Conspiciously absent from last week's hysterical debate about immigration and indeed from this week's Autumn Statement announcements was a big thank you from George Osborne to EU immigrant workers for helping him reduce the deficit.

Far from being a burden, the recent wave of immigrants to the UK since 2000 – in particular those from the EU – have contributed far more in taxes than they have received in benefits. Between 2001 and 2011 the net fiscal contribution of all European immigrants was £20bn and non-EU immigrants £5bn.  Even during the depths of the recession 2007-2011 recent EU immigrants made a net contribution of £2bn to the UK public finances.