There have been various studies of migration arguing that migrants that come to the UK make a net contribution, paying more in income tax and National Insurance than they receive in benefits. These studies ignore the wider picture and do not look carefully enough at all the budgets involved. They are not based on a very pleasant premise when they imply we only want the migrant if they do “make us a profit”. It is a pity their calculations are also simply wrong.
When we invite someone into our country we wish them well and want them to live to a decent standard of living reflecting the society they have joined. This means they do need adequate housing, their children need school places, the family requires access to an NHS surgery and if necessary an NHS General Hospital. If just one or two migrants arrive there is sufficient slack in the system , but when 250,000 additional people a year turn up the country has to get on and build the extra homes, schools, surgeries and other facilities they need. We also require extra roadspace and railway capacity. I see this in my own constituency where we have had to provide extra schools and surgeries as the new homes are built.
None of these items comes cheaply. A migrant couple will need a flat or house which will cost say £200,000 to build and provide. They may need a school place for two children. That could have a capital cost of £45,000. We are currently spending massive sums on increasing rail capacity in London and on HS2, and are beginning to spend more on road capacity. Some part of this is the result of an expanding population.
The figures calculated on revenue costs are based on the fact that public spending does transfer money from working age people to the elderly in more need of pensions and NHS care. It also transfers money from people without children to those with children at school. Migrants who work here for a few years, have no children and then move away may indeed make a net contribution to the revenue budget, but they will need expensive housing and transport capacity on capital account which needs to be put into the calculation.
August 14, 2017
JR has opened a difficult topic here and I salute his courage. The costs and benefits of immigration continue generation after generation, long after the original incomer’s accounts are settled in all senses. What figure shall we put on the alienation and resentment of some second and third-generation immigrants, torn between societies in neither of which they feel at home?
What figure too on the unhappiness of the indigenous population, as they see their own culture diminished and traduced, and themselves dishonourably accused of racism if they voice their regret?
And finally, what figure on the loss to immigrants’ home countries of possibly their best and brightest, the seedcorn of their own struggle to grow and prosper in the world?
August 14, 2017
You ask good questions.I do not see evidence within successive governments that such questions have been answered or even asked. We see in many parts of the world continual internecine strife.
August 14, 2017
How about the environment that govt harps on about? More energy required, more waste material, more food, more traffic, more houses and other buildings. All caused by the mass immigration policy of the govt. Osborne stated no one was serious in govt to cut it, so he confirms he and others lied to us. It is not possible for this to happen without govt consent and support. Safety and security should be the govt priority, we are in peril because of this Govt’s failure to act. Public services overwhelmed while police numbers cut by 20,000 – the three atrocities weeks before the election exposed this as a vote loser for the Tory party.
Limited immigration specifically for our country’s need not continual growth for a debt economy. JR forgot £33 million in child benefit for children who have never set foot in the country, exactly how does this benefit us? £14 billion wasted on overseas aid- why? No good telling us JR MP do not want to change it, the public wants it.
August 14, 2017
England hating New Labour deliberately encouraged mass immigration into England, where 95% of all immigrants end up, to dilute our identity and culture and ‘to rub the noses of the right in it’ and the equally England hating Tories have done absolutely nothing about it. The left love to call the English racists but it’s only the English that have to put up with unsustainable levels of immigration. This small island can’t cope and especially so when most immigration only comes to one part of it.
You are right, we also deprive those countries of their best and brightest because ‘we need them for our NHS’. Never mind their needs. All this idiot Government has to do but won’t, just like the one before it, is instead of burdening our best and brightest with life long debts pay for our own home grown medics on condition they work for the NHS for a minimum number of years.
August 14, 2017
Your final point, eeyore, is rarely discussed. Would that it were.
August 14, 2017
Linda
Our Armed forces work exactly as Jools B suggests.
You sign up to do a minimum time, and you get qualified.
Some even get paid to go to university.
The payback is you work for them as signed up for those set number of years.
Such a simple solution
August 14, 2017
Good morning.
I cannot believe what I have just read from a supposedly Conservative MP. :/
Rather than do what this piece suggest, may I offer an alternative. Just STOP them from coming !!! You can do this both for the EU, and certainly non-EU citizens. The EU treaties allow other EU citizens to come to the UK but only if they can demonstrate that they can support themselves for 6 months and, we can ask the Commission to stop all EU Citizens if their is likely to be harm done to our country due to MASS immigration. None of these things have been implemented by the UK Government.
Non-EU immigrants can be simply told that they are not allowed. We are full – period !!!
I know for a fact that none of this is happening and that the UK government is actively allowing this flow of MASS migration.
I have no problem with people from around the world coming into the UK. Providing they can support themselves and are not a liability to the State. Why should they have access to our services ? Why cannot they be expected to pay for their own services ? They would probably be better cared for.
If you build it, they will keep on coming because they do not get anything like it back home and if I or anyone here wanted to go to their countries and ask for the same, they would just laugh at me. And I am someone who works quite happily with people from all around the world.
Believe me, we are seen as a bunch of suckers ! And it is the political class that is the root cause of it.
August 14, 2017
Well May did not have much success at this during her many years as Home Secretary. Not even with the non EU immigration. She even assured us, during the referendum, that we “had control of our border through Schengen”. This to trick people into a remain vote.
Please can we have a pro Brexit leader who is not a daft, interventionist, tax borrow and piss down the drain socialist in charge of the Tories – just for a change?
August 14, 2017
We surely want quality rather than quantity. Let us be selective or “discrimining” please.
August 14, 2017
“discriminating”
August 14, 2017
I don’t think JR was suggesting a particular imperative in regard to numbers of immigrants merely the possible consequences given we are British and do the inviting.
August 14, 2017
The figure of 250,000 John quotes is entire spurious. The major supermarkets estimate we have at least 4 million more than the official figures.
There is no attempt made to count people in and out as this would highlight the governments underhanded behaviour.
Agenda 21 is alive and well.
We are sowing the seeds of our own destruction aided and abetted by politicians of all shades.
August 14, 2017
@ Ian Wragg
Agenda 21 is alive and well.
Time it was laid to rest.
August 14, 2017
Mark B
Believe me, we are seen as a bunch of suckers ! And it is the political class that is the root cause of it.
Got that about right in one. This country has totally lost the plot when it comes to immigration. Australia and Canada both who I have tried to emigrate to have the right idea in that you have to meet all the right criteria based upon the following:
Professional Skills required at the time of application
Ability to speak English
Age. The older you are the less points you accrue.
Financial Independence. Private Income. Savings, or Investment capital to start a new business capable of creating at least 4 jobs.
Private health insurance.
Offer of full time employment.
These requirements are not deemed racist or anything else for that matter they collectively add up to a country apply basic house keeping skills to ensure that the rewards to be gained in life style etc are there to be achieved as long as the applicant can provided them on the back of their labours and not handouts from the state.
August 14, 2017
I remember a debate at the University of London Union on the question of immigration back in the 60s. Most of the students were all for it (of course) but friend and fellow student who had a shock of very red hair managed to catch the president’s eye when the debate was opened to the house. He began by saying bravely “This country is packed full, like a biscuit tin full of biscuits.” “Ginger nuts” shouted a voice. Collapse of stout party.
August 14, 2017
If you believe in market economics you must look at the demand and supply factors for housing and Government services caused by immigration.
Just focusing on the benefits and not the costs of immigration will bankrupt any economic entity. We all know socialism does this. The interesting question is why large companies do this as well. They want large scale immigration and want to privatise the benefits for themselves, but also want the costs to be paid for by the tax payer.
So we are left with the conclusion that not only are some (socialist) Government bad for our country. But so are large corporations that exploit tax payers for profits. The most important message here is that market economics can identify bad Governments and bad Corporations.
August 14, 2017
Indeed but we alas have a socialist government under May, We also have lots of rent seeking businesses in the law, finance, the “renewable” energy racket and in the dire virtual state monopolies of the NHS and in education
August 14, 2017
And in defence procurement, pointless traffic light manufacturers and the likes.
August 14, 2017
Large companies do it because it avoids the cost to them of training staff while at the same time getting labour on the cheap.
August 14, 2017
Subsidised by the taxpayers.
No wonder they like the EU.
August 14, 2017
People should, in general, have to pay for their own training with loans. If companies pay for it then their staff can just leave the company after training to work elsewhere and then the company gets no return.
August 14, 2017
The corporations get a cheap workforce and an increased customer base.
Most generally sell small, affordable items which are overpriced – like razors, mobile phones and coffee. Even poor people can treat themselves to these things.
Win win for corporations, subsidised by low to middle income taxpayers.
August 14, 2017
Indeed. Even before the capital costs of the additional housing, school places, roads, rail etc. are taken into account about 50% of workers pay less in taxes than they get back directly in immediate benefits (such are in work benefits, housing costs, medical care and school places).
So people on a wages of less than about £30K are, as a group, not contributing anything to all to the many other costs of government – police, defence, social services, the vast waste, the green crap subsidies, interest on the vast debt, the legal system, public transport, infrastructure and the likes.
The lie, that even low paid immigration is a net asset to the country, has been hugely pushed by the BBC. It is patent drivel. Just like almost all the rest of the pro EU, greencrap pushing, big government, PC, anti male, BBC agenda.
August 14, 2017
Lifelogic
interest on the vast debt,
What is this?? Nobody seems big or brave enough to actually produce the actual figures. f they did it might focus a few minds.
August 14, 2017
£43 billion PA of interest or 8% of all tax receipts!
August 14, 2017
250,000 of the right kind of immigrants is fine – ambitious people who will work to better their lives and provide the rest of us with goods and services we might not otherwise have had. But 10,000 of the wrong kind is too many. We do not want any actual or potential criminals, terrorists, terrorist sympathisers, or welfare scroungers. We need a system to make sure they any immigrants accept UK / western values and culture, are law abiding and will be hard working and not expect to sponge. . We specifically need to attract entrepreneurs, investors etc in competition in particular with EU countries.
How do we put such a policy in politically correct language?
August 14, 2017
Most of the right kind (hard working, wealth, bright) seem to be leaving father than coming. Mainly due to the 40% inheritance tax, the 45% income tax, 23% of NI (both), the expensive energy, the 20% VAT and up 15% Stamp duty. That plus the dire quality of the public services and infrastructure.
August 14, 2017
We don’t need 250,000 more people coming to England each year even if they are the “right kind of immigrant”.
Such massive population increases are damaging the environment through the additional building and use of houses, hospitals, schools, reservoirs, roads, airport runways, railways, retail malls, etc.
The only reason given now for the hugely environmentally damaging HS2 is that we need extra capacity.
Also the import of skilled immigrants means that government and corporations no longer wish/need to provide training for UK people as they can import the skills more cheaply, at the same time stealing the very people poorer countries need to develop their own economies.
August 14, 2017
Is this government actually “beginning to spend more on road capacity”? I have not noticed much evidence of it – the M3, M4, M25, M1, M6 the whole of London and the Thames crossings are all hugely overloaded at peak times. A few signs about “smart” motorways but “wider” would be rather better.
If so it will make a change from years and years of deliberately blocking the roads (with bus lanes, anti-care traffic lights, absurd new junction designs, bus stops projecting into roads, massive islands in the roads, environmental areas (i.e. road blocks) and the likes.
Recently I drove from Buckingham to Gatwick perhaps 80 motorway miles and it took well over three hours. Chris Froome would have been rather faster cycling up hard shoulder.
August 14, 2017
“when we invite someone into our Country….”
This is the real problem, we only invite a few, the rest come without any invitation at all, we simply do not have a policy of just inviting who we want, people can and do, demand to come here from the EU area, because we do not at present make the rules.
When/if ever we do gain charge of our power to simply invite who we like, then we will be in control.
I would suggest that the vast majority of our population do not have a problem with controlled or invited immigration as long as the numbers are sensible, what most people have a real problem with is the continuing policy of allowing huge numbers of people to arrive, like those who have arrived over the past couple of decades.
We simply need to get back control, so that we can then manage and plan to manage our resources properly.
August 14, 2017
When Brexit goes terribly wrong as it must do at midnight on 30th March 2019, the immigration problem will be solved. People will shun us as we hit real poverty. PS I am a person who voted LEAVE and a natural Conservative, so do me a favour and leave out the ad hominem attacks.
August 14, 2017
Mike. It is going to be a horrible Brexit. Joining the EU was a huge mistake. It is going to be tough leaving it but it’s the right thing to do.
The future of the EU is Africa. Arch Remainer and head of the International Rescue Committee (on £450k a year) is Ed Miliband and he’s busy engineering it at the moment.
Poverty will make us less tolerant of such things. We need this.
The EU had better be careful with us. Germany should know this better than any other nation having suffered after the Treaty of Versailles.
If we are to pay (which few would deny) then we ought to be left in a fit enough state to make payments.
August 14, 2017
DAVE Miliband. Sorry.
August 14, 2017
Grow up Mike. For an educated person you do talk some drivel.
August 14, 2017
“When Brexit goes terribly wrong as it must do at midnight on 30th March 2019”
Got that from the Mayans, have you?
https://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/2012.html
“The Mayan connection “was a misconception from the very beginning,” says Dr. John Carlson, director of the Center for Archaeoastronomy. “The Maya calendar did not end on Dec. 21, 2012, and there were no Maya prophecies foretelling the end of the world on that date.””
Likewise, the idea that the UK could leave the EU but avoid becoming a “third country” by arranging to stay in the EEA was a misconception from the very beginning, as Philip Hammond and Liam Fox have clarified:
“… the UK will be outside the single market and outside the customs union and will be a ‘third-country’ not party to EU treaties.”
Note they didn’t say “a ‘third-country’ not party to the EEA Agreement”.
August 14, 2017
I don’t think “they will shun us”
The minimum wage in this country is several times the minimum wage of most of the recently joined EU nations and many other non EU nations in the world.
August 14, 2017
If you are a natural Conservative, who voted leave, why are you so convinced that it “must” go terribly wrong at midnight on March 30 2019?
August 14, 2017
Mike
I am with you, but what can we do when we are as cursed as Cassandra ?
Just prepare yourself and those closet to you. Some food. Some gold and maybe a shotgun ? Because if the shelves do indeed empty those few things may just come in handy.
And for any that are prepared to poo-poo such notions, all I can say is, you never lived in the Seventies.
August 15, 2017
I don’t recall any starvation nor empty shelves nor a need for a shotgun to defend myself in the seventies.
I do recall times when unions forced their members out on strike for long periods which led to some disruption.
August 15, 2017
As I recall Cassandra was simply ignored. Mike has not been simply ignored, people have frequently replied to his predictions with rational arguments but he has never answered any of the criticisms which have been made.
August 14, 2017
Going to keep my post short and sweet today in the hope it gets printed.
I agree with everything you say here John and so do many of the public who have to pay for it all. People are getting fed up of being pushed to the back of the housing queue because immigrants are given housing first.
August 14, 2017
They are given the housing very often because they have more children and so need it rather more. Others might choose to have more children were they not paying for everyone elses!
August 14, 2017
As we saw with shock at not only the terrible consequences of the Grenfell disaster but how the local housing policy puts foreign migrants ahead of the indigenous population who have to wait for up to a decade for social housing. You won’t see that reported by the mainstream press though.
August 14, 2017
Indeed, it is one if the most important subjects which is regularly ignored in the sense of actually undertaking a proper cost benefit analysis. Unfortunately, this whole subject is dealt with in a risible fashion. What sensible country would allow its net migration figure to be based on a wholly inappropriate passenger survey system. For years the numbers have been fudged. I remember Tesco 10 years ago estimating that there were probably nearly 80m people in the UK based on shopping and consumption. No basket of measures is used to properly estimate the population.
How can you properly plan a sensible, functioning economy when you have no control over who comes down? It is self evident that the vast majority will be squeezed whilst the smaller percentage benefits from taxpayer largesse to fund a cheap work force. The HoL undertook a survey in 2008 but they didn’t properly forecast the capital expenditure required to accommodate growing numbers in a decent manner.
This is a very big problem which government NEEDS to confront head on. This mixed with any further Brexit cock ups will lead to a very dangerous cocktail…..
zorro
August 14, 2017
“When we invite someone into our country we wish them well.” However we pay no attention when they arrive illegally, and we fail to ask whether we need them. Are they filling places caused by our failure to educate and train our own population, exacerbated by a welfare system that has turned lazy reproduction into a career path.
Immigration in the UK is a self accelerating phenomena , we lack nurses so we recruit abroad, so the population increases, so we need schools and hospitals, so we invite more immigrants to build and staff them ad infinitum. Immigration should loose it’s title in the UK and become population exchange.
The UK indigenous population has not asked for it, only politicians in their paucity of wisdom and failure to educate and train have presided over it. You have in effect and fact destroyed the country and should be perpetually ashamed of having done so.
August 14, 2017
It is about time this became a mainstream discussion. GDP per capita is declining as is government spending per capita. How can population growth through mass immigration be generating an overall contribution?
Another related issue which should be discussed in the mainstream is the need to pay any kind of benefit to an immigrant. Moving countries is difficult. Those who choose to do so must undertake the move without help from the taxpayer. It is a free choice and deserves no subsidy.
August 14, 2017
An alternative approach is to say that we need to import young people to pay in to the system to support our aging population. But of course, those young people will in turn be old. The implication is that we should have a continuously rising population and I’m not sure that’s wise for a crowded country which cannot feed itself.
August 14, 2017
Well done David – it is the ultimate PONZI scheme!
August 14, 2017
Indeed another one!
August 14, 2017
Cut stamp duty now says Rees Mogg. Too true, but also the taxation of non profits for landlords, the £1M inheritance tax threshold promised and endless other daft tax increases they made. The attacks on the Non Doms were totally counter productive too. Basically undo everything that Osborne and Hammond did – but keep the IHT promise Osborne made but they both ratted on!
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/08/13/exclusive-cut-stamp-duty-now-says-jacob-rees-mogg-reveals-vision/?WT.mc_id=e_DM521613&WT.tsrc=email&etype=Edi_FAM_New_AEM_Recipient&utm_source=email&utm_medium=Edi_FAM_New_AEM_Recipient_2017_08_14&utm_campaign=DM521613
August 14, 2017
Stay on topic please.
Though one expects selfishness from a landlord. This off topic posting proves my point.
*Sighs* Allow me to explain:
You’ve created a lot of Labour voters, Lifelogic.
1x Landlord = a portfolio of Labour votes.
The whole thing goes full circle and confiscators get elected into power. It’s called democracy.
August 14, 2017
The attacks on non-doms is leading to a quiet exodus of v high taxpayers in my observation. The govt needs to get serious about competing post Brexit. We can’t afford virtue signalling anymore.
August 14, 2017
Indeed well it will with IHT at 40% over an almost nothing threshold.
August 14, 2017
What price social cohesion?
There is also a distinction to be made between those communities that work and contribute towards the economy and those that largely become a burden on the welfare state.
August 14, 2017
In my view the economics of immigration are of secondary importance, in a democracy the paramount consideration should be the wishes of the established body of citizens. I would even take that principle of respecting the will of the people to the length of holding national referendums on the volume of immigration that we want for, say, the next decade.
August 14, 2017
Denis. Do us a favour. We’re still arguing about the EU referendum so let’s not have another one too soon. Arguing will become a national sport.
August 15, 2017
I’m not expecting this immigration referendum to be held anytime in the near future, even though it should be!
August 14, 2017
The costs of the Normans coming here has never been assessed. They were good at tapestries and building HS2.s in the form of dank dark castles surrounded by sewage as moats.
August 14, 2017
Regardless of their sewage arrangements, Britain’s Norman immigrants had a genius for holding on to what they won. It is truly remarkable how many of our great landowning families still have Norman surnames.
For sheer clinging power, however, can anyone beat the descendants of the sixth-century economic migrant Cerdig the Saxon? His family, the Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glucksburg-Saxe-Coburg-Gothas, are still here and thriving, though these days they call themselves Windsor.
August 14, 2017
There are some fairly basic solutions which your party in government has failed to implement, and which other countries routinely demand:
-ensure that immigrants have proper employment and some sort of collateral from an employer, or can support themselves
-ensure that immigrants can demonstrate their qualifications and readiness to contribute to Society ( a “points” system). The fact that this hasn’t been enacted already, regardless of the EU debacle, means that you people aren’t serious about changing anything (or perhaps you’re just too “frozen in the headlamps”)
-ensure that immigrants already have some sort of place to reside when they set foot in the country.
-oddly, for people here and already in employment and contributing, the government make it extremely tiresome to renew visas etc. yet the doors seem to be open to all and the system actively encourages immigrants to live on the edge.
August 14, 2017
Sir Joe Soap
How I agree entirely with your post and it is very similar to the one I posted at 0759 this morning, but is still in awaiting moderation. You cannot make it up.
August 14, 2017
Early bird catches worm
August 14, 2017
This is the first time I have seen an MP contemplate the costs of population growth, for which I thank you, that has taken place some two decades after the policy of mass immigration was started highlights the failure of Westminster to scrutinise policies relating to immigration.
August 14, 2017
JR: “When we invite someone into our country”
Do we really “invite” around 600,000 people to come here each year? I doubt it but either way it is far too many. The whole point is that immigration is uncontrolled. If it were planned then surely successive governments would have made provision to ensure there was adequate housing, education, health. This has very evidently not taken place, although many politicians and their lackeys in the media will never see the demand side of supply and demand equation.
August 14, 2017
Too many coming in in the back of lorries so they cannot supply what is necessary as they don’t really know the numbers involved.
August 14, 2017
I agree with everything our host is saying today. Nobody believes that the average migrant makes a positive contribution to the economy when housing and infrastructure provision is taken into account.
The main argument in favour of net inward migration is that the economy needs more people to grow.
This is an entirely false argument created by a business sector which, with few exceptions, is too lazy and greedy to develop and train people to do the jobs necessary or to invest in machinery and equipment that could increase efficiency. That would release people currently doing menial work to be retrained for something better paid, more satisfying and interesting.
For decades, it’s been far easier and cheaper to attract staff from abroad than to train and develop the people that are already here. This even extends to the NHS which has followed the morally bankrupt policy of recruiting nurses and doctors from poorer third world countries where they are very badly needed.
Then we have our education system which really has a complete disconnect from commerce and industry. One would have thought that the advent of £9,000 pa university fees would have resulted in young people carefully choosing a course most likely to lead to a good job. This seems not to be happening.
The courses themselves seem to be extremely bad value with minimum contact time and if proper working hours were followed, many could be completed in two years rather than three or even four. The latter change would at least prepare graduates properly for the workplace.
August 14, 2017
The problem with university fees is that you only pay back the loan if you make a success of your career. Otherwise, it is three years of indulging yourself at taxpayer expense – to be formally recognised late in your working life, just when the then government will be struggling to afford it. That’s a very perverse incentive.
August 14, 2017
Ha, now the truth comes out …
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/08/13/philip-hammond-views-liam-fox-contempt-brexit-truce-will-collapse/
“Philip Hammond views Liam Fox with ‘contempt’ and Brexit truce will collapse, Tory minister says”
Of course this putative “Tory minister”, even if he or she actually exists and is not pure invention, lacks the guts to stand up and say this openly, and of course the Telegraph will claim journalistic privilege to justify its refusal to identify him or her, but nonetheless we are supposed to take this seriously. But if this minister does exist and is identified then the Prime Minister should immediately get rid of him or her. I wonder if anybody in the Tory party is at all concerned about the damage this kind of thing is inevitably doing to their party’s image.
August 14, 2017
Other stories talk of rebel cabinet ministers being forced back into line.
They then claim a limited period of ‘transition’ as some sort of victory for common sense.
It certainly is not. Transition is unnecessary delay, added expense and extra time under the EU yoke.
We are being softened up for No Brexit.
No transition. Leave now.
August 15, 2017
The operative word is “stories”, many of which are pure inventions.
If we need a bit of time to sort out some practicalities after we have left the EU then I see no problem with that provided it is limited to short periods, one to three years say for different areas of adjustment.
The most important point which is being missed by many people is that the proposal now agreed within the government is that we leave the EU and it is our exit from the EU that starts the limited period for implementation, we do not stay in the EU during that transitional period. Therefore there can be no question of the transition being used to keep us in the EU.
August 14, 2017
I assume Fox and Hammond are both well aware the truce will collapse, otherwise why announce something (fixed 2 year transition) which they are entirely unable to deliver because it needs the agreement of the EU. My guess is Fox assumes the EU will block this idea and then he thinks we will leave the EU immediately. I assume Hammond foresees a transition period during which some financial crisis will mean the transition continues indefinitely.
August 15, 2017
The EU would have to be idiots to react by blocking this idea, which is for their benefit just as much as it is for our benefit, or in fact even more so.
August 14, 2017
so presumably this doesn’t include a shower like the exotic one being installed for Jeremy Hunt at a cost to the taxpayer of £44,000.
Reply There are showers for cyclists coming to work at the DH, not a Jeremy Hunt request item!
August 14, 2017
Why should they have showers provided at taxpayers’ expense just because they are cyclists?
August 14, 2017
£44k sounds like a lot of carbon emissions to me.
August 14, 2017
And he said his bike ride is only ten minutes so he doeesn’t need it. It is for people making longer journeys on their bikes.
August 14, 2017
Reply to reply: but he tweeted:
somebody’s being economical with the truth, if not with our hard earned money.
August 14, 2017
The business community in the UK is addicted to cheap labour and has been so for many decades. The reliance on cheap labour as opposed to capital investment is likely a key part of why British productivity has historically been poor. I was disappointed but not surprised that Andrea Leadsom promised agribusiness they could have access to as many EU fruit-pickers as they wanted. Surely this is something that could be adequately addressed by mechanisation and employing the British young? Employers in this situation bleat about no one here wanting to do the work, they easily do as others and increase the wages on offer.
August 14, 2017
I know of farmers who cannot get the labour they need. The reason is in the Peak seasons like the harvest they need people who will work 60-70 hours a week. People don’t want to do that anymore and employment law now makes that virtually impossible. you’d have thought students would jump at such a chance if it was offered.
August 14, 2017
Richard
Most don’t need to work over 16hours because they get benefits which top us their money to the equivalent of a full time wage.
August 15, 2017
“People don’t want to do that anymore and employment law now makes that virtually impossible.”
Then it’s illegal for migrants to be doing it too.
August 15, 2017
Harvesting machinery is expensive to hire and the value of crops can be badly affected if they aren’t harvested ahead of heavy rain for example. 24 hour shift working is not uncommon at harvest time.
August 14, 2017
In your calculations you have overlooked the cost of the large number of immigrants who seem to end up in prison and the further costs of legal aid, both at their trial and subsequently when they appeal against deportation on human rights grounds. Plus the costs of our police and security services keeping a watch on potential jihadis.
August 14, 2017
Good point I forgot that – see my contribution below!
August 14, 2017
Labour will target class sizes when House Returns on 5th September. Class sizes were zero, of course for five solid weeks prior. Zero for thirteen weeks in the year to date . Zero for an additional two days per week over the remaining 39 weeks.
The Labour MP adjacent to my own Constituency is making much of class sizes and of course “more money is needed” but never mentions “migrant children” once though it is on the lips, daily, of her constituents.
So perhaps Labour can be gently edged, not Venezuela style, into thinking in terms of not allowing schools and children to operate by the Anglo Saxon strip system, that is lay fallow for what amounts to for the sake of a rounded metaphor one year in three.
It seems adults can work Saturdays and Sundays and through most of the summer. Teachers believe children should work anti-social hours, evening split shifts in regard to homework. They have no concept of decent working conditions for underage workers and should spend their holidays touring the Third World for their own teaching-education so skant. Time to organise teaching and schooling resources properly!
August 14, 2017
Many contributing to this excellent blog will have worked abroad and recognise that in most countries ,rich and poor alike , permission is required to live and work there .
This is granted by the host country with due regard to their needs at the time.
Some require evidence of substantial bank balances to ensure financial independence eg NZ.
Others require the letter of a job offer and so on .
The EU is in a unique position :
– no external border
– an invitation by one national leader – Merkel – for anyone to make their way to her country .
– once there to take whatever job they can find or be supported by the state .
– to grant EU passports to spread the load around other nations.
We are still part of this crazy system and cannot plan or even assess what is going on .
Let’s hope this ‘arrangement ‘ is not part of any transition period .
OFF topic – JRM article today in the DT should have been the Con Manifesto in the last election .
The dire May/Timothy document turned me and many others off in conceding so much ground to socialism .
–
August 14, 2017
May I briefly confirm what you have said, having recently moved with my family to a non-EU country a long way from the UK.
My son is married to a native of that country, and both he and I were required to provide sponsors from within the country, criminal records (clean!) from the UK police, full medical clearance (not available on the NHS), and ample and certified proof of our assets and income. In exchange, my son was granted a 2yr residency visa and permission to apply after that for citizenship, and I was granted a 4yr residency visa which may be renewed on application; I cannot apply for citizenship as I am a pensioner.
I should add, however, that I am the child and grandchild of asylum seekers from the anti-Semitism of the Cossacks and the Nazis, and we were all eternally grateful for the haven that the UK provided.
August 14, 2017
According to ONS UK net capital stock growth 2008 to 2015 is 1% per year. UK’s population growth is about 0.8% per year. This seems a little standing still to me.
August 14, 2017
The Government doesn’t manage to reduce non-EU immigration which it has control over. I can only conclude that it doesn’t want to. It’s OK businesses wanting cheap labour but if that labour is subsidised by the British tax payer then it’s not fair. One way to keep growing GDP is to import more people. The headline figure looks good but it reduces the wealth per capita. I keep asking the question about why we need 500,000 more people a year. Where did last year’s fruit pickers go? Like the Schengen zone is doing we should put in place a system for checking who comes in and out of this country. How many immigrants are living here more than 6 months a year and not paying any tax? How many get cash-in-hand? Why is the number of National Insurance numbers being issued far higher than the numbers of immigrants we think are here? The Government just seem to be guessing at the numbers. Why do we allow asylum seekers from countries like Albania when other EU countries reject them? I’m afraid the people of this county are getting tired of a Government that says it will reduce immigration to the tens of thousands but appears to have no polices to deliver on this promise. Start looking at why migrants want so desperately to come to the UK and stop the pull factor. We are just seen as a soft touch.
August 14, 2017
The economic argument is only one dimension. The rest appears to be taboo.
The effects of immigration on society may have far wider reaching consequences on the happiness and well being of a society built on common practices and common moral standards.
By having a high rate of people coming in holding a different set of these standards to ours, we are loosening the commonality and fabric that holds us together.
In my opinion that is a far more serious issue – and potentially a far greater “cost” – than economics.
August 14, 2017
Yes, the rest is indeed taboo; presumably that’s why my first comment today was vaporised even though in my view it was perfectly innocuous.
August 14, 2017
Denis Cooper
A lot of us out here know exactly how that feels.
August 14, 2017
Yes indeed. The rest certainly seems to be taboo. Political correctness still holds sway.
August 14, 2017
JR- ‘When we invite someone into our country we wish them well’ – yes we do wish them well. BUT a lot are NOT invited that is the problem !, but what does the Government do to get them deported when their asylum application fails ? What about the failure to deport foreign criminals because (taking an example) a judge here decides the cells are too small in Roumania ? Why does it take 10 years to deport hate preachers and throughout that 10 years they are on benefits and legal aid amounting to millions ?
Many businesses here want mass immigration to exploit a workforce on minimum wage, and that said workforce will then pay very little (if any) income tax to the treasury. However, their pay is topped up by tax credits including child benefit – often for children who are not even resident in the UK and all paid for by the UK taxpayer. Not to mention education/housing/the NHS and interpreters which a lot get for free.
No-one objects to the best and brightest coming to the UK to add to our economy but most mass immigration doesn’t add it just takes.
‘Take back control’ the Government said – so get on and do it !
August 14, 2017
Most of those who are invited are invited by our political and social elite against the wishes of the majority of the citizenry. Not because the citizens are nasty racists and xenophobes but because they do not agree that it is to their advantage to share their country with ever increasing numbers of more or less randomly selected people from abroad. That dissonance is not a good start for any hope that the population as a whole will warmly welcome the incomers, and I reckon it is to our credit as a people that on the whole the resentment is not only quiet but is directed as much or more against our own politicians rather than against the (legal) immigrants.
August 14, 2017
There also needs to be an inclusion of the costs of the displaced indigenous worker.
This is not to blame the migrant but to blame the generous policy which goes “It’s OK. If you’d prefer a life on welfare then we’ll import someone to pick up the slack for you.”
Any migrant who does the job that any existing resident can do should have the cost of the welfare of that resident attributed to them too – to measure the cost of the whole migrant-covers-lazy-Brit policy.
Such migrants do not add anything to the economy. In fact they paper the cracks over failing economic policy which could be easily addressed with a bit of conservatism if we were allowed to have it.
Coffee shops add nothing to the economy, btw. In fact they draw from it – coffee is imported, many chains are foreign owned.
They draw massive profit from a workforce that can’t be bothered to make up a flask and a lunchbox – so much for austere times.
£2.50 for a cup of hot water.
Since I bought myself a flask I’ve been saving £50 a month ! And no. There isn’t much difference, not with some of the premium instants available now.
But for the privilege of being ripped off on our way to work many say that we must leave our borders unmanned, sacrifice our culture and build all over our countryside.
Trade in the EU is a bit like going to an Indian restaurant and finding that you’ve had to sign up to Sharia law (and take home the restauranteur’s cousins) in order to be able to buy a chicken curry.
August 14, 2017
We do not want migrants full stop . If an employer needs or is short of a particular skill they should be allowed to recruit from abroad having first obtained permission to do so . Those selected migrants must a) be able to speak and write English b ) agree to abide by our rules and c) accept our customs , religion and community standards .
Temporary seasonal workers who are required to assist Agriculture should also be allowed under strict guidelines and monitoring while here ; at the end of their period of work they must return from whence they came .
I want tight and secure border controls at all times ; those who do “crash ” in must be deported and during the period prior to their deportation , receive no benefits . We have been far too lenient with migrants – a factor that has been an attraction to them and caused the sort of hiatus that has existed in and around Calais .
August 14, 2017
@ Bert Young
BERT YOUNG FOR PRIME MINISTER.
Brilliant entry Bert, well said
August 14, 2017
Yet a growing and young population is seen as an asset for a developed nation, isn’t it ?
A young couple has a bigger propension to consume rather than save, thus stimulating the economy.
Be careful what you wish for, Mr Redwood. I do not know of a country which rejoices about being in demographic decline. Actually, quite a few strategists and economists are fretting about the impact of such decline on Europe’s economy as a whole.
Why invest into a manufacturing plant to service a declining market ?
August 14, 2017
“Why invest into a manufacturing plant to service a declining market ?”
Do the much smaller populations of Denmark, Switzerland, Sweden, Iceland, Norway, Luxembourg etc., etc, indicate declining markets?
August 15, 2017
Denis,
All the countries you quoted are EEA or EFTA members. You are set to leave both, apparently.
I am just highlighting the fact that I have never heard of a country that is actually happy to have a declining and ageing population. An older population tend to be less productive and innovative. These are hardly positive characteristics.
August 15, 2017
We have a right to be selective, that’s all we’re aiming for.
Is there really a problem with that ?
August 14, 2017
I don’t accept the premise that the majority of the original people here willingly invited the millions which have arrived. It was an elite group of politions and others who did so without our full consent. I don’t accept that thise who came here should have a right to benefits and housing before the the indiginous people.
And how many illegals has Mrs May’s government removed from the country since she became PM and how many she had removed when she was Home Secretary? Does Dithering Doris intend to continue to change Britain by allowing its population to be transformed?
August 14, 2017
Brain drainage rate?
Many migrants come here with children, they are employed, trained, their children receiving education and possible pre-job training then they leave, sometimes returning to their original homelands and often, going on to Canada, New Zealand, Australia, not now South Africa for some inexplicable reason…even America…there are foreign-born MPs, with British born children who, have just flitted off to the USA . So what are the costs of unrecoverable education, job training, and the very infratructural impartment of civic skills? I believe these costs have never been assessed. Look at David Miliband. He was given proper and wholesome training as MP, the world was his oyster and his brain is now lost to us forever. My guess is Ed Miliband’s brain will similarly go down the drain too.
August 14, 2017
Yes, maybe his brain, but sadly not his gob !
August 14, 2017
Ed Miliband’s brain is an unfathomable one. Quite where it is now is open to question, let alone where it will end up.
August 14, 2017
For a start all non EU cizitens should be stopped from coming in. Secondly EU citizens coming in should be only allowed to live in designated areas where sufficient housing work and services are available to cope with them. They should not be allowed to gather all together in one town and completely overwhelm the local population. If EU people come in then they should have to go to a choice of designated places spread out across the country and where there presence can be coped with.
Cannot understand why this question is being raised now by an experienced tory politician- the writing was on the wall fifty years ago, everyone could see it, and nothing was done? We can see whats happening in the US right now- well the same is what is facing us if we’re not careful.
August 14, 2017
Jack Snell
Totally agree with your entry Jack.. You could be Bert Young’s deputy.
August 14, 2017
That would pretty much exclude London, then.
It might cause trouble for the City and the high tech industry which is reliant on foreign talent.
August 15, 2017
We want *selective* immigration. Not the chaos we have now.
August 14, 2017
Iirc, the House of Lords select committee which looked into this matter some years ago came to the conclusion that there was very little to no net benefit to the host country.
August 14, 2017
Other things that are commonly left out of account in looking at the economics of migrants include their high propensity to buy imported goods to match their tastes in food, drink, clothing, furnishing, and likewise services, where they may pay for a satellite subscription to channels in their home language, a foreign newspaper, etc. – taking money out of the UK economy, and worsening our balance of payments.
Also, many of them have a very high propensity to save and remit their savings to their home country as a future nest egg for themselves or to their families (in this case, some of the remittance is often funded by welfare payments). World Bank estimates suggest of the order of $25bn p.a. leaves the UK in remittances. The economic effect is that government needs to run a correspondingly larger deficit to replace the demand lost to the UK economy, meanwhile the actual flow of funds has to be financed by a combination of additional international borrowing and asset sales to foreigners.
August 14, 2017
@Mark
The economic effect is that government needs to run a correspondingly larger deficit to replace the demand lost to the UK economy, meanwhile the actual flow of funds has to be financed by a combination of additional international borrowing and asset sales to foreigners.
OMG does this mean that out politicians have failed us by not understanding basic economics? Slap my thigh can’t believe it.
August 14, 2017
John is quite right to question the often overused & oversimple stats here. Isn’t the solution (only possible post-Brexit) to place a contributory obligation on migrant workers? So, until some sort of bond is paid, or a certain level of income tax and NIC contributed not all public services are available on the same basis as they are to the indigenous population (examples: only A&E treatment on the NHS on same basis as tourists until threshold met, no housing benefit, no child benefit, no state pension rights etc).
This doesn’t quiet crack the state-run transport infrastructure question, but it does address a range of other, welfare-related concerns.
August 14, 2017
You have focused on cost as I would have expected, however the problems are far more diverse. There is the matter of space. Roads are full , hospitals are full . Health Centres are bulging at the seams. We are daily encountering bizarre ideologies. We cannot communicate accurately , we are being told that we have to learn languages of the immigrants as why should they change, we are losing control , standards are being geared to those who can pay, professions are being disrupted due to the notions which are brought into the country and subsequently taking control , women’s rights are being subsumed. Money is more important than the British ideals.
August 14, 2017
The influx of migrants roughly 50% EU and 50% other of which students are also a significant proportion was down to the overall attractiveness of the country as a liberal energetic and open minded place.the New New York as it were but more civilised.
Post brexit the climate has changed and along with the 20% devaluation our attraction to the EU youth is waning except as a tourist and party destination.
Housing , traffic, infrastructure nhs and education is down to a failure of goverment leadership and funding and very little to do with migration. Try building house, try negotiate with govermental institutions hopeless and slow and politically impossible in the District Councils in the home counties.
The migrants from the EU will stop coming and we will start going to work in Europe , again, but this time it will be more difficult to do than ever before
August 14, 2017
Loss of free-speech.
August 14, 2017
Immigration is too important to be decided by whim of govt and needs to be settled by binding referendum. A cap of 10,000 a year for ten years say. I believe we are getting full up as evidenced by housing, congestion and the ability to timely access govt services that we have already paid for. Work permits should be decided by a points system with the expectation of return to country of origin at the end with dependents, without any claim to British Nationality being acquired.
The govt has a primary duty of care and consideration to its own indigenous nationals (and none to anyone else that just wants to come here. There is no shortage of people in the world and we cannot accommodate them all.
August 14, 2017
There are other issues. Schools with classes full of kids who can barely communicate in English suffer, as do many of the pupils.
Some nationals actively engage in learning the best British intellectual property and passing it back to their home country to undercut this country.
People from different sides of a war are expected to live next to each other here, and often human nature gets the better of them.
And we have our own forgotten people languishing on large social housing estates built to support long gone industry, pushed ever further to the bottom.
August 14, 2017
And the way the British state often segregates children into schools of different religions, and the parents gravitate their housing to their children’s schools, leads to segregated society. Not good for any of us.
August 14, 2017
J, Suggest you are well behind on this one. Check out Prof Patrick Minford (the prof that all remoaners /pro-immigration like to hate)
August 14, 2017
Off-topic, maybe it’s time for a thorough-going purge in the Treasury:
https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/4235104/panicky-treasury-chiefs-tried-to-slow-brexit-down-to-a-decade-long-process-but-were-ignored-by-philip-hammond/
“PANICKY Treasury chiefs tried to slow Brexit down to a ten year process, The Sun can reveal.”
Drag each of them before an inquisition and establish where their true loyalties lie, those whose primary loyalty is to the EU should be either sacked or sidelined.
August 14, 2017
“The costs of population growth”
Having to train-up a new Home Secretary in sync with the disembarking times of public transport from the rest of the world.
August 14, 2017
If we NEED immigration and there are significant numbers of people wishing to move to the UK as economic migrants intending to improve their living standards, why not set a limit for the number of migrants and auction the right of entry accordingly.
If the market price did not exceed the social costs of their residency, then consideration should be given to reducing the number of migrant numbers granted entry.
As regards the corporate interest of employing immigrants to fill vacancies whether to reduce cost or to provide skills not otherwise available, incentives need to be reorganised in such a way that UK training becomes more attractive. Currently, if an employer pays for a trainee to be provided with skills then he has the understandable fear that the employee will change jobs when he achieves the target skill level. It would be better if the trainee was given tax relief on his training cost which he should pay for himself. Companies could then bid for the services of people so being trained, ( The Student Loans equivalent).
Unless there is an approach that ensures that UK nationals have the requisite skills, corporate Britain will continue to seek the skills of outsiders.
If we want immigration to be controlled, it seems reasonable to auction the right to live in UK.
August 14, 2017
World-wide general population growth used to be an issue some decades ago – yet it gets very little coverage these days in spite of its importance. The impact population growth is having upon our Planet’s Climate is not something the CO2 brigade seem to wish to countenance.
August 14, 2017
I suggest a lot more people look up Patrick Minford, professor of applied economics at Cardiff. His take on the immigration issue seems pretty sound.
Tad Davison
Cambridge
August 14, 2017
Some of your figures seem a little out of date – £200,000 for a 2/3 bedroom house or flat? Many immigrants arrive in London or the South East, the Grenfell Tower fire highlighted the true costs of property.
The cost of the National Health per head is high – is it about £2 billion/million people? Young mothers and children are not quite as expensive as old people but many of the immigrants arriving are not young or have pre-existing conditions.
The capital cost of schooling you quote are indeed high – so are the annual running costs of education – are they about £5000/child depending in what part of the country the school is?
Then there are child care costs and income support for those who come to do low paid jobs – many of these payments may be actually sent overseas to support their families who have not joined them.
Finally many immigrants do not save, invest or spend all their earnings in UK – they send any surplus earnings overseas to subsidise relatives or invest in their “home country. This is a serious invisible cost to our balance of trade.
It would be more accurate to say few immigrants cover their costs with the taxes they pay.
August 14, 2017
Importing more people is bad for the balance of payments, and requires more imports, also people from others countries send money back home, which is taking sending out of the economy .
August 14, 2017
Good Heavens JR you have finally got round to this. Pity you have never mentioned this on any media – I hope you will now do so and keep repeating it.
August 14, 2017
“When we invite someone into our country we wish them well and want them to live to a decent standard of living reflecting the society they have joined.”
Will the government finally implement a system to enable us to know who is living in the UK ?
Will the government implement proper border controls to enable us to know who has not left the country by due date ?
August 14, 2017
Government funding to the Met Office is something a growing population should not be asked to do.Any number of people can give examples of the errors. In my case, all day it has been predicting rain. Never arrived. Even as I type it tells me online it is raining on my home, No it isn’t! If the Met office is inaccurate to the weather as it stands then what use is it?
August 15, 2017
Come on folks, we need mass immigration to keep the housing market bubble going! Without millions of people coming in every few years, our children might have a chance at owning their own homes – this simply cannot be allowed; furthermore should house prices drop, then those MPs that own second (or third etc) homes might see their net value drop.
Destroying our countryside and society is a small price to pay to keep our MPs and wealthy property magnets happy.
August 15, 2017
Having observed the growth of the South Korean economy with very low levels of immigration it seems a strange obsession to always demand more of it for the UK. How can South Korea be thriving when they don’t come anywhere near to matching our levels of immigration, is a question that the BBC don’t ask. Now that I have brought it up I am of questionable character despite having different races and nationalities in my extended family.
Mixing economics with social attitudes happens a lot in the media but an analytical comparison of South Korea and possibly Japan would be most revealing.
Furthermore is our policy being driven by specific businesses who gain and/or people who don’t believe in nation states (which is their right) and wish to transform the global order?
August 15, 2017
Yes, Japan’s GDP is growing, despite the population falling and no mass immigration.
August 16, 2017
migration in 1997 was 48,000, in 12 months application of asylum refugees rose to 100,000 under Labour govt as immigration & asylum became blurred, Blair 2004 miscalculation for EU A8 immigration levels estimated 5,000 to 13,000 over a 10 year period, 2004-12 turned out to be 423,000
Between 1997 and 2010, net annual immigration quadrupled, and the UK population was boosted by more than 2.2 million immigrants, more than twice the population of Birmingham.
Net migration in 2016 was 250,000 :
Inflows to 588,000 and 631,000 in 2015
Outflows from 339,000 and 299,000 in 2015
LSE May 2016 study claimed EU migrants have no negative effect on UK wages, job competition or productivity levels, and blamed 2008 recession for lower real salaries, lack of investment in public services spending. It’s that old chestnut distort the cost benefit analysis and blame it all on the govt lack of spending.
Whilst some migrants coming to UK are a net contribution many are not. Hundred and thousands from EU A8 eastern bloc countries where income levels are not on par with the UK. 250,000 inflow a year is still too high especially if large number of migrants are just about getting by on low skilled low wages and top-up benefits subsidised by UK taxpayers, they are a financial burden, not paying there way essentially not contributing to public services and that impact and affect the existing population
There is no giant crystal ball to predict population growth but its easier when you can control migration flow, we talk about the economic impact and aspects a lot but what about the cultural and emotional impact of sudden change on cities
This raises the big question “why immigrants/migrants coming to UK need to be financially independent”… preferably high-skilled, and skilled workers earning over £50k+ (spend, invest, save) whilst living/working in the UK. And it’s the reason why all low-skilled/unskilled immigrants/migrants needs restricting, and time limited seasonal Visa work permits issued for semi-skilled migrants