The people’s immigration policy

If you got a random group of people together, what kind of immigration policy would they come up with?

Most people’s views on immigration are more nuanced than you might think from listening to those talking most loudly about it. Polling shows members of the public give very different answers depending on how questions are framed and what kinds of immigrants are being referenced.

Though net migration is now falling, immigration looks like remaining a major issue for a large chunk of the population. A poll last October found 47% of people mentioning it as one of the most important issues facing the country, although that suggests 53% didn’t regard it as one of the most important issues. That number may well drop once the fall in net migration becomes widely known, assuming it continues to fall. As Ben Ansell points out, opinions regarding immigration are like a thermostat: as immigration rises, the proportion of people who want less immigration also rises; fewer want lower levels of immigration and more would like to see higher levels. Also, those living in areas with a high proportion of people born outside the UK, most of whom will be immigrants, are more comfortable with high levels of immigration than those living in areas where few people were born outside the UK, although in areas where the non-UK born population is rising more than the national average there is greater hostility to immigration.

A briefing by Migration Observatory notes, “people make clear distinctions between types of migrant, with the highly skilled preferred to unskilled overall, and the majority in favour of making immigration easier for health care workers.” It also finds that whilst opinion is divided on immigration, “the level of opposition is remarkably different depending on whether we ask respondents if they think that immigration is a good or a bad thing for Britain compared to when they are asked whether the migration inflows to the UK should be increased, reduced or remain the same.” When asked whether immigration is on the whole a good thing for Britain, a bad thing, or neither, the public were roughly divided into thirds whereas when asked whether immigration should be reduced, increased or remain the same, just over half said it should be reduced.

When it comes to the types of migrant, opinions differ depending on the country of origin and the skills of the migrant, and skills are considered the more important factor by most. People are far more open to highly skilled migrants, though they’re more open to low-skilled migrants coming to work in care, on farms and in construction.

People are making distinctions, deciding what’s best for the country. They’re also making distinctions based on humanitarian considerations.

Whilst 37% of people wanted to make it more difficult for asylum seekers to come to the country, only 14% wanted to do so for Ukrainians.

In the New Statesman two years ago, Daniel Susskind said “we ought to refresh the immigration debate. This means spending less time talking about the level of immigration and more time talking about its composition.”

He suggested we needed a citizens’ assembly, an idea that goes back to ancient Athens.

Around the world, a surge in “mini-publics” is under way, where citizens are gathered – in assemblies, juries, panels, dialogues, summits – to debate hard issues and present their conclusions to politicians: euthanasia in France, abortion in Ireland, nuclear policy in Korea. In Britain, it seems to me, the issue of immigration is ripe for this sort of participative interrogation.

And a citizens’ assembly is what the Home Affairs Select Committee have just announced they’re setting up:

Members of the public, reflecting the breadth of the local community, will be invited to come together to examine the complex range of factors that influence public policy decisions and the challenges of reducing the numbers of legal migrants.

With the Government pledging to reduce inward migration and deliver economic growth, the sessions will explore the trade-offs that are involved in balancing the goal of reducing net migration with workforce needs of business and the public sector.

Over the coming months, participants in Leicester, North Tyneside and Renfrewshire will take part in three deliberative events over different weekends. Participants will have the opportunity to hear from experts as well as talk to fellow residents with different views to explore the extent of consensus on preferred ways to tackle this longstanding policy challenge.

The citizens of Leicester discussing immigration

Those locations could turn out to be significant. According to the Home Affairs Committee,

Locations were selected to reflect the make-up of different parts of the country and different types of population.

Given that the Government has already pledged to reduce immigration, the assembly is being asked how to reduce net migration, not whether to do so.

Participants will listen to a balanced range of evidence and “will then deliberate in small groups on the policy trade-offs involved in different policy options with the aim of ‘agreeing governing principles and weighing up options’ for reducing net migration.”

The trade-offs depend on the type of migration. Working-age migrants in employment are likely to be net contributors whilst the elderly are likely to require support. Labour shortages may constrain growth. But economic benefit is not the only consideration. Cultural change, social cohesion and fairness also matter.

If done well, this process could improve the debate around immigration.

It could answer those who complain they were never consulted about immigration, but it would need to be well publicised. Ideally I’d like to see it televised, but that’s highly unlikely. It would affect how participants participated, you’d get people playing to the cameras and they may be less willing to ask what might be considered stupid questions or to change their minds. There would also be privacy and safety issues. This is a heated issue. Participants could be targeted.

My worry is that if all we get is a final report and if it just looks like yet another government or parliamentary report that most of us wouldn’t read directly, we’ll hear about it through our preferred media sources and the range of views will get compressed into simplistic soundbites. That wouldn’t improve the debate at all.

We need to understand the process, to appreciate that the participants were a representative sample of the public hearing evidence and deliberating. There are bound to be complaints. No sample of people can be perfectly representative, people will accuse the evidence of being biased, but an imperfect process does not mean it’s completely without value.

If they were to release anonymised transcripts of the sessions that would be something. We’d then get a sense of what went on. Raw transcripts or daily reports would probably not reach a large audience, but if the transcripts were dramatised, with actors playing the participants, that could make the process more accessible.

It could show that the public is capable of thinking seriously about immigration when given time, evidence and responsibility. If it remains opaque, the conclusions, whatever they are, will simply be repackaged as tribal narratives. It’s not enough just to be told what the assembly decided, we need to see how they came to their decision.