Migrants boost British economy but worry voters

LONDON, Apr 26 (Reuters) Britons' concern over an influx of Eastern European immigrants is a mounting theme in the run-up to local elections in May, even as some argue people are overlooking the economic benefits immigration has brought.

Immigration Minister Liam Byrne wrote last week that the country has been ''deeply unsettled'' by the more than half million east Europeans, largely from Poland, who have arrived over the past three years.

82 per cent of 2,254 Britons questioned in a recent YouGov poll said the government does not have immigration under control. Only 31 per cent said immigrants were good for the national economy.

Their views are reflected in newspapers publishing a steady flow of articles calling for tighter restrictions.

''We must regain control of our borders -- now,'' read a recent opinion column in the Daily Telegraph. ''Immigrant baby boom: NHS (National Health Service) under strain from east Europeans,'' was a headline last month in the Daily Mail.

However, economists say the immigrants have added billions of pounds to British national wealth and kept inflation in check. And employers are not complaining.

Homeowners have benefited from largely inflation-free growth, in the form of low interest rates, they say.

Stephen Boyle, an economist at the Royal Bank of Scotland, in January titled a research note: ''Polish plumbers: mending your pipes and keeping your mortgage down.'' MORE SKILLS, HARD WORKERS Nearly 600,000 eastern Europeans have come to work in Britain since their countries joined the European Union in 2004, according to the Home Office. This dwarfs the 15,000 arrivals the government expected each year.

''They've got a far better work ethic, young Poles, than a lot of the local British people. And they have much higher skill levels,'' said David Frost, director general of the British Chambers of Commerce, which represents small businesses, many family-owned.

Frost said the employers he speaks to never cite low wages as the main reason for hiring eastern Europeans, although that point may be moot.

Lord Turner, former chairman of the Low Pay Commission, a body advising the government on the minimum wage, reportedly warned Prime Minister Tony Blair last month that immigrants were pushing down wages among low-paid workers and spurring unemployment for the unskilled.

Speaking a short time later, Blair said migrant workers had made the labour market ''intensely competitive'', though that was as far as he was willing to go.

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