British Government Overestimated Economic Benefits of Migration by £6 Billion: Report

The Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) has been accused of “vastly overstating” the economic benefits of mass migration by overvaluing the expected salaries earned by so-called skilled migrants, a report from a think tank claimed.

The OBR, a non-departmental public body established by former finance chief George Osbourne in 2010 to provide supposedly independent economic forecasts and analysis of public finances, overestimated the expected tax contributions from migration by £6 billion according to a report from the Centre for Migration Control (CMC).

An economic projection from the OBR produced ahead of Chancellor Jeremy Hunt’s budget published earlier this month stated that “new migrants have the same employment, consumption, and residential patterns as residents, and as such pay similar levels of wider taxation”.

However, according to the CMC, citing figures from the Office of National Statistics, skilled worker residents earned an average salary of £37,614 in 2023, compared to the average salary of £31,431 for skilled migrants.

The think tank said this disparity meant that the OBR had overestimated the average income tax and national insurance contributions from migrants by £1,855. Extrapolating this figure, the Centre for Migration Control claimed that the government body’s projections of migrant earnings to 2028-29 had been artificially inflated by £20.5 billion and their contributions to the tax coffers by £6 billion.

Responding to the report, former Business Secretary Sir Jacob Rees Mogg told The Telegraph: “The OBR is an unelected quango with far too much control over government policy. It believes that mass migration has been an untrammelled boon for the economy.

“Yet if you look at the recent decline in GDP per capita it shows that the open-door project has failed to deliver anything but declining wages and living standards.”

“Now is the time that the pseudo forecasts of the OBR were treated with the circumspection they deserve, rather than treating them as Holy Writ,” Sir Jacob added.

The report from the Centre for Migration Control further undercuts the argument from mass migration advocates, including those within the Conservative-in-name-only government of Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, with Chancellor Jeremy Hunt proclaiming in 2022 that migration has a “very positive” effect on the economy.

Last month, the alleged economic panacea of mass migration came in conflict with reality as the UK slipped into a recession despite the country seeing record levels of immigration, with 1.2 million entering the country legally over the past two years, alone, and net migration hitting an all-time high of 745,000 in 2022.

Meanwhile, a separate report from the Centre for Migration Control in February found that foreign students and unemployed migrants had cost the taxpayer £36 billion since just 2020.

Despite the mounting evidence against the notion that migration is an essential element to propping up the economy and the overwhelming public sentiment in favour of cutting immigration, the government appears to have no interest in doing so.

While the Conservative Party promised to cut net migration to the tens of thousands, David Cameron’s former right-hand man George Osbourne — who founded the OBR — infamously admitted in 2017 that the party never had any intention of fulfilling its pledge to the public.

“[N]one of [the Cabinet’s] senior members supports the pledge in private and all would be glad to see the back of something that has caused the Conservative Party such public grief… The damage to the economy from seriously reducing work visas was judged too severe by an expert migration committee; the impact on community relations of further limiting family reunion visas was seen as unpalatable; and few thought we were taking in too many refugees,” Osbourne said.

While the OBR refused to comment on the report from the CMC, an executive member of the body admitted last month that focusing on getting British citizens back to work was a better economic strategy than relying on mass migration, writing: “It is much less clear that persistently high levels of net immigration to boost the labour force can generate sustained fiscal improvements.”

In many cases knowing the true costs — or benefits — of mass migration is made considerably harder by the fact government bodies willingly withhold statistics that other nations publish in great detail, allowing detailed and informed public debate, even if the facts can be difficult or embarrassing. As previously reported, Conservative MP Neil O’Brien has been openly critical of his own government’s closed approach, and just this week Brexit leader Nigel Farage has joined the attack on the missing statistics.

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