A committee of MPs has condemned media scaremongering about a "tidal wave" of migrants seeking to move to the UK.

In a hard-hitting report published on Thursday, the international development select committee said that most migration in fact takes place within and between developing countries.

And the MPs, who spent nine months examining the issue, concluded that well-managed migration could be "hugely important, economically and politically, because of the links it establishes between countries".

"I would hope that we could have a more adult debate about migration," committee chairman Tony Baldry told ePolitix.com.

"We are not being overwhelmed by a tidal wave of migrants. The number of migrants around the world is only about three per cent of people living outside the country in which they were born, and that is a figure which has been fairly static now for many years.

"Indeed, most migration is internal migration within countries. The number of internal migrants in India and China is far greater than the whole of the rest of international migration put together.

"So I hope we can have a much more adult and fair debate about migration so that we can make it a much more win-win situation, both for developed countries such as the United Kingdom and for developing countries."

UK benefits

The MPs went on to say that legal migration can be of benefit to the UK, as well as to migrants and their home countries.

But they were cautious about government plans to clamp down on asylum while expanding opportunities for legal migration.

According to the MPs, this plan "won't satisfy the latent demand for migration".

The committee also warns that if public confidence in the government's ability to control migration is to be maintained, then asylum claims must be processed fairly and quickly. 

They warn that without such a move "public support for economic migration will disappear and with it the potential development gains".

"Migration affects all countries, and especially developing countries," said Baldry.

"Two thirds of refugees are in developing countries. Nor is it the poorest, most desperate people, who migrate. It cannot be assumed therefore that policies which help migrants will also help the poor."

The report calls on the government to establish effective partnerships with developing countries to manage migration for poverty reduction.

And within Whitehall, the Department for International Development must be fully involved in discussions about managing migration, to ensure that policies are supportive of the UK's objectives for international development, added the MPs.