Colley et al

Built upon a year long research by Gott and Johnston (Home Office) but increase it to cover a 5 year period. Also rather than comment on the net value of immigrants, compare relative contribution of migrants and non-migrants. Re typical objections 1) It is wrong to assign cost of immigration services to immigrants themselves as much of the rational of the Immigration system is to benefit UK population not immigrants...

“A simple example illustrates the problems inherent in apportioning the entire cost of the immigration system to immigrants themselves: if the government were to operate a ‘closed-door’ policy towards immigration (that is to say, not allow anyone enter the country on a permanent basis) then the costs of policing such a system would be enormous, but there would be no immigrants to assign this cost to. Conversely, if the government were to operate an ‘open-door’policy, then the costs are likely to fall while immigration may increase. Some of the costs of administering the immigration system (such as the employment of immigration officials at ports and airports) are unlikely to fall significantly even with reductions of immigration levels. On the other hand, some of the variable costs of the system are increasingly being recovered through user-charging of migrants and their prospective employers (through fees for work permits). This means that second-guessing which portion of the immigration system is for the benefit of the UK-born and which part is for immigrants is a difficult and potentially futile exercise.”1

Re issue of pension costs of migrants, this ignores that much contemporary migration is temporary in nature.2 3) re: issue of pressure on public services, reminder that migrants are disproportionately represented in the provision of public services.3

NAFI (net annual fiscal contribution, i.e. What is paid in taxes- what is received from government)
Immigrants>UK population. Hence, when there is a budget surplus, immigrants contribute more than UK population, when there is a budget deficit, immigrants receive less.4 (not commented in the paper, but this would be even more accentuated in those groups where there are little if no asylum seekers, thus Brazilians, for asylum seekers are not allowed to work, and thus pay tax, yet receive limited benefits)
1D Sriskandarajah, L Cooley & H Reed, Paying their Way: The Fiscal Contributions of Immigrants in the UK, (London: IPPR, 2008) 6.
2D Sriskandarajah, L Cooley & H Reed, Paying their Way: The Fiscal Contributions of Immigrants in the UK, (London: IPPR, 2008) 7.
3D Sriskandarajah, L Cooley & H Reed, Paying their Way: The Fiscal Contributions of Immigrants in the UK, (London: IPPR, 2008) 7.
4D Sriskandarajah, L Cooley & H Reed, Paying their Way: The Fiscal Contributions of Immigrants in the UK, (London: IPPR, 2008) 12.
c