At first glance the answer seems so obvious.

Based loosely on an existing Australian scheme, the UK government recently announced a ‘points-based’ system through which immigrants would be graded and admitted (or not) to work in Britain.

An individual’s value to society would be evaluated according to her aptitude, experience and age, the final score placing her on one of five tiers. Existing employment routes for low-skilled workers from outside the EU would be ended. All but ‘an elite group of highly skilled migrants’ would need a UK sponsor to vouch for them.

How can such a system be moral? Give me your graduates, your managers, your huddled entrepreneurs yearning to breathe life into our economy. The elderly? Weak? Dependent? Thanks, but no thanks.

In reality, the answer is not obvious, and we must be careful not to react simply emotionally at such proposals. Three points are worth making.

First, we are talking about immigration not asylum here. To rate those claiming asylum according to their usefulness would indeed be morally unacceptable. To do the same to those who are making an open, informed and free choice to participate within a society is another matter.

Second, participation within British society carries with it certain rights, not least the right to social support and welfare provision in all its various forms. It would constitute a peculiar imbalance to guarantee individuals those rights with no commensurate promise of contribution on their part. 

Third, and most importantly, we err if we apply the ethics of the individual (or, indeed, the church) to that of the state. This is not to deny that morality should be at the heart of politics, as Rowan Williams recently argued, still less to divorce the two altogether.

It is, instead, to recognize that the Church and the state, for example, have different ethical imperatives placed on them relating to generosity and hospitality.

There is, alas, little consensus among Christians as to what the modern state’s duties actually are, in this instance or, indeed, many others. But if it can be shown that a points-based immigration system would make a significant contribution both to social order and the welfare of the vulnerable in society, it could be deemed just and, ultimately, good.

But therein lies the challenge. Would it make that contribution? Who is to say what constitutes an individual’s social worth? Prioritizing the ‘skilled’ over the ‘unskilled’ carries with it many value judgments that we may find uncomfortable. Australia, for example, currently has a dearth of hairdressers. Are they not valuable?

For more details on Asylum and Immigration: A Christian perspective on a polarised debate click here

This article first appeared in Faithworks magazine