In fairness, the language is civilised and temperate. But its key conclusion is political, a cap on immigration. Sir Andrew Green, a professional woe-sayer in the class of Frankie Howerd, for whom immigration is an evil that menaces all we hold dear, expresses delight. The words are about economic projections, the effect confers respectability upon everyone muttering into his beer about "these people".

Look at the detail, and the evidence shows itself as cautious as the conclusions are sweeping. Lord Wakeham, John Wakeham former Conservative Chief Whip, argued in a Guardian article yesterday that immigration is broadly neutral in its effects. "It is important to stress that we did not find large losses, and we value the contribution immigrants make."

The gist of the case is simply that one customary defence of immigration, a quantifiable economic gain, is mistaken. We are told here that the plus from taxes on immigrants' earnings and the demand input of their spending may be offset by their contribution to population growth.

But in this field everything is speculation, something the language gives away. "It is projected," says the paper – passive mode, nobody chancing certainty – "that if net immigration were zero, house prices would be 10 per cent lower in 20 years' time."

How do they know? How can anyone know? How can this committee, having watched house-prices run crazy on profligate cheap credit, switch
to the demand side of the argument to make a hazy assertion of what effect immigrants might have, amid a host of other factors, by the
end of a decade?

Then again, and very oddly in a committee preponderantly Conservative, stress is put upon job and earnings protection. It speaks warmly and rightly of the minimum wage as a defence. But consider the speeches of Norman Lamont, John MacGregor and John Wakeham 10 years ago when the
minimum wage was another dreadful EU imposition and a threat to our competitive position in the international market. (If it comes to that,
Tony Blair resisted the minimum wage and had, in Gordon Brown's private comment, to be dragged into accepting it).

What has happened to the classical economics to which Conservatives resoundingly came back in the 1980s? The committee cite, again very tentatively, possible damage to wage levels from the competition of immigrant labour.

How is this language different, apart from its anxious vagueness, from that of any job-protecting, unit cost-despising, stand-pat trade unionist of 30 years ago? Until the day before yesterday, these Conservatives believed without reservation in flexible labour markets and the uninhibited operation of the free market.

Suddenly, when immigrants have become part of that market, out, rather sneakily, come the caveats.

For a case so much projected into a guessed-at future, the report can be strangely static. It argues that the effect of immigration is at present "to deliver a small gain to the wages of the highly paid," but that "it has a slightly negative effect on the wages of the lowest paid, as many migrants compete for relatively low-skilled jobs".

Yet over time, as immigrants gain skills and their children education, the effect will shift. And additional skills and education will be what they always are – totally positive.

None of this grand drawing of hazarded conclusions excuses government failure. The points system, upheld by Liam Byrne, the responsible Minister, though clearly fairer than the abrupt cap favoured by the report, is a late attempt to remedy earlier failure to quantify immigration by kind and quality.

What does the Government know about skill gaps in the labour market? Not enough. What does it try to find out about the range of abilities immigrants bring? Rather less. Remember the queue around a street
corner in Scarborough when a foreigner was rumoured to be coming as an NHS dentist? Does anyone dispute the near salvation of our hospitals by overseas nurses?

Suppose the points system were supported by detailed data on who can do what, something which a government, otherwise devoted to intrusive tabulation, hasn't achieved.

Suppose round pegs were pushed at round holes, then argument about benefits would move out of the mists. And, though this report steers clear of illegal immigration, I shan't forget the qualified dentist, declared bogus and barred from employment, who was sent to Glasgow to be unemployed and killed himself.

The central flaw in a paper around which huge argument will soon be rolling, is its delusion that economic argument operates in a controlled atmosphere, hermetically sealed against prejudice and fear.

Instead it will be waved about by people indifferent to fine and disputable projections in complex markets.

Its conclusion innocently serves resentful folk who see in migrants only their natural enemies, and don't want "these people coming here."


Edward Pearce is a political commentator and historian who lives near York.