Part Two explores the factors that have influenced migration policy development during the 10-year period from 1997 to 2007. The first three chapters focus on what interviewees described as major structural or ‘global’ forces that forced policy to develop in a particular way. The first of these forces was globalisation, the subject of this chapter. Specifically, interviewees referred to policy being forced to adapt to a new external environment of greater flows of labour, greater interconnectedness of knowledge and technology, and cheaper and faster travel and communication.

The argument presented below is that globalisation has had a twofold effect: it influences the design of policy and sets the parameters of what policy measures can be considered.

The effects of globalisation

Globalisation is the phenomenon in which a set of processes increase the integration of the global market (see Held and McGrew, et al, 1999; 2003). Even those who take a sceptical view of globalisation concede that there has been greater economic integration in larger regional trading blocs, such as Europe, over recent decades (Hirst and Thompson, 1996). The literature exploring the juncture between globalisation and migration tends to focus on its effect in undermining state control over who is allowed to enter a country (Sassen, 1999b). Scholars have also argued that immigration has become one of the constitutive processes of globalisation (Sassen, 1999a; Castles and Miller, 2003).

The nexus between globalisation, migration and the economy is difficult to map empirically as there are many variables to consider. Nonetheless, the forces of globalisation have led to shifts in the UK economy and the evidence indicates that immigration flows have responded accordingly. One measure is the growth of immigration; migrants coming to the UK for more than a year increased significantly from the early 1990s, which coincided with an up-turn in the UK economy. The net immigration flow rose from 75,400 in 1995 to 138,800 in 1998, to 162,800 in 2000 and reached 222,600 by 2004: a tripling in 10 years (Home Office, 2006f, p 100). However, a better measure of the influence of globalisation than the net immigration flow is the net economic immigration flow (which excludes non-economic flows, such as asylum).