Asked by: Lord Hamilton of Epsom (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask Her Majesty’s Government, further to the answer by Lord O’Neill of Gatley on 5 September (HL Deb, col 849–50), what assessment they have made of the impact of immigration on wage rates and productivity in the UK.
Answered by Lord O'Neill of Gatley
As noted in the 2012 report by the Migration Advisory Committee (MAC), the empirical literature suggests that the impact of migration on productivity may be mixed and heavily dependent on the type of migrant coming to the UK. Migrants may increase productivity either through a simple ‘batting average’ effect if they work in higher productivity roles relative to the average for non-migrants, or through increasing the productivity of UK workers through greater specialisation and knowledge transfer. In this report, the MAC established the key role played by skilled migrants in raising productivity. Further, the 2014 MAC report, ‘Migrants in low-skilled work’, found low skilled migrants have a neutral impact on UK-born employment rates, GDP per head and productivity. The impact of immigration on wage rates is also mixed, although a 2015 working paper by the Bank of England found an increase in the immigrant to native ratio has a small negative impact on average British wages.
Asked by: Lord Hamilton of Epsom (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what is their policy with regard to the payment of child benefits to EU migrants (1) who have been resident in the UK for fewer than four years, and (2) whose children are also resident in the UK.
Answered by Lord O'Neill of Gatley
I refer the honourable member to the recent UK White Paper ‘The Best of Both Worlds: the United Kingdom’s special status in a reformed European Union’, available on the gov.uk website.
The UK’s settlement will mean that Child Benefit paid to EU nationals living here, but whose children live outside the UK, will no longer be paid at UK rates but be paid at a rate that reflects conditions – including the standard of living and Child Benefit paid – of the country where the children live.
Eligibility rules for Child Benefit for individuals moving to the UK can be found on the gov.uk website.