The Briefing Room

According to polls immigration remains near the top - or at the top - of public concerns. And now a new prime minister inherits that popular anxiety. Last week The Briefing Room examined arguably the most visible aspect of the migration question: the small boats, asylum seeking and illegal migration.
This week we look at legal migration, the issue of reliance on overseas workers, changes to indefinite leave to remain and public opinion about migration.
Guests:
Madeleine Sumption, Director of the Migration Observatory at the University of Oxford and author of What is Immigration Policy for?
Dominic Casciani, BBC Home and Legal correspondent
Rob Ford, Professor of Political Science at the University of Manchester
Production team:
Presenter: David Aaronovitch
Producers: Ben Carter and Kirsteen Knight
Editor: Richard Vadon
Sound engineers: Duncan Hannant
Sound mix: James Beard
Production co-ordinators: Siobhan Reed, Maria Ogundele

New PM, old problems. When Labour took office they vowed to tackle the people smuggling gangs behind the small boats crossings, to reduce net inward migration and to act to replace cheap imported labour with better paid indigenous workers. Meanwhile Andy Burnham faces polls showing immigration still sitting near the top - if not the top - of public concerns.
But what are the facts here? What does the record show after two years of this government?
This issues here are so big and complicated that we’re devoting two programmes to them. In this - the first one - we’re going to focus purely on small boats, asylum seekers and illegal immigration.
Guests:
Madeleine Sumption, Director of the Migration Observatory at the University of Oxford and author of What is Immigration Policy for?
Dominic Casciani, BBC Home and Legal correspondent.
Production team:
Presenter: David Aaronovitch
Producers: Ben Carter and Kirsteen Knight
Editor: Richard Vadon
Sound engineers: Duncan Hannant and Andy Garratt
Production co-ordinators: Siobhan Reed, Maria Ogundele
Picture credit: Ben Stansall Via Getty

Power to the people! Or, at any rate power to the mayors! As government prepares for yet another new prime minister it is keenly aware that this one has moving power away from the centre to the English regions as his big idea. His central idea. The argument is that such devolution will lead to more and better economic growth. But how does that actually work? Would you get more growth that way?
Guests:
Jennifer Williams, Northern correspondent at the Financial Times
Tony Travers, Professor in Practice in the LSE Department of Government
Liam Sides, Associate Director in the Cities and Regions team at Oxford Economics
Thomas Pope, Chief Economist at the Institute for Government
Production team
Presenter: David Aaronovitch
Producers: Ben Carter, Nathan Gower and Kirsteen Knight
Editor: Richard Vadon
Sound engineers: Sarah Hockley and Neil Churchill
Production co-ordinators: Siobhan Reed, Maria Ogundele

For previous generations, coupling was something only trains did. Then it became a word to describe the business of finding a partner. An important business for the future of the species. But today in the developed world - and even beyond - the data shows that coupling is significantly down. Increasingly, people are just not forming those relationships. There are all kinds of theories out there now about why this is happening, ranging from the intriguing to the improbable. So what do we know about this noncoupling and its implications?
Guests:
Dr Alice Evans, visiting Associate Professor at Stanford and author of the upcoming book The Great Gender Divergence
John Burn-Murdoch, columnist and chief data reporter for the Financial Times
Presenter: David Aaronovitch
Producers: Ben Carter and Kirsteen Knight
Editor: Richard Vadon
Sound engineer: Gareth Jones, Neil Churchill
Production co-ordinator: Siobhan Reed, Maria Ogundele
Image credit: Malte Mueller, Getty Images

Two weeks ago a Memorandum of Understanding was signed between the Americans and the Iranians aiming at ending a bomb, missile-and-drone conflict that has lasted four months. Victory has been claimed by everyone and on behalf of everyone. So is the US/Israeli/Iranian war effectively over bar the seemingly inevitable bombast? If so did anyone win? On what terms? And where does it leave the rest of us?
Guests:
Shashank Joshi, The Economist’s Washington bureau chief
Ali Vaez, Project Director, Iran at the Crisis Group in Washington DC
Suzanne Maloney, VP and director of the Foreign Policy programme at the Brookings Institution
Presenter: David Aaronovitch
Producers: Ben Carter and Kirsteen Knight
Editor: Richard Vadon
Sound engineer: Neil Churchill
Production co-ordinator: Siobhan Reed