Effects of large-scale migration on Britain

Yet, in recent years, migration has exceeded our speed of building so that prices — and rents — have continued on an upward trend, leaving less and less each year to spare for couples to raise a family.
This is not the only cause of a declining birth rate but it is a highly significant one. It is also in my view an important contributor to the growing ethnic tensions we have seen in recent years, feeding the “replacement narrative” of extremists.
Sir Julian Brazier
Canterbury

Sir, Given that we are faced with a declining birth rate, there is merit in your editorial’s idea of a controlled immigration policy focused on the young and the talented. However, such an approach cannot persist in perpetuity because of constraints imposed by finite resources, not least land, food production capacity, housing and infrastructure. As other countries are finding, there must inevitably come a point where a population ceases to grow and the support ratio (the number of economically active available to support the retired) begins to turn adverse. What you suggest might work for quite some time, but it only kicks a demographic can down the road, and eventually the UK will also have to deal with the consequences of a shrinking and ageing population.
Stuart Southall
East Horsley, Surrey

Sir, The UK population has grown by about 20 million since my birth year of 1945. It is not surprising that housing, public services and infrastructure have not kept up, or that so-called nimbyism has grown and social cohesion strained. Given that we will be in catch-up mode for the foreseeable future, and have yet to develop effective and accepted migration control policies, it is irresponsible to contemplate, let alone welcome, a continuing surge of immigrants, whatever test of intellect they pass.
Martin Owen
Cardiff

Sir, Your editorial on population and migration makes reference to the ONS “time bomb” of a further increase in people of pensionable age. One of the main causes for this increase in the number of pensioners in 2032 and beyond will be migration, as migrants from the 1990s onwards age. In effect the baby-boomers of the postwar years will be replaced by migrant boomers, with the same ageing effect on society. It is therefore incongruous to argue for more migration to solve the ageing society problem because young migrants will themselves be the pensioners of the future.
William Stephens
Newcastle-under-Lyme, Staffs

Assisted dying flaw

Sir, As its opponents have long predicted, the assisted dying bill is unravelling as its practical implications become clear (“Dying bill safeguard could be abandoned”, news, Jan 30). This week the former attorney-general Victoria Prentis KC (letter, Jan 27) wrote that maintaining the prohibition on encouraging suicide was key to protecting vulnerable people. Now we learn that judges might not be involved anyway, because the judiciary would not be able to cope with the extra workload. It is clear that the same is true of the NHS, so I am left wondering just who would be responsible for administering the checks and balances that the bill’s proponents assured us would be in place. Should this bill pass, it will truly be a case of act in haste, repent at leisure.
Dr Bob Bury
Leeds

Sir, Not to require a High Court judge to decide whether people should be allowed to end their own lives is surely realistic. If it were deemed that the patient had no more than six months to live, and considering the length of time it takes for any case to appear in court, the patient would have died and the bill would have served no purpose.
Dr Ken Kwok
London W11

Ukraine boundary

Sir, Catherine Philp’s article “Fear of another frozen conflict sends a shiver through Ukraine” (Jan 30) mentions President Trump’s envoy, Keith Kellogg, who has been given 100 days to come up with an agreed boundary between Ukraine and Russia. Kellogg, a military man, will hopefully come up with a map defining the best military defensible boundary on land and sea between existing Ukrainian forces and Russian and North Korean forces. Trump will deserve a Nobel peace prize if, when a Kellogg-agreed boundary line is signed by the parties to the dispute, he states as US president that he will guarantee that boundary under the same terms as the document signed by his predecessor, President Clinton, when Ukraine gave up all its nuclear weapons.
Lord Owen
Former foreign secretary, London E14

Heathrow growth

Sir, Your report is right to highlight how the expected flight path changes at airports in London and the southeast would add a complicating factor to the progress of a third runway at Heathrow (“Heathrow expansion could fly into trouble over airspace rules”, Jan 30). Flight paths across the world are changing as air traffic controllers move from a ground-based radar system to a satellite-based one. It will lead to narrower, more precise flight paths. A report on the consultation on proposed new flight paths for London and the southeast is expected early next year.

If the new precise flight paths were rotated, those residents who are overflown all day would get a break from aircraft noise. However, there are two key challenges: to limit extensive overflying of new areas wherever possible; and for Heathrow to put aircraft noise at the forefront of its plans for a third runway, guaranteeing that every overflown community enjoys a period of respite.
John Stewart
London SW9

Sir, As a frequent flyer out of London I think that Heathrow’s range of connections and destinations is unrivalled and that it is a considerable economic asset (“Dogfight looms over Heathrow bill”, Business, Jan 30). Rather than a third runway at Heathrow, however, we should adapt what we already have. Northolt could become west London’s domestic airport if we updated its terminal and ran high-speed electric buses to and from Heathrow for connecting flights. Building a Tube station at Northolt would only involve a small diversion on the underground system. All this would free up a significant number of prime daily slots at Heathrow. These measures, combined with expansion at Gatwick, Stansted, City and Luton, would resolve capacity issues. If that failed, we could expand Birmingham airport via connection to HS2.
David Taylor
London W8

Sir, The tragic plane crash over Washington DC should be reason enough not to build a third runway at Heathrow: both airports are too close to major residential areas.
Graham Plant
Sherborne, Dorset

Death penalty

Sir, In the debate about capital punishment Harvey Proctor rightly points out that, inevitably, mistakes will still be made (“Innocent people will die if we bring back death penalty”, Thunderer, Jan 30). The Birmingham Six, Guildford Four, Barry George (originally convicted of Jill Dando’s murder) and many other people exonerated on appeal might have been executed had the death penalty still been in place. Of other countries in Europe, only Belarus still has the death penalty, a fact that surely speaks for itself.
Robert Evans
Weybridge, Surrey

Mozart’s menagerie

Sir, Wendy Doody (letter, Jan 28) says that bats detest any type of music. At the old Glyndebourne theatre they always came out for Mozart. They glinted in the lights and drew the occasional shriek when they swooped low over members of the audience.
Sylvia Rutter
Cookham Dean, Berks

Save museums with seasonal entry fees

Sir, Some years ago I submitted a detailed report to the shadow culture secretary suggesting that our national museums be permitted (without prejudicing their government grants) to charge everyone for entry during six months a year, over the summer, thus relieving overcrowding, but continuing to admit free entry during the rest of the year. This would have made visiting museums more attractive to all, including tourists, over the quiet period. The idea was rejected as not being politically acceptable. Your leading article (“Popular Culture”, Jan 30) shows how circumstances have changed. It is clear that we need to revisit this whole area to see how we can keep our great national collections open.
Sir John Lewis
Chair of the Wallace Collection 1997-2004; London SW1

Truth about Höss’s role at Auschwitz

Sir, Magnus Linklater records that the daughter of Rudolf Höss, the camp commandant at Auschwitz, told him that her father must have been ordered by “those on top of him” to commit mass murder (“Commandant’s home offers lessons from history”, Jan 28). Yet as Ann Tusa recorded in her book The Nuremberg Trial, Höss boasted to the tribunal of the planning needed to exterminate a hundred wagon-loads of people a day, of the system he set up to send gold and hair removed from victims to Berlin, and the superior efficiency of Auschwitz as a killing machine by comparison with what Höss called the “unimpressive” Treblinka. Höss even volunteered regret that perhaps half a million people died at Auschwitz from starvation and disease. They were there to be gassed.
Sir John Tusa
Co-author, The Nuremberg Trial

Grand old time

Sir, It has been serendipitous to read Matthew Parris twice extolling the merits of the Grand Hotel, Eastbourne (Jan 22 & 29; letter, Jan 30). In 1946 my grandmother wished to move from Belfast to the south of England to be near her adult children. She booked in at the Grand Hotel while considering her options. She then stayed for more than 20 years, one of several longstanding residents, benefiting from the expertly genial management of Dick Beattie. Visiting as a child in the 1950s we always enjoyed a toasted tea-cake in front of the scorching open fire with a four-piece orchestra (with the celebrated piano sometimes present). Cole Porter was fine but Teddy Bears’ Picnic, played somewhat patronisingly “especially for the children”, was a touch embarrassing.
Mark Pyper
Oxford

Good for age

Sir, I’m afraid that I must warn Ian Templeton (letters, Jan 29 & 30) that when one proudly admits to old age the outcome can be disappointing when the recipient of this confidence just stares in silence. I foolishly always hope that I will be the recipient of the words “You don’t look it!”, but alas that is rarely the case, leaving me feeling slightly indignant.
Jennifer Seller
Sutton, Surrey

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