It’s time for a serious national conversation about migration and population growth, however uncomfortable it may be
A million people: roughly the number living in Birmingham. The populations of Edinburgh and Cardiff combined. Or Plymouth plus Southampton plus Blackpool plus Belfast. Just over a million people is also the number of foreign citizens offered visas to live in the UK last year.
Home Office statistics released last week show significant rises from pre-pandemic times. Work visas are up 50 per cent from 2019-20, study visas up 58 per cent, visas granted for family reasons up 63 per cent. A Home Office spokesman says: “The government has delivered on its promise to the British people to take back control of our immigration system.”
This version of “taking back control” is different, I imagine, from that anticipated by millions of Brexit voters. Some Leavers protest that leaving the EU was only ever about sovereignty; freeing Britannia from Brussels’ cruel yoke and all that. After the referendum various high-profile Brexiteers denied that immigration was a pivotal issue, despite leaflets warning of the possibility of millions of Turkish immigrants coming to Britain.
“What, us? Little old Vote Leave? Lead people to believe that immigration would be cut? No, no — we only said we’d control it, which is entirely different.” Arrant cobblers. When in May 2016 figures were released showing net migration at 333,000, Boris Johnson leapt on them, claiming there was “no public consent for the scale of immigration we are seeing” and calling the situation “completely out of control”.
Hence when voters were asked on June 22, 2016, “Do you think there would be more or less immigration into Britain if it left the EU?”, 3 per cent said more and 60 per cent said less. Record immigration was not a promised “Brexit dividend”. It was not anticipated or consented to. Yet here we are.
This was all so predictable. Indeed, I did predict it in a Times column three days before the referendum: “I fear that those voting Leave on the basis that immigration will be cut dramatically are being sold an almighty pup.” Before the referendum we already had “control” of non-EU migration, and a government committed to reducing net migration to under 100,000 a year, and yet the numbers remained high. This is because any attempt to tighten up any visa route is met by huge opposition from lobbyists, liberal commentators and those in the Treasury who are loath to break the link between rising immigration and rising total GDP (as opposed to GDP per head).
Countering this requires serious political resolve — and far from being resolved to reduce immigration, Johnson seems resolved to increase it. The definition of a “skilled worker” has been loosened. The salary threshold for such workers can now start at £20,400. The rule that employers had to first seek workers from the UK population before recruiting overseas has been scrapped. Most significantly, foreign students now have the right to stay in Britain for at least two years at the end of their course to look for work, with no restrictions on the kind of work they may seek.
Many of those coming to Britain as a result of these changes will become great Britons. They will invent technologies, start businesses, treat the ill, care for the old, add to the richness of national life. I admire those who cross continents with a will to work hard and am proud that Britain welcomes those fleeing tyrants, as it did my Nazi-fleeing grandparents.
But I also feel deeply concerned about the sheer numbers being added to our population each year. Yes, hundreds of thousands leave annually, too, but overall our population is forecast to grow by another six million by 2041, overtaking Germany as the most populous nation in Europe by the middle of the century.
If resources and land were infinite this wouldn’t be a problem, but meeting the needs of those already here is hard enough. More than six million people are on an NHS waiting list. Soaring global food prices have us resolving to be more self-sufficient but already “the land cannot keep pace with the number of mouths to feed” as the National Farmers’ Union put it. Water scarcity is another threat. Sir James Bevan, chief executive of the Environment Agency, has warned that “many parts of our country will face significant water deficits by 2050, particularly in the southeast where much of the UK population lives”.
Where to start with housing? It has been estimated that to build enough houses to accommodate the expected six million increase in population over the next 20 years, we would need to throw up an average of 2,300 per week, 330 per day and 14 per hour, night and day for the next two decades. I should start saving now so that my children will at least be able to afford a bunk room in one of the old cargo ships we will anchor in the North Sea to house the overspill population.
Of course our low birth rate and ageing population mean that we need people to come, work and settle here. But surely it is sensible to have a debate about roughly how many more people we can sustain? Surely it is reasonable to consider the impact of current policies on population size in 20, 30 years’ time?
I understand politicians’ terror of this subject. Talk of population oversight smacks of weird natalists who see women as breeders. Any politician making prophecies of demographic doom runs the risk of looking like Enoch Mark II. And so long-term population growth is barely debated — a hot topic in the Dog and Duck but a non-topic in the heart of power. This chasm between public opinion and policy is terrible for trust in politics, which might turn out to be terrific for some politicians; that old Lazarus Farage must be itching to get back into the fray.
*by Clare Foges*
> Clare Foges has been a columnist for The Times since 2015. Previously she was chief speechwriter in 10 Downing Street for David Cameron, and for Boris Johnson when he was mayor of London.
According to this sub we can take an unlimited amount. There is apparently no link between house/rental prices and increases in the population.
There is so much wrong and incomplete information in this that I don’t even know where to start.
When the population increases by about 0.8% per year, while the average house price increases by 10%, it’s understandable why people would say immigration is scapegoated a tad.
Columnists have for the last 20 years been claiming in columns in major newspapers that ‘no one’ is allowed to talk about immigration and that critics are being ‘silenced’.
So she is saying that we should control immigration and choose those who are hard working or fleeing some form of persecution. Ok, but why is there no mention about ultra wealthy oligarchs and sheikhs buying up roads of houses to rent at extortionate prices? These people don’t even live in the UK most of the time.
I recall many years ago, maybe 8-9, looking to rent a place and the estate agent proudly telling me how the landlord who was from Dubai; owned the entire street. It was a basement studio on a busy road, with hardly any natural light, priced at 1200 a month (exclusive of bills and tax). There was a mum and her two kids looking at it too. Like me, they looked like they didn’t have a pot to piss in. I was so miserable and angry. If we’re going to ‘control’ immigration and be nationalistic about things, then let’s do it properly shall we.
Oh, we doing immigration as a scapegoat again? Are the “Go Home” vans coming back?
9 comments
It’s time for a serious national conversation about migration and population growth, however uncomfortable it may be
A million people: roughly the number living in Birmingham. The populations of Edinburgh and Cardiff combined. Or Plymouth plus Southampton plus Blackpool plus Belfast. Just over a million people is also the number of foreign citizens offered visas to live in the UK last year.
Home Office statistics released last week show significant rises from pre-pandemic times. Work visas are up 50 per cent from 2019-20, study visas up 58 per cent, visas granted for family reasons up 63 per cent. A Home Office spokesman says: “The government has delivered on its promise to the British people to take back control of our immigration system.”
This version of “taking back control” is different, I imagine, from that anticipated by millions of Brexit voters. Some Leavers protest that leaving the EU was only ever about sovereignty; freeing Britannia from Brussels’ cruel yoke and all that. After the referendum various high-profile Brexiteers denied that immigration was a pivotal issue, despite leaflets warning of the possibility of millions of Turkish immigrants coming to Britain.
“What, us? Little old Vote Leave? Lead people to believe that immigration would be cut? No, no — we only said we’d control it, which is entirely different.” Arrant cobblers. When in May 2016 figures were released showing net migration at 333,000, Boris Johnson leapt on them, claiming there was “no public consent for the scale of immigration we are seeing” and calling the situation “completely out of control”.
Hence when voters were asked on June 22, 2016, “Do you think there would be more or less immigration into Britain if it left the EU?”, 3 per cent said more and 60 per cent said less. Record immigration was not a promised “Brexit dividend”. It was not anticipated or consented to. Yet here we are.
This was all so predictable. Indeed, I did predict it in a Times column three days before the referendum: “I fear that those voting Leave on the basis that immigration will be cut dramatically are being sold an almighty pup.” Before the referendum we already had “control” of non-EU migration, and a government committed to reducing net migration to under 100,000 a year, and yet the numbers remained high. This is because any attempt to tighten up any visa route is met by huge opposition from lobbyists, liberal commentators and those in the Treasury who are loath to break the link between rising immigration and rising total GDP (as opposed to GDP per head).
Countering this requires serious political resolve — and far from being resolved to reduce immigration, Johnson seems resolved to increase it. The definition of a “skilled worker” has been loosened. The salary threshold for such workers can now start at £20,400. The rule that employers had to first seek workers from the UK population before recruiting overseas has been scrapped. Most significantly, foreign students now have the right to stay in Britain for at least two years at the end of their course to look for work, with no restrictions on the kind of work they may seek.
Many of those coming to Britain as a result of these changes will become great Britons. They will invent technologies, start businesses, treat the ill, care for the old, add to the richness of national life. I admire those who cross continents with a will to work hard and am proud that Britain welcomes those fleeing tyrants, as it did my Nazi-fleeing grandparents.
But I also feel deeply concerned about the sheer numbers being added to our population each year. Yes, hundreds of thousands leave annually, too, but overall our population is forecast to grow by another six million by 2041, overtaking Germany as the most populous nation in Europe by the middle of the century.
If resources and land were infinite this wouldn’t be a problem, but meeting the needs of those already here is hard enough. More than six million people are on an NHS waiting list. Soaring global food prices have us resolving to be more self-sufficient but already “the land cannot keep pace with the number of mouths to feed” as the National Farmers’ Union put it. Water scarcity is another threat. Sir James Bevan, chief executive of the Environment Agency, has warned that “many parts of our country will face significant water deficits by 2050, particularly in the southeast where much of the UK population lives”.
Where to start with housing? It has been estimated that to build enough houses to accommodate the expected six million increase in population over the next 20 years, we would need to throw up an average of 2,300 per week, 330 per day and 14 per hour, night and day for the next two decades. I should start saving now so that my children will at least be able to afford a bunk room in one of the old cargo ships we will anchor in the North Sea to house the overspill population.
Of course our low birth rate and ageing population mean that we need people to come, work and settle here. But surely it is sensible to have a debate about roughly how many more people we can sustain? Surely it is reasonable to consider the impact of current policies on population size in 20, 30 years’ time?
I understand politicians’ terror of this subject. Talk of population oversight smacks of weird natalists who see women as breeders. Any politician making prophecies of demographic doom runs the risk of looking like Enoch Mark II. And so long-term population growth is barely debated — a hot topic in the Dog and Duck but a non-topic in the heart of power. This chasm between public opinion and policy is terrible for trust in politics, which might turn out to be terrific for some politicians; that old Lazarus Farage must be itching to get back into the fray.
*by Clare Foges*
> Clare Foges has been a columnist for The Times since 2015. Previously she was chief speechwriter in 10 Downing Street for David Cameron, and for Boris Johnson when he was mayor of London.
According to this sub we can take an unlimited amount. There is apparently no link between house/rental prices and increases in the population.
There is so much wrong and incomplete information in this that I don’t even know where to start.
When the population increases by about 0.8% per year, while the average house price increases by 10%, it’s understandable why people would say immigration is scapegoated a tad.
Columnists have for the last 20 years been claiming in columns in major newspapers that ‘no one’ is allowed to talk about immigration and that critics are being ‘silenced’.
So she is saying that we should control immigration and choose those who are hard working or fleeing some form of persecution. Ok, but why is there no mention about ultra wealthy oligarchs and sheikhs buying up roads of houses to rent at extortionate prices? These people don’t even live in the UK most of the time.
I recall many years ago, maybe 8-9, looking to rent a place and the estate agent proudly telling me how the landlord who was from Dubai; owned the entire street. It was a basement studio on a busy road, with hardly any natural light, priced at 1200 a month (exclusive of bills and tax). There was a mum and her two kids looking at it too. Like me, they looked like they didn’t have a pot to piss in. I was so miserable and angry. If we’re going to ‘control’ immigration and be nationalistic about things, then let’s do it properly shall we.
Oh, we doing immigration as a scapegoat again? Are the “Go Home” vans coming back?
Immigration should match emigration