Immigration Statistics Cloud Our Moral Responsibility
Migration is supremely beneficial economically. Not only to the individual migrants, but the UK as a whole. However, immigration is usually demonised by unsubstantiated, gut-feeling claims. Certain statistics have been utilised to supplement and harness electorally the largely incorrect assertions that migration is, on the whole, negative and should be restrained.
The development of contemporary policy in the UK has been strongly shaped by statistics. However, when fault has been uncovered with said statistics, it serves as a timely reminder to ourselves and our public policy-makers, that perhaps they should be used as a supplementary material; not as the key driver behind a particular policy.
Migration from the EU to the UK had been significantly underestimated by the Office for National Statistics, from the mid-2000s to 2016. The ONS explained that the error misstated the number of migrants from the 8 countries that joined the EU in 2004.
David Cameron asserted that the stated level of net migration (which stood at 237,000 in 2007) was in fact “too much.” In 2010 he attempted to implement a cap on net migration that would have decreased this to “tens of thousands” per year. A completely arbitrary number.
Cameron was reliant on this ONS data for his immigration policy, and even though their 16% (29,000) net migration inaccuracy would perhaps not have been enough to sway him, it is still telling that such data is both powerfully influential with regards to policy creation and has the ability to (incorrectly, as statistics are far from ever from being infallible) dictate public policy to such a significant degree.
Not only did these (inaccurate) statistics help influence political decision-making, but perhaps they are also part of why the narrative of “out-of-control-migration” is particularly prevalent today.
Paul Johnson, the Head of the Institute for Fiscal studies, explains that statistics: ‘don’t just help us to interpret the world, they can be powerful enough to change it too — and not always for the better.’
In 1970, Harold Wilson suffered electorally from the shock of the news of a trade deficit. However, that alarming trade deficit, uncovered close to the general election, was enlarged by a one-off purchase of two jets, rather than revealing any hidden economic weaknesses.
Statistics do not even have to be inaccurate to mislead a policy-maker, just distracting from the underlying problem. For Cameron, he saw in his voters a desire for decreased immigration, for reasons such as (not an exhaustive list); that they were taking jobs and using our welfare system ‘unfairly.’
But this clouds the moral responsibility we have to allow immigrants the opportunity to live in the UK, a country seen by many as a safe haven, somewhere with ample economic opportunity and a place accepting and welcoming of all cultures. This is not a one-sided relationship, though.
Migrants are net contributors to the UK public finances, adding £2,300 each year more than the average UK-born adult. ‘The average European migrant arriving in the UK in 2016 will contribute £78,000 more than they take out in public services and benefits over their time spent in the UK.’ They are also less likely to commit a crime. Even though they are accurate, less-used immigration statistics are not well-known.
Misleading, alarmist, and usually wrong assumptions deduced from statistics can cause a sort of ‘crowding-out’ effect with regards to certain elements of an important issue. A seemingly significant statistic can hide from people what, perhaps, is its true nature. And so, the effectiveness of public policy is decreased as attractive-looking statistics form the basis of government plans. This is usually done in order to enthuse the voter base or gain more votes come election time.
The ONS statistic ‘crowded-out’ the knowledge of the joy with which the arrival and working within the UK brings to so many migrants, often coming from places with lesser economic opportunity. Or the happiness of some migrant families to move away from less favourable conditions, to the (on the whole) welcoming UK.
They did not show or infer the moral responsibility we have to help those less fortunate than us, regardless of their nationality, religion or race. All these factors and more, are just as important when developing good policy.
Politicians wield statistics as powerful tools of persuasion, and often, if ever, are their numbers disputed by the public they seek to persuade. According to the logic of the Cameron and May targets, if 1,000 of Europe’s finest doctors decided to offer their labour somewhere other than the UK, this would be considered advantageous to the target of lowering net migration — although this is an obvious disadvantage when one looks into the detail.
Boris Johnson — for all his preliminary woes — is right to scrap the arbitrary cap and reduction implemented/attempted by his predecessors nearly as soon as he entered office. And his proposal to allow for amnesty for those migrants without legal status, is another welcome proposal, rightly far from May’s previous want of a hostile environment for illegal immigrants. This is a welcome advance.
And so, statistics are extremely useful to the policy-making process. I am not supposing not making significant use of them. But what recent events have revealed, is that we cannot rely nor base significant policy on them in light of recent events, if we want to create advantageous and ethical policy. As a United Nations paper on the use of national statistics concisely summarises, “not everything that is relevant can be expressed in quantitative terms.” And with regards to immigrants — they are so much more than statistics.
