The Benefits to the UK of Immigration

1. Summary
2. Open Immigration and Free Labour Markets
3. The State of UK Immigration as of the 2011 Census
4. The Demographics Crises
   1. The Ageing Population of Britain
   2. The Future of UK Pension Schemes Require Immigrant Workers
   3. Some Industries Rely on Immigrant Workforces, More Will in the Future
5. The Negative Attitude of Many British Towards Immigration
   1. Xenophobia and the Misinformed Masses
   2. Some Newspapers' Bias on Immigration
6. The Hypocrisy of British Islanders Who Complain About Immigration Whilst 9% of Brits Work Abroad
7. Negative Effects of Immigration
8. Curbing Immigration and Nation-Building: New Laws on Citizenship, 2008-2010
9. Links

1. Summary

The UK requires increased immigration in order to continue to function due to our ageing population. Our industries, welfare system, pensions and economy need more young workers imported from abroad.

• Immigrants pay much more in taxes than they take as benefits. The Economist found this to be true in 2007₁ and it is true today.

• Open labour markets benefit entire economic regions. The opposite - the nationalist raising of labour barriers against foreigners - has the same effect as trade tariffs: to distort the market, reduce wage efficiency and harm the economy as a whole. Ironically, attempting to secure "local jobs for local residents" has the effect of shrinking the economy, therefore reducing the long-term number of overall jobs.

• Our ageing population is putting massive strain on pensions and welfare₂: this can only be helped by accepting working-age immigrants. In the last 35 years (up to 2007) the over-65s demographic group grew by 31%, the fastest of all age groupings₃, whilst the under-16s shrunk from 26% to 19% of the total population₃. "Each increase in life expectancy of one year adds about £12 billion to the aggregate pension liabilities of FTSE 100 companies"₄. Pensions will continue to become increasingly costly, their benefits to be squeezed. The occasional addition of new states to the EU bloc are met with a healthy influx of young workers, balancing the demographic scales and helping to keep welfare systems and pensions afloat.

• Cheap labourers work in industries that our population avoid such as construction and food processing₅.

• The UK has twice as many job vacancies than jobseekers₆ - over 700,000 vacancies (and growing) since 2014 summer₇. The disparity between jobseekers and vacancies is largely a question of skill, location and motivation. A lack of employees slows the economy, but thankfully membership of the EU allows companies to very easily employ suitable staff from anywhere in the EU.

• The NHS:

  • Nearly half the new doctors and nurses employed in the National Health Service have qualified abroad₈ and we still have shortages of medical staff.

  • Immigrants use fewer NHS services than Brits because they are younger₉ and tend to go home before they age. Through taxes, they contribute (much) more to the NHS than they take. Obesity, smoking and drinking are much costlier to the NHS than immigration.

• Freedom Against Arbitrary Barriers: In the modern world, people are free to do as they please as long as they trespass against no laws. There is no reason to arbitrarily inhibit people's travel simply because locals do not like their culture.

And two other points:

• Island History: As a nation we are poor at learning languages, was founded by immigrants and have an imperial history wherein we forced many to Britain as slaves₁₀. 9% of Brits work abroad₁₁ and there are 1.3 million British expats in Europe according to a United Nations estimate₁₂. So there is a horrible, ignorant and hypocritical bent to much of the anti-immigrant rhetoric used by some of our less reasonable compatriots.

• 

  Source: Ipsos MORI poll (2016)₁₃.

  Much of the UK is misled by sensationalist news articles on immigration₁₄. Even pro-European Brits think there are twice as many EU immigrants than there really are - which is 5% of the population₁₃. Likewise, there are over 700,000 employment benefits claimants in the UK, but despite outcry in the press, the vast majority are British. For example, only 10,730 come from Bulgaria, Hungary, Romania and Slovakia combined, and, there are at least 30,000 British citizens claiming benefits in the EU, often receiving more generous payments than foreigners do in the UK₁₅.

2. Open Immigration and Free Labour Markets

• Labour-market barriers decrease the efficiency of business, leading to increased costs for all and market imbalances. This is for the same reason that trade tariffs disrupt markets in goods and services and make things more expensive. This is because as you limit the pool of possible workers, wages become inflated as employers find it harder to fill slots. To put it the opposite way around: free labour markets (allowing people to go and work wherever they want, like Brits working abroad) are good for the overall economy and aid overall stability. Two eminent trade economists, Kym Anderson of the University of Adelaide and Alan Winters of the University of Sussex, have calculated that if the proportion of foreign workers in rich countries increased to 3%, the world economy would improve by $675 billion a year by 2025, even after subtracting those who might use social-welfare benefits of their new countries₁₆.

• Immigration of almost any kind boosts the economy. Most immigrants go to work, most pay taxes. They also contribute to the economy as consumers, paying for accommodation, goods and services, the same as all people. "A 2007 report by Pricewaterhouse Coopers concluded that a surge in migration has helped to lift Britain's growth rate above its long-term trend. ... [In] America, sustained economic growth partly reflects an ever-growing workforce"₁₇.When Poland, Romania and Bulgaria joined the EU, some countries opened their borders immediately (whilst others imposed restrictions): The UK, Ireland and Sweden voluntarily embraced the new wave of migrants, and we demonstrably gained the greatest economic benefit as a result₁. Even Migrationwatch, an anti-immigration lobby in the UK, concedes that immigrants have contributed "a few extra pence a week"₁₇ to the average Briton. The real figure is somewhat higher and makes up a significant portion of the entire economy.

3. The State of UK Immigration as of the 2011 Census

• Nearly 1 in 8 of the population of England and Wales was born abroad (note that many Brits are born abroad, such as children of military personal based in Germany and elsewhere).

• From 2001 to 2011, Poland, India and Pakistan were the highest countries of original for UK immigrants.

• Tolerance in a multicultural world: 12% of households in England and Wales contain members from more than one ethnic group.

• Islam increased from 2.7% of the population to 4.8% since 2001. (See Religion in the United Kingdom: Diversity, Trends and Decline: 3. Census Results for 2011, and Comparison to 2001.)

₁₈

4. The Demographics Crises

4.1. The Ageing Population of Britain

In the last 35 years (up to 2007) the over-65s demographic group grew by 31%, the fastest of all age groupings₃, whilst the under-16s shrunk from 26% to 19% of the total population₃. It is easy to see that this results in a massive increase in the old-age population, combined with a shrinking working-age population.

This type of demographic shift makes some sociologists and many economists edgy. The old-age dependency ratio is the number of old-age compared to working-age people. At present, it is approaching 1 in 4 and it has never been this high before, putting tremendous strain on pensions and welfare systems. It is difficult to adequately care for the old without enough workers. According to Eurostat:

• The UK's old-age dependency ratio in 2010 will be 24.7%. It will rise a few percent points per year, reaching 40.2% by 2050 (and still rising)₂.

• It is rising throughout the European Union as a whole, from 25.9% in 2010 to 52.5% in 2050₂. This means that wages and prospects will increase in Europe, pulling away skilled workers from the UK.

• The solution is to increase the number of working-age immigrants.

All developing countries are facing similar futures. It may be that the entire European continent and countries such as Japan will en masse enter into a new era of human history, with ageing (and then declining) populations, which will necessitate a whole new type of economy.

For more on this and on world population, see: "The Overpopulation of the Earth and the Demographics Crises: The Impact on Pensions and Immigration" by Vexen Crabtree (2013).

4.2. The Future of UK Pension Schemes Require Immigrant Workers

Due to the ageing populations of many Western countries₂, the immigration of young adult workers will become essential if pensions schemes are going to last in to the future. My text The Overpopulation of the Earth and the Demographics Crises: The Impact on Pensions and Immigration (2013) discusses this issue:

“

In many Western countries and countries such as Japan, a post-industrial slow in the population growth has occurred. Populations are ageing. This means that over coming decades, the numbers of old people will continue to rise whilst the numbers of the young continue to decline. It is the first time in Human history that the age distribution of nations has threatened to become long-term top-heavy. What this means is a change in the entire way that society is structured. The young will have an excess of elders, rather than the old having an excess of youth. [...] Many companies and governments are feeling the increasing pressure of having larger numbers of pensioners. More and more people are drawing pensions, and fewer and fewer will be paying into pension schemes. Economists have long predicted that in modern countries, all pension schemes will collapse. It is not possible for one worker to pay for the pensions of three, or hardly even two, retired elders. Governments such as Britain's have implemented a gradual increase of the age of retirement to try and curb the collapse of pension schemes and to try to dam the exodus of workers from employment to retirement.”

"The Overpopulation of the Earth and the Demographics Crises: The Impact on Pensions and Immigration" by Vexen Crabtree (2013)

“Firms big and small are threatened by a fundamental demographic shift that most have yet to adjust to. Britain's pensioners are proving a hardier bunch than expected. On August 1st the actuaries' trade body adopted a new set of mortality tables drawing on data collected between 1999 and 2002. It forecasts yet another increase in life expectancy. In 1999 actuaries assumed that a British man retiring at 60 would on average live to the ripe old age of 84. They then raised their estimate in 2002 to 87. Now they figure he will live about six months longer. What is good news for ageing folk is bad news for those who support them. Each increase in life expectancy of one year adds about £12 billion to the aggregate pension liabilities of FTSE 100 companies, says Peter Thompkins of Pricewaterhouse-Coopers, an accounting firm. [...]

Firms as a group are underestimating life expectancy. [...] Updating that estimate could well add more than £25 billion to the FTSE 100 deficit [...]. So it is not surprising that many companies are trying to reduce the risks of providing pensions by closing their final-salary schemes to new members (which three-quarters of FTSE 100 firms have already done) and, increasingly, to existing members.”

The Economist (2006)₄

4.3. Some Industries Rely on Immigrant Workforces, More Will in the Future

The UK depends, now, on immigrants to supply a workforce in multiple industries. "Over the past five years, nearly half the new doctors and nurses employed by Britain's National Health Service qualified abroad"₈. This trend will continue and without increasing amounts of immigrants entire industries in the UK would collapse permanently. For now, new entrants into the European Union such as Poland offer healthy workforces to 'old' Europe. Europe's open borders allow the post-explosion countries to easily import workers. But, as the whole of Europe gradually enters the post-population-explosion era, more and more workers will have to come from Asia, South America and Africa. As yet, the increases are quite small and most immigrants come from within Europe, but in the future, Europe as a whole will be a hungry gobbler of young adults seeking work, from all over the developing world.

The UK was the first "big European country ... to welcome workers from the EU's eight new members"₅, and so far we have benefited greatly from them. The Highlands that surround Inverness in Scotland have witnessed renewed hope for local economies as a result of the badly needed influx of workers, as decade after decade large numbers of working-age young Scots have left the highlands, leaving a demographic hole in the population.

“[The Poles] have flocked to the Highlands since May 2004 to do the low-paid jobs Scots have turned their noses up at for years, in tourism, construction and food processing. At Strathaird Salmon alone, more than one-third of the 400-strong workforce is Polish. [...] In a sparsely populated region that has been haemorrhaging young Scots since the 19th century, the eastern Europeans are welcome.”

The Economist (2006)₅

5. The Negative Attitude of Many British Towards Immigration

5.1. Xenophobia and the Misinformed Masses

The UK is a notable exception to the generally multicultural style of Europe. Despite being a very mixed country (London is the most diverse city on Earth) the central popularist culture of the UK is very intolerant of foreign-looking things. Different styles of dress, customs, religions and accents are all cruelly stereotyped especially by some 'trashy' and very popular news outlets. Over the last few decades such overt racism has mostly made itself absent, and things are getting better. Focal points of expressions of xenophobia are pubs and football matches, the two greatest shrines of trash culture.

“Opinion polls consistently show that Britons are concerned about immigration, which they think is running out of control. [...] Television images of Afghans pouring into the Channel Tunnel particularly offended the island mentality. For the last three years, fewer would-be refugees have made it to Britain, thanks to better border security [...]. The number of asylum-seekers is now the lowest it has been for more than a decade. Oddly, though, public disquiet is as strong as ever.”

The Economist (2006)₁₉

An Ipsos Mori poll in the summer of 2013 found that across multiple areas of popular opinion, including such hot topics as crime, benefit fraud and immigration, public opinion was in sync with the sensationalist headlines of cheap newspapers, rather than in sync with reality. People think that recent immigrants make up an astounding one third of the population (in reality, it is 13%). Non-whites are thought to make up 30% of the population. The reality is that only 11% of the British population is Asian or black. A few popularist media outlets - and pseudo-documentaries - have concentrated on the "waves" of immigrants who come to the UK in order to claim benefits, even though the vast majority come here to work, and go home when they're done (just as us Brits do when we work abroad). "The public think that £24 of every £100 of benefits is fraudulently claimed. Official estimates are that just 70 pence in every £100 is fraudulent". Across the board, people blame 'foreigners' for financial and social woes in a way that is often not actually racist, but is certainly very uninformed - and misinformed. They think that foreign aid is one of the top 3 three things the government spends money on - after a long series of misleading articles by the Daily Mail newspaper - and several anti-foreigner parties have campaigned with the policy that this has to end. But in reality, foreign aid makes up 1.1% of the budget, and lots of that goes to countries where we have a national interest in fostering stability anyway. These things really ought to be no issue at all, but numbers get inflated along with people's concerns and biases.

Countries such as Denmark, Finland and Sweden all accept a higher rate of asylum seekers than the UK and yet these countries do not have the problems that many in the UK complain about. Denmark's rate of 74% makes our 43% look positively timid. Although papers such as the Daily Mail make it seem otherwise, the influx of Asylum Seekers is very low compared with skilled and employed immigrants. Some single-issue parties make themselves popular purely on an anti-immigration and anti-foreigner stance.

“The National Front (NF), the British National Party (BNP), and the UK Independence Party (UKIP) are three well-known anti-immigration and anti-foreigner parties in the UK. They sit alongside the English Defence League and horrible thugs such as Combat 18, and, leadership and membership swap between all these organisations relatively freely, with most of them being offshoots of one-another. They all have anti-EU policies. These, and parties like them, are dangerously shallow and single-minded. They appeal to nationalists of the most hateful and simple kind. Diatribes against "foreigners" in general result in promises of laws against immigration (including a complete ban on all immigration), laws to expel immigrants (illegal, and legal) who live here, and laws against benefits for immigrants, plus very strange ideas about "native" Britons (or "indigenous Britons", to use BNP's confused phrase). The NF campaigns on repatriating ('sending home') all non-white people and their dependents, although critics describe them as a "drinking club" of drunkards, with little interest in serious politics amongst its own members.”

"Single Issue Parties are Dangerous: Against BNP, UKIP, Green Parties and Ethnic Parties: 4. National Front, BNP, UKIP (Anti-immigration, anti-foreigner)" by Vexen Crabtree (2006)

The 2016 June referendum on the UK's membership of the EU has highlighted the popular concern about the EU's free-labour-market policy.

Irresponsible popular newspapers such as The Daily Mail and The Sun have led long campaigns, resulting in widespread misconceptions and hostility to Europe, even though neither "troubles to keep a staff correspondent in Brussels" to see what is going on there. As a result of British prickliness "many EU countries are fed up with Britain and especially, with the Tories". In a democratic institution involving so many countries the only way to get what you want is to compromise, so senior Conservative leaders have expressed hope for a more harmonious relationship, including Mr Cameron and William Hague.₂₀

“Why is the Tory party so Eurosceptic? One answer is that it reflects public opinion. So the real question should be why so many of the British (and more specifically, the English) are so hostile to the European project. Eurobarometer polls consistently put Britain at or near the bottom of the heap in answers to such questions as whether EU membership is a good thing or how much trust people have in the EU institutions. The explanation for such views is to be found partly in the country's geography and history, partly in its experience as a member and partly in ignorance and prejudice. [...] Making things worse is a profound ignorance of what the EU does and how it works.”

The Economist (2010)₂₀

One effect, because of the sensationalism of the press, is a massive exaggeration in the popular mind of how many EU immigrants there are in the UK. Even those who accept and embrace the EU (i.e. 'Remain' voters in the 2016 referendum) think there are twice as many EU immigrants as there really are:

Source: Ipsos MORI poll (2016)₁₃

Europhobia is a compound effect of various elements of trash culture combined: xenophobia, adult ignorance, distrust of intellectuals and reliance on poor sources of news on politics.

Text in this section taken from these pages:

• UK Trash Culture: 2.9. Xenophobia
  and
• Single Issue Parties are Dangerous: Against BNP, UKIP, Green Parties and Ethnic Parties.

5.2. Some Newspapers' Bias on Immigration

The facts of economics and demographics take a hefty battering from the repeated sensationalist xenophobia of some of the UK's most popular newspapers.

• A Sunday Times internal investigative group called Insight was once given a directive to investigate immigration and asylum. "They found that it was true, as right-wingers had alleged, that the asylum process was in chaos; but they also found impressive evidence that immigration was good for the country" reports Nick Davies: "They were allowed to write only the first part of the story"₁₄. This type of selection bias operates in full swing on hot topics such as immigration and skews the public's understanding of immigration issues.

• Take the Daily Mail's regurgitation of a report from The Economist about an increase in foreign workers in London. The Daily Mail randomly inserted negative (and untrue) commentary about asylum seekers and illegal immigrants, and distorted the facts to the point of complete falsehood.

  “The Economist report was almost entirely good news: the influx had given London the highest growth rate in the century; 67% of these foreign workers were from high-income countries; many of them were better educated than most Londoners; they were particularly diligent workers; and, by pushing up the price of houses, they had allowed a mass of Londoners to fulfill their dream of selling up and moving to the countryside which, in turn, had boosted the economy of rural towns. But in the hands of the Mail, this became bad news about the usual enemy.

  The Mail opened its story with two sentences which were 100% fiction: 'London has become the immigration capital of the world, according to a report. More foreigners are now setting in London than even New York or Los Angeles.' Nothing like that appeared in the Economist report. The story went on to insert a killer paragraph, which was also pure Daily Mail, based on nothing at all from The Economist: 'Hundreds of thousands of illegal migrants, as well as failed asylum seekers, have set up home in the capital in the past ten years.' [... The Mail continued, ] claiming that these foreigners were 'forcing many Londoners to flee the capital as property prices soar'.”

  "Flat Earth News" by Nick Davies (2008)₁₄

  Most migrant workers do their job and go home, paying taxes while here, and not even bothering to stay for pensions or the welfare of old age. The Daily Mail strikes fear into the populace with its inflated stories, misleading numbers and bias. People read the paper and get angry about immigration in general, furthering the type of trash culture attitude that makes people vote for anti-immigration single-issue parties, and buy the Daily Mail in the first place.

• “Nothing excuses this kind of journalism”

  Nick Davies (2008)₁₄

  Another example from the Daily Mail concerned a court case. I return again to Nick Davies' critical analysis: "There was a court hearing which caught the Mail's eye. It could have been reported like this: 'A High Court judge yesterday moved to protect children who have fled from rape, murder and massacre in war zones. In a ruling which was welcomed by refugee groups and specialist lawyers, Mr Justice Burnton attacked local authorities have denied housing to refugee children simply because they could not prove they were under 18.' The Mail reported it like this: 'The beleaguered immigration system was dealt another blow yesterday when a High Court judge made it harder for officials to catch fraudulent young asylum seekers.'" (Davies (2008)₁₄)

• A third example highlights that this type of news reporting infuses normal issues not otherwise directly related to immigration. "The Mail ran an investigation into the easy availability of false identity papers. They could have linked this to all kinds of people, who might want to cheat the system - professional fraudsters, benefit fiddlers, escaped prisoners, wanted criminals, runaway fathers, runaway sex offenders, undischarged bankrupts, defrocked priests, disqualified drivers and discredited journalists - but they focused the entire front-page story and inside spread on 'bogus asylum seekers and fanatics'."₁₄.

• Fourthly, housing. This is an issue in a country as crowded as the UK. The law requires a higher standard of housing for old people, reports Nick Davies. However asylum seekers could still be housed in substandard accommodation. The Daily Mail reported the following shocker: 'WHAT KIND OF COUNTRY DO WE LIVE IN WHEN FRAIL OLD LADIES ARE TURNED OUT OF THEIR HOME TO MAKE WAY FOR FIT YOUNG ASYLUM SEEKERS' and 'WIDOWS ORDERED OUT, THEN ASYLUM SEEKERS MOVE IN'.₁₄

Some very popular papers report on immigration in entirely skewed and negative terms. The formula is that everything bad can be tied to immigration and foreigners; that both those groups are equated with fraudulent asylum seekers and illegal immigration. It is impossible to reach a sensible view of the truth by relying on the hot-blooded, xenophobic and misleading diatribes of some popular newspapers such as The Daily Mail, the Sunday Times and The Sun. How can the populace ever vote in elections wisely, when their understanding of migration is tainted with this type of horrible bias? The emotional response (even if followed up with more careful news reports seen elsewhere) is hard to replace with balanced tolerance. There is nothing to stop the papers endlessly peddling this type of trash: it sells because it panders to fear and ignorance, and in being sold, the papers increase those two wretched traits.

For my extended and wider criticism of the negative role the mass media plays in the modern world, read:

• "The Worst of the Modern Mass Media" by Vexen Crabtree (2009)

6. The Hypocrisy of British Islanders Who Complain About Immigration Whilst 9% of Brits Work Abroad

An Island Nation of Ex-Slave-Owners: It is a truism that without immigration, island nations such as the UK simply wouldn't exist. Not only does denying the value of legal immigration deny our own history as an island, but, long after we were established as a people, we engaged ourselves fully in the slave trade, forcibly bringing thousands of foreigners into our midst₁₀, many of whom were forced into poverty-stricken areas with poor employment where there were few prospects to emancipate themselves and make their ways home. We are not morally justified in now chastising the descendants of those that we forced to come here, any more than we be angry with our own ancestors for coming here to this island, as immigrants themselves. If an islander wants to remove immigrants, (s)he should probably start with removing hirself!

Plenty of Brits Live and Work Abroad. The UK is an international country, with ties all over the world. In 2010, 9% of us lived and worked abroad₁₁ and statistics from 2016 show that 1.4 million of us Brits work or study abroad in the EU₂₁. As we can go work in other countries, others can come work in ours. Economics isn't a zero-sum game, and wealth-building in the modern world requires an international labour force that comes and goes in two directions.

If you argue that there should be fewer foreigners, then, you are also making that argument that we shouldn't be free to live and work abroad ourselves. This logical conclusion is nowhere argued for by anti-foreigner plebs, underlining the fact that their opinions are a result of emotional, and not moral, factual or logical considerations.

7. Negative Effects of Immigration

“It is in schools, public housing and doctors' surgeries that natives come face to face with migrants [and where] hostility to migrants seems strongest. Local councils in Britain complain that clinics and schools are overloaded and central government is slow to dish out help, and local police in areas with many immigrants blame foreigners for a rise in crime. [...] Crowding, although likely to cause resentment, results from the unexpected arrival of those migrants, with bureaucracies taking time to allocate resources to the right places. In itself, it does not prove that migrants are a drag on public services as a whole. Indeed, migrants often make a large contribution to the public purse.”

Adam Roberts (2008)₁₇

The main problem is that the impact of migration is uneven. It is only natural that people with common interests choose to associate with one another and even to move to areas where they know their kinsfolk already live. But this creates infamous areas of cities which are much hated by natives, and slows down integration into wider society. Migrants often find that certain aspects of their lives become important to them, such as their religion. Adam Roberts warns us that those that "develop for the first time, perhaps as second-generation immigrants - a strong religious sense that cuts across any national loyalty may be the hardest of all to assimilate in broadly secular Western societies". These two factors have made the integration of Muslims a particular problem. As of yet, there are no particularly wise or liberal ways that seem likely to solve these types of problems.

Links:

• "Islam and the West: Pluralism, Immigration and Danger" by Vexen Crabtree (2011) (has sections on Muslim immigration)

8. Curbing Immigration and Nation-Building: New Laws on Citizenship, 2008-2010

Several new measures have been introduced as the UK government is now trying to bring people together under agreement to a common set of British values. "The shift in opinion away from open borders has been matched by a move away from Britain's traditionally hands-off approach to identity. [... Even advocates of multiculturalism] concede the need for newcomers to learn to speak English and, to a degree, for values and institutions to bind together a diverse population. Much of this is happening: language tests, exams on life in Britain, citizenship ceremonies and a nascent idea of civic service for young people may, slowly, build a richer idea of citizenship. "Britain is engaged in a mild form of nation-building," says Mr Goodhart"₁₁.

English-speaking: As of 2010 Nov 29, the UK Border Agency now requires that immigrants demonstrate that they can speak English, even if they are a spouse of a British citizen₂₂.

• A new points system: "Britain's new points system, which sets educational and other restrictions on non-EU immigrants, may have started to make a dent in the numbers [... and ] more importantly, the slower economy and weaker pound of recent years have cut inflows and encouraged some migrants in Britain to move on. The lion's share of immigration is from the EU and cannot be restricted" (The Economist 2010₁₁).

• Age limit of 21: In 2008 Dec, the lower age limit at which you can import a spouse, and the lower age limit for an imported spouse, has been raised from 18 to 21. This was a move to stop forced marriages. "A moving force behind the new regulation is the Keighley MP Ann Cryer. She said: "Increasing the age at which people can invite or be invited to join a spouse will provide an opportunity for individuals to develop maturity and life skills which may allow them to resist the pressure of being forced into marriage. It will also provide an opportunity for young people to complete education and training."₂₃

  • See: "Marriage: Its Diversity and Character: 4.5.2. Fetching Marriages and European Immigration" by Vexen Crabtree (2004)