Immigration is an opportunity to build better public services argues new report
31 10 2007
Leading experts on employment, housing, education, health and social cohesion policies argue that immigration presents an opportunity to raise the standard of public services in Britain today.
Challenging the standard view that pressure from migrants for better services is leading to a deterioration of standards, the report published by Compass with the Barrow Cadbury Trust and Migrant’s Rights Network, argues that the increased resources and greater diversity of experience which migrants bring with them, can contribute to the drive for a modern, more responsive, progressive direction for public policy.
The report calls on the public, professionals and policy makers to assist in reframing the immigration debate.
The report also questions the viability of any points based immigration system. It says the Government is in danger of locking itself into a mind set that tells the public they can control flows of people to precise numbers based on a complex points system and that approach is bound to unravel.
The Compass report, Towards a Progressive Immigration Policy, argues the immigration debate must be re-framed to welcome the economic and social benefits that come from migration but also acknowledge our responsibility to protect the rights of migrants.
The report sets out the real facts and figures and outlines how a fair public policy that recognises and protects fundamental human rights can meet the needs of everybody in the community. The report includes progressive policies for the workplace; housing; education; and health services. It calls for:
• Accurate and real-time data on community demographics on which to base service provision and resource allocation
• Scrapping the points system
• Employer obligation to contribute to housing costs
• Migrants access to social benefits, reflecting their tax payments as well as their contribution to the economy and society
• Recognition of skill building and empowerment function of education, not just competition
• Recognition that excluding migrants from NHS provision undermines efforts to reduce health inequalities and improve public health
• Protection of migrants rights including the right to family life and decent pay and housing.
Don Flynn, Director of the Migrants Rights Network and co-editor of the report said: “A real engagement with the themes of equality and social justice, read into immigration policy, would map out a very different vision based on constructive engagement between communities and a mutual regard for the value of diversity.
“This pamphlet attempts to engage with these themes, and hopefully it will play a role in reorienting progressive politics in the direction of a clearer, more optimistic and internationalist future.”
The report is published jointly by the Compass and the Barrow Cadbury Trust, and the Migrants’ Rights Network. The authors include: Jon Cruddas, MP for Dagenham; Sukhvinder Stubbs, Chief Executive of the Barrow Cadbury Trust; Stephen Castles, Professor of Migration Studies, Oxford University; and, Laurence Cooley and Dhananjayan Sriskandarajah of the IPPR.
