Question to the HM Treasury:

To ask Her Majesty’s Government, further to the Written Answer by Baroness Neville-Rolfe on 23 March 2017 (HL5996), what estimate they have made of the contribution of non-UK EU nationals living in the UK to the UK’s gross domestic product per head; and what assessment they have made of that contribution.

Productivity is a key determinant of GDP per head. As noted in the 2012 report by the Migration Advisory Committee (MAC), the empirical literature suggests that the impact of migration on aggregate productivity may be mixed and heavily dependent on the type of migrant coming to the UK. Migrants may increase productivity either through a simple ‘batting average’ effect if they work in higher productivity roles relative to the average for non-migrants, or through increasing the productivity of UK workers through greater specialisation and knowledge transfer.

In this report, the MAC established the key role played by skilled migrants in raising productivity. Further, the 2014 MAC report, ‘Migrants in low-skilled work’, found low skilled migrants have a neutral impact on UK-born employment rates, GDP per head and productivity.