An Assessment of the House of Lords report on the economic impact of immigration to the United Kingdom

Since the mid 1990s economic immigration policy in the United Kingdom has been transformed from being one of the most restrictive in Europe to being among the most open-ended. This shift has coincided with increasing public dissatisfaction with immigration policy. In April 2008 the House of Lords Select Committee on Economic Affairs published a report on immigration’s economic effects. It found—contrary to the assertions of the Labour Government—that recent immigration flows have not produced significant economic benefits. Despite the unequivocal and rather damning conclusions of the report, it is unlikely to produce any major shift in government policy.