, understandably, been seized on by papers already sceptical about the benefits of immigration.
The document, the Daily Telegraph opines in an editorial, "marks a watershed". It notes:
Astonishingly, it is the first detailed economic assessment to have been attempted by parliament during a decade of mass immigration on a scale unmatched in our history.
Others are far less temperate. "Immigration: the great lies", shouts the Daily Mail's main headline, saying the report "explodes a nuclear bomb beneath the government's case for mass immigration".
The Daily Express - these days the most openly anti-immigration national title - takes a similar line, telling readers "we must cap immigration now". Its daily premium rate phone poll goes a step further, asking whether immigration should be "halted" immediately.
However, the Sun is more restrained, arguing for better control on immigration numbers but only after a spirited defence of existing newcomers:
Let's get one thing straight. Immigrant workers are good for Britain.
Without their youth, brains and energy, the UK would share the population crisis now threatening mainland Europe. As a civilised nation, we also offer refuge to those genuinely in peril.
But in order to plan for our future - on healthcare, education and transport - we must know who is coming in and who is going out.
Does the report, as the Telegraph claims, mark a new point in the immigration debate? According to the paper, "the subject is at last regarded as fit for discussion in polite society". Was it ever not?
