Britain should be encouraging Poles to stay in the UK. They pay 30 percent into the economy more than they take out, and make an increasingly positive contribution to Britain's cash-strapped fiscal public finances. The reverse is true for native Britons. That is the conclusion of a report published this week, reports Radio ORLA fm.

Migration "guru" Professor Christian Dustmann assessed the lives of more than 500,000 migrant workers to Britain from the A8 former Communist countries who were allowed by then premier Tony Blair to work in Britain since May 2004. The survey did not include Cyprus or Malta, nor later former Communist entrants Bulgaria and Romania. The findings were based up to 2008.

In the report, published by the Centre for Research and Analysis of Migration (CReAM) at University College London, those migrants who came to Britain and stayed at least one year - entitling them to claim state benefits - were about 60 percent less likely than native Britons to receive state benefits or tax credits or to live in social housing. This was in part because of ignorance how to claim their rights but also because they were keen to take up work below their educational qualifications from Poland and the other new European Union countries.

Such Poles and others made a welcome positive contribution to public finances. In the tax year 2008-09, these migrant workers paid 37 percent more in income and sales taxes than was spent on public services and benefits that they received. Conversely, Britons born in the UK contributed 20 percent less to public coffers. As Britain worries about the public deficit legacy of the credit crisis and global recession, our finances would today be worse without Poles and other communities.

But one political issue not running in favour of Poles and other migrant workers is that their greater tax contribution is based upon their greater likelihood to be in work - boosting the "British Jobs for British Workers" campaign that flared up earlier this year. Among migrant workers 90 percent of men and 74 percent of women were in work, while for native Britons it was 78 percent for men and 71 percent for women.

Prof Dustmann said in his report: "A8 immigrants are on average more educated than natives and figures show that they experience rapid wage growth during their stay in the UK. We should therefore expect their tax payments to increase considerably over the next few years."