Title: Recent immigrants to UK 'make net contribution' - BBC News
Headings: Recent immigrants to UK 'make net contribution'
Recent immigrants to UK 'make net contribution'
Immigrants to the UK since 2000 have made a "substantial" contribution to public finances, a report says.
'Highly-educated immigrants'
Career peak
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Content: Immigrants from outside the EEA contributed 2% more in taxes than they received in the same period, the report showed. Over the same period, British people paid 11% less in tax than they received. Despite the positive figures in the decade since the millennium, the study found that between 1995 and 2011, immigrants from non-EEA countries claimed more in benefits than they paid in taxes, mainly because they tended to have more children than native Britons. The report also showed that in 2011, 32% of recent EEA immigrants and 43% of non-EEA immigrants had university degrees, compared with 21% of the British adult population. The research used data from the British Labour Force Survey and government reports. Prof Dustmann said it had shown that "in contrast with most other European countries, the UK attracts highly-educated and skilled immigrants from within the EEA as well as from outside". He added: " Our study also suggests that over the last decade or so, the UK has benefited fiscally from immigrants from EEA countries, who have put in considerably more in taxes and contributions than they received in benefits and transfers. "Given this evidence, claims about 'benefit tourism' by EEA immigrants seem to be disconnected from reality." Sir Andrew Green of the pressure group Migration Watch said the report had "been spun".