National Conversation on Immigration - Final report - Jill Rutter and Rosie Carter

Typically, the citizens’ panels described the benefits of migration, the skills that migrants bring to the UK and the jobs that they fill. [...] The difference between online and offline debate was profound in the National Conversation on Immigration, where we were able to contrast the views expressed in the citizens’ panels, the nationally representative ICM research and the online survey, open to anyone. [...] It finds that in contrast to the polarised media and online immigration debate, most people are ‘balancers’ – seeing both the gains that immigration has brought to Britain’s economy and cultural life, and also the pressures that it can place on public services like schools and the NHS, and on housing and integration. [...] It is beyond the scope of the National Conversation on Immigration to determine or make recommendations regarding the nature of that deal and so our recommendations include future approaches to EU migration that could, we believe, be negotiated with the EU in the event of the UK being inside or outside the single market. [...] The importance of local experiences in page 16 National Conversation on Immigration – Final report framing immigration as a national issue was stark, with substantial differences in the salience of immigration and in the balance between the perceived benefits and disadvantages of immigration.