Managing migration, or, perhaps more accurately, managing perceptions of migration, is not easy for this government. Each scaremongering headline about asylum-seekers, each press release from MigrationWatch, each exposé in the Sunday Times, further undermines already shaky public confidence in the government's ability to manage the migration system. This hostile political environment has made otherwise sound policies hard to sell or, as in the case of the promise to halve the number of asylum applications, led to bad policy. Worst of all, public fears have played into the hands of racist groups.
What can be done to make the politics of migration a little less nasty? A good start would be to try to reassure the British public that the economy needs migrants, that the country is not being swamped, that British culture is not being destroyed, that welfare benefits are not available to anyone who just turns up, and so on.
But anyone making the positive case for migration is hampered by a perception that government data cannot be trusted. Without this trust, without a reliable source of evidence on migration, no sensible discussion can be had. And the anti-migration lobby knows this. Indeed, part of the success of groups like MigrationWatch has been their ability to exploit this distrust. Their strategy, often adopted by the Tory opposition, is to say when the news is good that you cannot trust the figures, and that bad news is merely the tip of the iceberg. Good political strategy, perhaps, but bad for those of us trying to take some of the sting out of the complex, sensitive migration issue.
It is clear that the government recognises how important distrust is in this area of policy, especially in the lead-up to an election. Recent months have seen several internal home office reviews aiming to get to the bottom of shortcomings in the system, as well as a special report into the asylum statistics by the national audit office. The relatively clean bill of health given by these reviews does not seem to have made much difference.
What more can be done? One option is to hand some of the responsibility for making migration policy and monitoring its impact to a panel of independent experts. At its most ambitious, such a panel could have a role similar to the Bank of England monetary policy committee. While the home office would continue to be responsible for migration flows, a managed migration policy committee could set short and medium-term targets for migration, taking into account economic conditions, skill shortages and so on. It might also publish an annual report on where migrants have come from and in what places and jobs they have landed.
The committee, made up of experts drawn from business, unions, academia, migrant organisations and the community, could carry out an independent assessment of migration needs, articulate what is needed and review the government's progress.
Such a body could engender greater trust in the migration system and data, and might even promote greater cross-party consensus on the aims of migration policy. Over the long term, if Britain is to establish a formal programme of permanent skilled migration - rather than the present system of temporary workers switching over after a certain period - such a body would be the natural forum for discussion of settlement quotas and admission policies.
Such a body should not set targets on asylum or family reunion, neither of which can be regulated by quotas, although the annual report should include an analysis of both. Also, it is worth noting that the home office already has consultative "sector panels" which discuss labour needs in sectors such as health and IT. So if a higher profile committee does subsume these panels, it should not cost much extra to run it.
Another, less ambitious, option would be a regular audit of managed migration programmes, similar to Canada's annual report to parliament on immigration. Such audits exist in other areas of British government policy and it makes sense for there to be one on a topic as heated as migration.
The complexity of migration flows - in/out, temporary/permanent, forced/voluntary - makes fully understanding, let alone managing, the system very hard. The political context makes both tasks even harder. But given the continuing importance of migration for Britain and the damaging impact that distrust has on policy, these are pressing tasks.
