Tom Jones is Councillor for Scotton and Lower Wensleydale and author of the Potemkin Village Idiot substack.
When, late last year, a team led by mathematician Jan H. van de Beek at the University of Amsterdam produced a study that estimated migration had cost the Dutch government €17 billion per year between 1995-2019, questions were raised about whether immigration into Britain might have incurred similar costs.
Britain’s debate about immigration is so data-poor, however, it is unlikely such an in-depth study could ever be conducted. And things may be about to get worse before they get better.
Last week, Neil O’Brien revealed that the data desert in which our immigration debate is held is growing even more arid. In a Substack post, he wrote that he had emailed HMRC asking why data on the amount of tax paid by nationality hadn’t been published. The department had told him that the data was no longer being published. He noted that this followed DWP reaching a separate decision to stop publishing data on welfare claims by nationality.
The decision to discontinue the publication of this data appears to have been reached on spurious grounds; HMRC’s decision followed a consultation on ‘changes to HMRC statistics publications’. The section in question, asking for confirmation on the decision ‘to discontinue the annual Income Tax, NICs, tax credits and child benefit statistics for non-UK nationals release’, received just two responses. As for the DWP’s decision, I haven’t found any evidence that this decision was put out for consultation – nor that it was a Ministerial decision.
Its questionable what – if any – benefit there is to stopping publishing this data. Both decisions were couched in vague appeals to improving the accuracy of data, or that the data wasn’t relevant. In her reply to his questioning of the DWP decision, Jo Churchill made a statement stating that publication of this information had ceased on the grounds that ‘the information contained in the release reflected the nationality status of the benefit claimants at the point of National Insurance number (NINo) registration, which does not necessarily reflect the nationality at the point of claiming the benefit.’ But given the department doesn’t publish data on nationality at the point of claiming benefit either, this seems spurious.
So why are we moving towards data deletion, instead of abundance? Reponses to a separate consultation may give us an idea; when the ONS ran a consultation on International Migration Statistics Outputs in 2016, the Immigration Lawyers Practioners Association argued against quarterly estimates for unemployment and economic inactivity by country of birth and nationality on the grounds that ‘We fear its use by xenophobic politicians and media to portray all those who are economically active as scroungers.’
Asked whether they considered if there was a need for ‘a wider range of statistics on non-UK nationals claiming benefits’, they argued these facts ‘would be a focus for xenophobic political and media reporting and would be more likely to lead to the debate’s being skewed than informed.’
What the ILPA are therefore advocating for is the deletion of inconvenient data that may be used – in free and fair democratic debate – should it be used to point out that immigration has costs. It is more than possible – more than likely – that these two decisions have been reached as a result of the same thought process. A downstream effect of what French philosopher Pierre-André Taguieff termed immigrationnisme; the “strange and self-righteous thesis” that immigration it is “both inevitable and positive.” As I have previously written;
Since immigration is inevitable, there is only the choice of adaptation; since it is also intrinsically beneficial then it must also be encouraged, and we must therefore eliminate the restrictions and limits that act as obstacles. In order to remove those obstacles, immigrationnisme must become a coercive process that “definitively silencing the objectors and the recalcitrants, of preventing even discordant murmurs.”
The first tactic is what Taguieff described as “instrumentalization of compassion for the poor and indignation in the face of human misery.” Should that fail, a second salvo is fired; accusations of racism. But it appears that Taguieff missed a third tactic; should all else fail, simply strangle the debate of facts you deem inconvenient.
Despite 13 years of promises to get immigration under control, numbers have continued to rise and, last year, inward migration into the UK reached 1.2 million. Given the scale of immigration, we must understand the pressure that a population increase of this scale places on our public services, including our welfare system.
Tom Jones is Councillor for Scotton and Lower Wensleydale and author of the Potemkin Village Idiot substack.
When, late last year, a team led by mathematician Jan H. van de Beek at the University of Amsterdam produced a study that estimated migration had cost the Dutch government €17 billion per year between 1995-2019, questions were raised about whether immigration into Britain might have incurred similar costs.
Britain’s debate about immigration is so data-poor, however, it is unlikely such an in-depth study could ever be conducted. And things may be about to get worse before they get better.
Last week, Neil O’Brien revealed that the data desert in which our immigration debate is held is growing even more arid. In a Substack post, he wrote that he had emailed HMRC asking why data on the amount of tax paid by nationality hadn’t been published. The department had told him that the data was no longer being published. He noted that this followed DWP reaching a separate decision to stop publishing data on welfare claims by nationality.
The decision to discontinue the publication of this data appears to have been reached on spurious grounds; HMRC’s decision followed a consultation on ‘changes to HMRC statistics publications’. The section in question, asking for confirmation on the decision ‘to discontinue the annual Income Tax, NICs, tax credits and child benefit statistics for non-UK nationals release’, received just two responses. As for the DWP’s decision, I haven’t found any evidence that this decision was put out for consultation – nor that it was a Ministerial decision.
Its questionable what – if any – benefit there is to stopping publishing this data. Both decisions were couched in vague appeals to improving the accuracy of data, or that the data wasn’t relevant. In her reply to his questioning of the DWP decision, Jo Churchill made a statement stating that publication of this information had ceased on the grounds that ‘the information contained in the release reflected the nationality status of the benefit claimants at the point of National Insurance number (NINo) registration, which does not necessarily reflect the nationality at the point of claiming the benefit.’ But given the department doesn’t publish data on nationality at the point of claiming benefit either, this seems spurious.
So why are we moving towards data deletion, instead of abundance? Reponses to a separate consultation may give us an idea; when the ONS ran a consultation on International Migration Statistics Outputs in 2016, the Immigration Lawyers Practioners Association argued against quarterly estimates for unemployment and economic inactivity by country of birth and nationality on the grounds that ‘We fear its use by xenophobic politicians and media to portray all those who are economically active as scroungers.’
Asked whether they considered if there was a need for ‘a wider range of statistics on non-UK nationals claiming benefits’, they argued these facts ‘would be a focus for xenophobic political and media reporting and would be more likely to lead to the debate’s being skewed than informed.’
What the ILPA are therefore advocating for is the deletion of inconvenient data that may be used – in free and fair democratic debate – should it be used to point out that immigration has costs. It is more than possible – more than likely – that these two decisions have been reached as a result of the same thought process. A downstream effect of what French philosopher Pierre-André Taguieff termed immigrationnisme; the “strange and self-righteous thesis” that immigration it is “both inevitable and positive.” As I have previously written;
Since immigration is inevitable, there is only the choice of adaptation; since it is also intrinsically beneficial then it must also be encouraged, and we must therefore eliminate the restrictions and limits that act as obstacles. In order to remove those obstacles, immigrationnisme must become a coercive process that “definitively silencing the objectors and the recalcitrants, of preventing even discordant murmurs.”
The first tactic is what Taguieff described as “instrumentalization of compassion for the poor and indignation in the face of human misery.” Should that fail, a second salvo is fired; accusations of racism. But it appears that Taguieff missed a third tactic; should all else fail, simply strangle the debate of facts you deem inconvenient.
Despite 13 years of promises to get immigration under control, numbers have continued to rise and, last year, inward migration into the UK reached 1.2 million. Given the scale of immigration, we must understand the pressure that a population increase of this scale places on our public services, including our welfare system.