Immigration in the election: 1. The Liberal Democrats

Immigration isn’t attracting the kind of attention in this election campaign that it has in the past, in part because, although you’d never know it from the political rhetoric, there’s a good deal of consensus. The Government has made significant progress in reforming the immigration regime, and the Conservatives and Lib Dems don’t disagree with the basic policy ‘building blocks’ now in place: free movement within the EU, the Points-Based System (PBS) for work/study migration, and a much improved (if still far from perfect) asylum regime.

But there are some policy differences, so this is the first of three posts to take a quick look at the flagship policies of the main parties.

The Liberal Democrats have two important proposals for change.

An earned amnesty for irregular migrants: This is a sensible and brave policy position. There are between 500,000 and 750,000 irregular migrants in the UK, and it is simply not credible to suggest that they all be removed. Unless we are prepared to tolerate the exploitation and costs to society which stem from irregularity, some kind of earned regularisation is the only option. This isn’t easy politically but neither is impossible. ippr has found the public’s main concern about immigration is control – facing up to the problem of irregular immigration is actually a key component to demonstrating control over the system.

A change to the PBS to reflect different regional economic conditions and capacities to absorb migrants: this responds to a real problem, which is that immigration rules are national, but needs and impacts are local. But a regional PBS would further complicate a system that is already difficult for employers and migrants to navigate, and would be hard to enforce. And under the existing PBS if there are regional labour shortages, the system automatically allows employers in those regions to recruit more migrants as they can demonstrate they haven't been able to recruit locally.

A regional approach to immigration policy does have one thing to recommend it though – it’s a way of politically recognising the different local and regional contexts for the debate. That’s not to be sniffed at. If the Liberal Democrats can find a way to have a grown-up debate about immigration policy in an election campaign, they will have really achieved something.

Sarah Mulley, senior research fellow, ippr