Development: Do points mean prizes?
How the UK’s migration policies could benefit the world’s poor
Development on the Move Working Paper 5

Author: Laura Chappell and Sarah Mulley
Contributors:
Price: Free
Publication Date: 01 March 2010

This paper examines the nature of migration’s development impacts in some depth and asks how the Government can ensure that the UK’s migration policies contribute positively to the lives of some of the world’s poorest people, as well as benefiting British citizens.

While we note that unskilled migration potentially offers significant development benefits (benefits that are currently lost because the Government has closed tier three of the PBS, which would allow for low-skilled migration from outside the EU), we focus in particular on skilled migration, because this is the area in which we think there is most possibility for shaping policy. The paper sets out three possible positions that the Government could take to resolve multiple and potentially competing objectives with respect to migration and development.