IT is fair to say that the people of Edinburgh are used to welcoming new arrivals from around the world. From the teeming tourist hotspots to the bar staff in your local pub, we now expect to meet foreigners in all parts of our lives.
Indeed, it's
tempting to think many of our shops, building sites, hotels and bars would grind to a halt without overseas workers.
So, it is hard to equate the experience of life in the Capital with the picture presented by the Lords Select Committee on Economic Affairs.
This panel of high profile thinkers – including the former Tory Chancellors Nigel Lawson and Norman Lamont – concluded that record immigration to the UK has had "little or no impact" on the economic wellbeing of the existing population.
The peers also describe claims that immigration is needed to prevent labour shortages as "fundamentally flawed".
The peers said that despite the influx of more than 700,000 workers from eastern Europe since May 2004, the number of vacancies has remained at between 600,000 and 700,000.
The reality it seems is that the new arrivals actually "grow" the economy, rather than simply fill gaps – as they become consumers, as well as producers, themselves.
Their findings come as the Government is introducing a new Australian-style points system for workers looking to move to Britain.
The Lords' views have fuelled calls for the new system to be used as a way of stemming immigration, including demands for a cap on the number of new arrivals each year.
All this sits very uncomfortably with industry leaders in Scotland, who continue to stress the desperate need to attract, not repel, migrant workers from our shores.
"You hear these comments that come out from Westminster and they are talking about a different scenario to here," says Roger Horham, the head of projects and partnerships at the Edinburgh Chamber of Commerce. "I think Scotland's embraced immigration and needs immigration.
"It's very dangerous when the major player in one overall country in the UK makes a statement like that without taking into account the fact that member countries within it, like Scotland, would think differently."
The CBI (Confederation of British Industry) in Scotland dismisses another suggestion in the report, that young people may be failing to get a foothold on the job ladder because of the influx of migrant workers.
"As far as we can see, migrant labour hasn't thus far inhibited traditional Scots from getting a foothold on the job market," says CBI Scotland policy executive Iain Ferguson.
Being able to attract the right workers, both at home and from abroad, remains crucial to the success of Scottish industry, he says.
The concerns in the Capital were highlighted yesterday, on the day the Lords published their report, by leading economist Professor Robert Wright.
Delivering a speech at the David Hume Institute, the professor of economics at Strathclyde Business Schools painted a very different picture from the Lords.
He dismisses the Government's new points system as a vote-winner for Middle England and highly detrimental for Scotland.
Effectively, he sees the system regarded as not tough enough by the Lords, as too tough for Scotland, and likely to scare away vitally needed workers.
When you consider that research suggests sixty per cent of Poles arriving in Britain plan to stay for only a few months, you have to wonder where their replacements are likely to come from.
The weakening pound against the Euro and the growing prosperity of Poland and other Eastern European countries mean the wages on offer in Edinburgh are already losing some of their allure.
There are worries about the chasm that may appear in the workforce if many of the estimated 35,000 immigrants from Poland who have settled in the Lothians move on or head home.
Competition for such mobile workers is expected to increase on a grand scale across the world's major economies as the global workforce ages and dwindles.
So, the question being asked by the leaders of industry in Edinburgh is where are there replacements going to come from?
If workers from abroad are not there to staff our hotels, pubs, and so on, their experience is that on the whole there aren't enough Scots willing to step into their shoes.
The fear is that a strict immigration points system – even allowing for the fact the Home Office is drawing up a list of Scottish industries experiencing staff shortages to receive preferential treatment – could leave Scotland at a disadvantage.
Edinburgh still needs to attract migrant workers if it is to continue to be the vibrant and prosperous city it has on the whole become in recent years.
It may struggle to do that if UK Government policy forces it to do that with one hand tied behind its back.
If Edinburgh can't compete to attract the workers, you never know, there may be no-one there to pull your pint one day when you visit the pub.
The full article contains 880 words and appears in Edinburgh Evening News newspaper.
