Examination of Witnesses (Questions 180
- 189)
TUESDAY 23 OCTOBER 2007
Professor Christian Dustmann and Professor Ian Preston
Q180 Chairman:
Can I just press you a bit on that? You assumed something that
was wrong, in other words that the other countries would allow
them in. What basis did you have for making that assumption? Was
that the policy of all the countries concerned at the time?
Professor Dustmann: It was—that was what
was basically understood. We published our report in November
2003 and enlargement was in May 2004, so lots of things happened
in the last month before enlargement, with many countries retreating
from previous commitments that they would give access to immigrants.
Q181 Chairman:
You have nearly answered my next question in the sense that it
starts off clearly forecasting immigration as hazardous, and we
were going to ask you what lessons you have learnt from what you
have done up to now which would be helpful for the future, for
example in Romania and Bulgaria. You have half answered that question
already.
Professor Dustmann: I can add to that. Lessons
to be learnt are that our research stands today as it stood then
and we did not do anything which in any way was not serious. There
is a Sunday Times journalist who since then calls me every
half year and wants me to comment on the new numbers. I can only
advise him to look at our report where we basically say everything
we could say, given the information we had at that point in time.
For Romania and Bulgaria, if we had to do the same study again,
we would probably be on much more robust ground because we now
know in migration from the previous accession countries and Poland,
Hungary and Czechi and Slovakia are not so dramatically different
from Bulgaria and Romania, so we could predict these flows, and
the policy of other EU countries was easier to predict than it
was at that time. Therefore, it would be easier to do this now
for Romania and Bulgaria than at that time for the new accession
countries.
Q182 Lord Layard:
Have you got any general forecasts of any of these things?
Professor Dustmann: Nobody asked us to do that,
this is not something which we would do—it is not publishable
in journals, so if somebody wanted to commission that we would
probably do that because we think it is important, but otherwise
we do not have the resources to do it.
Q183 Lord Kingsdown:
You posed that the low figure was somewhat affected by what I
might call remigration, people going back home.
Professor Dustmann: Absolutely.
Q184 Lord Kingsdown:
Is it too early to know what is going to be the trend figure for
that over the next five years? Will it move to somehow bring your
original forecast back to reality—we do not really know,
do we?
Professor Dustmann: I would think we are probably
much closer on the reality of it in this period in 2014 than people
suggest we are at this particular point in time because of it.
Return migration is very difficult to assess. We have done an
assessment on return migration of previous immigrant groups, looking
at the labour force survey from 1992 to 2004. The probability
that a white immigrant who is in the UK one year after in migration—probably
a very large percentage go back within the first year—is
still here five years later is 50%. So half of the white population
settling in the UK are returning within five or six years, and
considering only those who have been here one year after in immigration,
so the total percentage of return migration is likely to be larger
because within the first year many individuals do return. The
reason we cannot assess the first year has to do with technicalities
in the labour force survey. Ethnic minority immigrants have a
much higher probability to remain in the country, so there the
probability to still be here after five years is between 70% and
80% and for some ethnic groups there was hardly any return migration.
Again, we have done a paper on that which I brought with me for
your information.
Q185 Chairman:
Thank you very much.
Professor Dustmann: We can do the same exercise
for the accession countries.
Chairman: I know a number of people have
got to go and we have a couple more questions. Lord Layard has
got one and then Lord Vallance has got one, so if we can have
relatively short questions and short answers we will get them
in before everybody disappears.
Q186 Lord Layard:
Do you expect the relatively high levels of immigration from the
A8 and elsewhere to continue or is it possible that the current
surge in recent years will reverse in the current years and what
might cause that?
Professor Dustmann: There is convergence between
the accession countries and Western Europe and at the same time
there is an economic upturn in continental Europe which draws
a lot of additional immigrants. Many of the countries which closed
their labour markets have by now opened their labour markets to
the A8 accession countries and therefore I would think that the
inflow is decreasing, possibly quite dramatically.
Q187 Lord Vallance of Tummel:
You will probably have had the opportunity to see the written
evidence that the Government submitted to us last week; what is
your assessment of that and to what extent do the Government's
conclusions reflect the findings of the latest research?
Professor Preston: As far as it comments on
our report, it is largely accurate, it seems. I would not disagree
with the way it summarises what is in the reports that we have
discussed earlier.
Q188 Lord Vallance of Tummel:
You are happy with its conclusions.
Professor Dustmann: It was on our work and it
was on other work, so we may be not completely in accordance with
some of the other work, but this would not be the forum to discuss
that. As long as it refers to our work, we think the assessment
of our work is correct and we would agree with the conclusions.
Q189 Lord Vallance of Tummel:
Feel free to discuss anything where you may differ with the rest
of the report, do not feel inhibited.
Professor Dustmann: There were particular things
which were mentioned such as what is the contribution of immigrants—how
much do they pay into the welfare system compared to what they
take out. That is an accountancy exercise where different people
may put different things on the left side and on the right side.
For instance, immigrants bring education with them, the UK does
not have to pay for that education. If you have a young worker
who is 20 years old and has maybe a high school degree, that is
quite expensive, so do you put that on the benefit side or not?
That is why this type of exercise can always be looked at in different
ways, let me just say that. It is very difficult to do and it
is very difficult to assess these things.
Lord Vallance of Tummel: You would not
put much weight on it.
Chairman: We have got the message and
it is a very important message too, if I may say so, and a good
message on which we perhaps ought to end this session. Can I say
to you both, thank you very much indeed for coming and giving
us evidence. I suspect a lot of the evidence that you have given
and the written evidence will require us to read it very carefully
because it is very valuable for our inquiry; we are particularly
grateful to you for taking the trouble to come and talk to us
in the way you have. Thank you very much indeed.
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