Both the pro- and anti-immigration lobbies pounced with glee on two official reports published on October 16th. Those who delight in Britain's hoovering-up of foreign workers championed a Home Office study which found that immigrants contributed £6 billion to the economy last year and are harder workers than native Britons. Those who fret about foreign freeloaders brandished a separate report-from that very same department—which warned that immigration was putting a strain on services such as housing, health and policing in many parts of the country. Such is the increase in immigration to Britain that evidence can be found to back up almost any theory about its pros and cons. Immigration started to outweigh emigration in the 1980s and really took off a decade ago, when the government began handing out more work permits, universities wooed international students and applications for political asylum rose (these have since dropped off). At the end of last year foreign-born workers made up 12.5% of the labour force, up from 7.4% in 1997. Today, one in four babies born in Britain has a foreign parent.
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