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Migration: UKDownload PDF
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OPT POPULATION POLICY: IMMIGRATION
OPT believes the UK is overpopulated and that its population should be
allowed to stabilise and
reduce to a sustainable level. The ecological
issue is one of population
numbers, and of resource demand and environmental impacts created by different sizes
of population at given rates of affluence and technology. Issues of race, ethnicity or
religion, therefore, are not relevant. For statistics on historic UK population growth see
UK: Population growth 1750-2006, and for
projections of future growth see OPT Population Policy Projections
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The UK has a history of significant migration flows, both immigration and emigration, but today's level of inward migration is unlike any witnessed in the last 100 years. A combination of factors, including mass international travel, the globalisation of labour markets, free movement within the European Union, people trafficking, government policy, and the incorporation into UK law of international human rights law, have combined to raise net inward flows to record levels, with environmental consequences that have yet to be properly addressed. Under the current government's migration policy, both gross and net inward migration continue at very high levels, and in spite of legislation to control the flow, there is no sign that this trend will significantly reverse. Figures for the years 1971-2006 below show that half of all net inward migration since 1971 has occurred in the last decade; and between 2001 and 2005, according to the ONS (Social Trends 37) , net migration accounted for 66% of overall population change. In the 1950s net natural change accounted for 98% of population change and net migration for only 2%.
TABLE 1: UK MIGRATION 1971-2006
| Year |
Inward migration |
Outward migration |
Net inward migration and other changes |
Pre-1997 figs ONS Population Trends 128 |
|
Total over decade 1997-2006 |
4,891,000 | 3,268,000 | 1,623,000 | |
| 2006 | 591,000 | 400,000 | 191,000 | ONS 15 Nov 2007 |
| 2005 | 563,000 | 359,000 | 204,000 | ONS 15 Nov 2007 |
| 2004 | 586,000 | 342,000 | 244,000 | ONS 15 Nov 2007 |
| 2003 | 508,000 | 361,000 | 147,000 | ONS 15 Nov 2007 |
| 2002 | 513,000 | 358,000 | 154,000 | ONS 15 Nov 2007 |
| 2001 | 479,000 | 306,000 | 173,000 | ONS 15 Nov 2007 |
| 2000 | 479,000 | 321,000 | 158,000 | ONS 15 Nov 2007 |
| 1999 | 454,000 | 291,000 | 163,000 | ONS 15 Nov 2007 |
| 1998 | 391,000 | 251,000 | 140,000 | ONS 15 Nov 2007 |
| 1997 | 327,000 | 279,000 | 48,000 | ONS 15 Nov 2007 |
| 1996 | 317,800 | 263,700 | 54,100 | |
| 1995 | 311,900 | 236,500 | 75,400 | |
| 1994 | 314,400 | 237,600 | 76,800 | |
| 1991 | 328,000 | 285,000 | 43,000 | |
| 1986 | 250,000 | 213,000 | 37,000 | |
| 1981 | 153,000 | 233,000 | -79,000 | |
| 1976 | 191,000 | 210,000 | -19,000 | |
| 1971 | 200,000 | 240,000 | -40,000 |
An immigrant is defined as someone who enters a country intending to stay for more than a year, and net migration is the number of immigrants minus the number of emigrants, or vice versa. Net inward migration together with its impact on natural increase, is the main cause of UK population growth now running at nearly 350,000 a year - adding to the UK a city larger than Cardiff - a capital city - every year. New 2006-based population projections released by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) on 23 October 2007 reveal expected population growth of nearly 17 million (more than two Londons) to 77.2 million in 2050, with net inward migration estimated at 190,000 a year for most of that period. This projection suggested substantially higher growth than the ones published in 2004 and 2003 - when assumed future net inward migration was 130,000 a year. The spiralling rate of inward migration has consistently been underestimated, and directly accounted for more than two-thirds of record population growth of 393,000 in 2005,
Indirectly, migration also contributes to population growth. Partly due to the younger age profile of immigrants, and partly due to cultural differences in family size, it has tended to raise the birth rate, and on 7 June 2007 the ONS revealed that in the year to mid-2006, 21.9% of all births in England and Wales were to mothers born overseas - confirming the cumulative impact of large-scale immigration. In 1993 births to migrant mothers were less than 10% of the total.
With net legal immigration projected to continue at between 190,000 and 256,000 a year between 2007 and 2017, estimates of population growth have been substantially revised. Unless action is taken to bring the numbers down, or the growing number of emigrants increases to bring inward and outward flows into balance, UK population is forecast to grow by another 10 million by 2030. With zero effect net migration (equivalent to natural change only, with zero migration or age-balanced inward and outward flows), however, UK population would peak at 64 million in 2036, then gradually decrease. See OPT Population policy projections.
Total inward migration flows into the UK, have been exacerbated by free movement of labour within the European Union and the UK's 'open-door' policy to the 10 accession countries which joined the EU in May 2004 and January 2007. This inward flow has risen to levels never previously experienced and which cannot continue, in OPT's view, for the sake of all those now living in the UK, including generations of immigrants and refugees already accepted as Britons. For information on international refugees, see United Nations High Commission for Refugees.
In the years 1999-2003, asylum seekers made up a growing and large proportion of total immigration numbers, and an estimated 80% of these proved not to be genuine asylum seekers. The UK has a history of receiving and assimilating immigrants, especially refugees, of which it is rightly proud. The suffering endured by genuine refugees cannot be underestimated, and they can and should be welcomed. By 2007, government measures had reduced the number of asylum seekers to 23,520 a year - less than a third of the peak level in 2002, and there may be scope to increase this number in future if the number of economic migrants is reduced. However, the EU is unlikely to be able to take in a possible 50 million or more environmental refugees expected to be displaced by climate change - the solutions to this are immediate worldwide action to curb global warming and reverse population growth. Europe is already experiencing its own environmental stresses caused by climate change and is overshooting its capacity to regenerate natural resources.
Every country needs to consider its future. A range of environmental and economic factors, including climate change requirements and impacts, energy security and degraded and diminishing natural resources, make it unlikely that the UK will in future be able to support its current numbers. If the 2005-2006 rate of population increase of 0.6% were allowed to continue, UK population would reach 100 million before the end of this century, going on to reach 200 million and more. OPT maintains that it would be better for the UK, and for other countries, to consider their own environmentally sustainable levels of population, and reverse their population growth accordingly alongside other environmental policies. See UK Population figures and Sustainable numbers.
OPT'S RECOMMENDED POPULATION POLICYA population policy is not the same as an immigration policy. OPT's recommended population policy has the aim of first stabilising UK population, then allowing gradual reduction (by not less than a quarter of a percent a year) to an environmentally sustainable level. It has two main components: one is zero net effect migration (broadly allowing the same number of people into the country as the number who leave each year - a flow that does not incur population growth); the second is a reduction in unplanned pregnancies, particularly among teenagers - which are still among the highest in Europe. See OPT Population policy projections and Fertility . A population policy can be founded on sound long-term environmental, economic and social considerations and could set regularly reviewable broad target ranges. A population policy should consider the rate of increase, the numerical natural increase in population (births minus deaths), migration factors and other demographic components such as age structure. It could be accompanied by more generous and ecologically sound aid and trade flows to developing countries to enable green development. |
The devastating environmental consequences of continuous UK population growth are becoming clear. If it continues, the effects will become worse - continued population growth at the 2000-2006 rate would require the building of some eight million extra homes by 2050. But no government department appears to recognise the environmental impacts of continuous population growth, or the significance of its migration component - now projected to account for more than 80% of future population growth when natural increase (births minus deaths) among migrants is added to annual direct migrant inflows. See Migration and population growth, [GAD, 2004]. The Home Office (the government department responsible for controlling migration levels), states that one of its seven aims is "to regulate entry to and settlement in the United Kingdom effectively in the interests of sustainable growth and social inclusion", but it does not define environmentally sustainable growth. See Home Office statement of purpose and aims.
EUROPEAN UNION MIGRATION POLICYEuropean Union migration policy is becoming more important as the EU has taken powers from national governments to control the flow of people within its borders, while exercising more centralised powers to curb illegal migration into the EU from outside EU borders. Although the flow of non-EU migrants into the UK still outnumbers arrivals from other EU states, this is likely to change. EU Directives look set to increase population pressure on the UK - such as the Services Directive (allowing EU citizens to set up businesses in other member states), and Directive 2004/38/EC, which will allow complete freedom of movement within the EU for EU citizens and the automatic right to settle in another member state after five years. See Free movement and residence rights for EU citizens. By October 2006, less than two years after the relaxation of migration controls for the eight EU accession states, an estimated 600,000 Eastern Europeans were estimated to have arrived in the UK. |
UK migration policy began to change after the May 2005 General Election: new controls are being introduced, including a points-based immigration system that will not grant settlement rights to low-skilled workers. On 24 October 2006 it was confirmed that free entry to the UK labour market by Bulgarian and Romanian citizens will not be allowed when they join the EU 25 on 1 January 2007: highly-skilled workers will need work permits and low-skilled workers will only be allowed to join the quotas for agricultural work and food processing jobs, and the limit will be set at 20,000 workers a year. The impact of this measure is likely to be small, however. Net migration inflows, along with permanent settlement, continue to rise, driving up population growth - see UK Population figures and table 1.2 below.
In its pre-election Home Office Strategic Plan 2004-08: Confident Communities in a Secure Britain [July 2004], Section 3 (Building strong, cohesive communities) rightly focused on issues of security and cohesion, but made no mention of optimal migration levels in terms of environmental impacts. Neither did Section 4 (Our strategy for managing migration). Home Office consideration of environment policies has so far been limited to adhering to internal Home Office Sustainable Development Indicators* and to reducing the impacts of its own departmental activities (see Home Office Environmental Policy, April 2002). In February 2005 the then Home Secretary Charles Clarke laid out the government's new detailed strategy for migration - see Controlling our borders: Making migration work for Britain [Home Office Immigration and Nationality Directorate]. (* Note: In May 2004 OPT submitted proposals to the parliamentary Environmental Audit Committee on the government's Sustainable Development Strategy, proposing new indicators of national population density for inclusion in the strategy's national sustainable development headline indicators.)
The 2004-5 Home Office IND plans were followed by a consultation document Selective admission: making migration work, whose circulation list did not appear to include any environmental organisations. The Home Office's revised policy of July 2006 Rebuilding confidence in our immigration system emphasised the strengthening of UK borders with tougher checks abroad; fast-track asylum decisions; and better enforcement of compliance with immigration laws. The objective is to "boost Britain's economy by bringing the right skills here from around the world". After nine years of government, during which time annual net inward migration has risen nearly fourfold from 46,800 (1997) to 185,000 (2005), there was still no mention of environmental impacts, numerical limits to migration, nor any hint of a policy to reverse the UK's continuous population growth. A new Border and Immigration Bill is due to be brought before Parliament in the 2006/7 session, however, and in October 2006, OPT was invited for the first time to contribute to stakeholder discussions with the Home Office. For full details of the latest version of the Immigration, Asylum and Nationality Bill, see Home Office Law and Policy: Legislation.
The latest (Mid-2004 based) official UK population projection from the Government Actuary's Department projects even faster population growth than the ones published over the three years before - a difference of more than a million by 2031. (Historically, population projections have tended to overestimate fertility and mortality rates and underestimate migration flows.) This is likely to underestimate once again the scale of inward migration unless government policy is changed - projecting net inflows of 145,000 people a year over the next decade. These population projections are not underpinned by any clearly stated government target to reduce migration or total population size to genuinely sustainable levels. No overpopulated country can viably reduce its population size without tackling the issues of fertility (see Fertility ) and migration - and the health, employability and productivity of its existing workforce (see Ageing and unemployment ).
2.1 Excess immigration exacerbates internal flows
UK population growth is causing widespread local population growth and rising densities, and therefore increasing urbanisation - see Local population densities. International and internal migration are not areas to which equal treatment can be applied. All nation states have borders, and in order to maintain their independence as sovereign states, they impose border controls and laws governing the numbers of people who can enter for the purpose of settlement. In democratic nation states there are usually no legal restrictions on internal movement and settlement - this is considered one of the freedoms that come with citizenship of a democracy. As in other countries, internal migration is a normal and continuous process in Britain for a wide variety of reasons - some people leave rural areas for cities to find jobs and excitement, often southwards from Scotland and the north of England, while others move out to rural areas in search of unspoilt landscapes and tranquillity - but find that less of it remains each year.
By driving up overall population growth and urban development, however, a combination of natural increase and increased immigration has exacerbated internal migration flows in the UK. Between 1981 and 2002 [The State of the Countryside 2004, Countryside Agency, 21 June 2004] the rural population of England grew by 14% (1.7 million), and more than 100,000 people a year are moving from cities to the countryside. Migration from urban to rural areas is currently four times migration from North to South. As cities become overpopulated, citydwellers spill into the suburbs, then have to move into wider commuter belts, then in greater numbers into a dwindling number of of rural areas. In doing so they turn the countryside they value into yet more urban sprawl, as separate settlements expand and merge into one another. See Countryside, housing and development.
Regional imbalances are exaggerated by these population flows, and international migration into London , where already one in four people are foreign born, is likely to cause further pressures. ONS figures released on 17 June 2004, based on the April 2001 census reveal that nearly 9 out of 10 people in England and Wales live in urban areas, and that there are already 31 large settlements with populations of over 200,000 (the amount by which UK population is increasing each year). Four areas have more than one million people, of which the largest is Greater London, with 8.3 million. (Of the 90% living in urban areas in England & Wales, 14.8% reported their ethnicity as non-white and/or non-British: about 7 million people - an indication of the minimum amount of historic population growth attributable to immigration.)
England passed the 50 million population threshold in mid-2004 and has been most affected by international and internal migration. Displacement of London's population to surrounding areas is a key factor behind unrelenting urban expansion into the suburbs and countryside. By 2002, the population of rural England (14.1 million) was increasing by 100,000 a year, and has since risen further. Rejuvenation of rural areas can be brought about by small-scale or temporary exchanges of population - large and permanent influx and settlement are not necessary to achieve diversity or innovation. See Countryside . In Scotland, population began to rise again in 2004 after falling to nearly five million. The population of Wales rose by 0.5% in the year to mid-2004 and has grown by about 5% over the last 20 years, with the growth coming mainly from English incomers.
UK migration has climbed from a single year of balance in 1993 (net emigration of 1,200 people) to a net inflow of 234,700 in 2005. Far from reversing naturally, and in spite of recent measures to control the illegal component of migration, large inward flows look set to continue, with economic migration estimated at a staggering 600,000 between 1 May 2004 and mid-2006, about 60 times the pre-entry estimate of 5,000 - 13,000 a year made by the Home Office. Student applications for the 2005/6 academic year from countries outside the UK rose 3.8% from 2004/5, with those from (non-UK) Europe up 15% to 26,827 and the sharpest rises coming from new EU accession countries. For full details of the rules for various categories of migrant admissions to the UK see Home Office: Working in the UK . Here are brief summaries:
3.1 Categories of immigrants
Legal immigrants are defined as those who enter the UK with the purpose of staying for more than one year, and who have permission to do so (annual figures are based on the International Passenger Survey). Until 1985 the annual number of legal immigrants into the UK (about 200,000) was nearly balanced by the number of emigrants leaving to settle abroad. Since then, there has been growing surplus immigration.
3.2 Illegal immigration
All non-EEA citizens who travel to the UK need a valid visa to enter and remain legally in the country, and a normal tourist visa usually lasts for only six months: see UK Visas . But because the UK has abandoned embarkation border controls - checking people out as they leave the UK, no-one knows how many people remain in the UK illegally. Illegal immigrants include: non-working students who have completed their courses and breached visa limits; people who have applied to 'bogus' colleges to acquire visas; other visitors who have outstayed their visas, rejected asylum seekers who have not left the UK; and illegal workers using false identity documentation. It is not known how many illegal immigrants are still present in the UK, but in 2005 these were officially estimated at 500,000. A reported 1.8 million 'unexplained' National Insurance numbers suggests a higher figure. [The Guardian, January 2004], Measures taken by the government in 2003-2004 to deter illegal migration have reduced the numbers of those wishing to enter or stay illegally, but have done little to stop population growth, which reached 281,200 in the year to mid-2004 .
3.3 Asylum seekers
In 1982, there were just 4,223 asylum claims in the UK. The figures began to rise in the 1990s as international travel became easier, and rose sharply after the incorporation of international human rights legislation into the UK Human Rights Act in 1998, followed by an increase in international people trafficking. Not until 2003 did applications begin to fall from their peak of 80,130 in 2002 - see Chart 3.3.1 below. By the 2006, applications (excluding dependants) were running at 23,500 a year, with removals at 16,500, leaving 49,295 asylum seekers (including dependants) being supported by the National Asylum Support System while their applications were being processed. In 2003-4, the Immigration and Nationality Directorate (IND) had spent £1.07 billion on the National Asylum Support Service [National Audit Office, 14 July 2005] Permanent settlement rights were modified from 1 April 2003, with Exceptional Leave to Remain being replaced by Humanitarian Protection or Discretionary Leave.
As a component of a population policy aimed at stabilising UK population and allowing gradual decrease, a choice can be made between (a) welcoming more asylum seekers and fewer economic migrants; and (b) maintaining the current level of grants of asylum and settlement rights while reducing the flow of economic migrants. [Note: For statistics on the numbers and distribution of asylum seekers within the EU, see United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.
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3.4 Legal immigration: students
There are several categories of legal immigrant, including legitimate students, immigrant workers with bona fide short-term work permits, and genuine asylum seekers whose claims have been accepted. Legal student immigration looks set to continue to rise, mainly because the government has set no limit to legal migration from the EU and because overseas students bring in higher fees for UK universities than British students do. There has been rapid growth in the number of overseas students at UK universities, and the British Council has predicted that the number of overseas students wanting to attend UK universities could more than triple [from about 270,000] to more than 870,000 by 2020 [March 2004]. "The equivalent of 62 universities would be needed to accommodate the influx of students - with additional demand for accommodation," [Phil Willis, Liberal Democrat MP]. Home Office estimates suggest (2005) that up to 5,000 illegal immigrants a year enter the UK by enrolling at universities without intending to study.
TABLE 3.4 STUDENTS ACCEPTED EACH YEAR AT UK UNIVERSITIES 2000-2004
| Region of domicile |
2000/1 |
2001/2 |
2002/3 |
2003/4 |
2004/5 |
Prov. 2005/6 |
| UK Home students |
308,718 |
325,472 |
331,725 |
333,942 |
334,295 |
|
| EU students (Non-UK) |
14,046 |
12,175 |
11,992 |
12,572 |
15,452 |
|
| Other overseas students |
16,983 |
20,394 |
24,398 |
27,793 |
27,797 |
|
| Total non-UK students |
31,029 |
32,569 |
36,390 |
40,365 |
43,249 |
|
| All students |
339,747 |
358,041 |
368,115 |
374,307 |
377,544 |
|
Between 1997/8 and 2002/3 alone, the number of non-EU international students at UK universities increased from 117,000 to 185,000 - an almost 60% growth [Professor Ivor Crewe, Universities UK, 15 Sep 2004]. In the 2002/3 academic year there was a 4.3% rise to a total 2.17 million enrolments on higher education courses, with the numbers of non-EU students entering higher education rising by 23% - an increase of about 30,000 to be added to inward migration figures [Higher Education Statistics Agency, 20 Jan 2004]. By 2003/4 there were 213,000 non-EU students and 104,000 students from other EU countries in UK higher education institutions.
These figures do not include enrolments at further education institutions and language schools. In 2003, 319,000 people were given leave to enter the UK as students (for full-time degree courses, daytime study of at least 15 hours a week at recognised institutations, and for full-time courses at fee-paying schools). The effect of student inflows on long-term population growth depends on the extent to which they are able to remain and/or work in the UK, and the extent to which they intermarry with UK citizens and become permanent settlers. There has been a rapid increase in the number of international students being granted extensions to stay in the UK. While in the USA only 2% of foreign students sought extensions to stay in 2001-2003, similar extensions to stay were granted in 2001-2003 by the UK to nearly 100% of students from certain countries and to a total 190,215 overseas students (a 48% increase) in 2003. [Migration Watch, 28 December 2004].
Au pairs fall into a separate category, since they come to the UK for a maximum of two years to combine household help with children with study, and are usually accommodated in existing family homes. There were an estimated 15,300 in 2003.Such expansion of foreign student numbers would increase projected population growth, in OPT's view, to yet more unsustainable levels. No estimate of the environmental and economic costs of such expansion - including greater pressure on land prices, housing and infrastructure, and higher demand for imported energy - has yet been made. The financial benefits would accrue to universities and their employees, but UK students might find themselves squeezed out and the environmental and economic costs of large-scale expansion would have to be met by all UK taxpayers and citizens. While students do not have as great an impact on housing, energy use and environmental degradation as family units do (unless they become permanent settlers by marriage or other means) the impact of such numbers is significant - some universities, for example, are already expanding building development on green belt land. An increase in the number of students taking up citizenship or settlement rights after graduation would cause even greater population growth.
3.5 Legal immigration: citizenships
Citizenship of the UK brings benefits that generations of Britons have worked for and shed blood to protect, yet until recently citizenship has been given away (with few exceptions) as if it were worthless. Migrants need to work in the UK for only four years to become eligible for automatic settlement rights (this has now been extended to five years, with curbs on settlement rights for low-skilled workers). The granting of citizenship and settlement rights has been increasing steadily. In 1997, when the current government came to power, only 37,010 UK citizenships were granted. Some 110,000 immigrants/residents were granted UK citizenship in 2001. In 2002, 115,895 people were granted settlement rights in the UK, 8% more than 2001 [Control of Immigration Statistics, UK 2002, provisional, Home Office August 2003], and the number of citizenships granted in 2003 rose to a record 139,675, with nearly 21,000 arising from asylum, 29,000 from people in work, and nearly 60,000 due to 'family reunion'.
3.6 Legal immigration: work permits
The number of work permit holders and their dependents being granted entry to the UK by the government has also been growing steadily. In 1998, 68,385 immigrant work permit holders and their dependants were granted entry to the UK. This rose to 120,115 in 2002, and rose again to 166,968 (5,980 training and work-based + 7,809 sector-based + 153,179 business and commercial work permits) in 2003, excluding admission of dependants. In 2004, a total 181,432 (4,204 training and work-based + 16,858 sector-based + 160,370 business and commercial work permits) were issued, up 14,464 on 2003 anad more than double the 1998 figure. (These are issued to non-EU citizens, excluding dependents). [Source: Worker Registration Scheme and Work Permit figures published, Home Office, 22 Feb 2005]. By enabling more economic migrants to gain work permits, bring in dependants and extend their stay or remain permanently in the UK, these trends increase the certainty of further population growth.
3.7 The 'perpetual spiral' labour effect of excess immigration
Far from solving labour market requirements, excess immigration appears to have made them worse - by increasing the base population requiring services for which there may already be an inadequate supply of labour. If more people enter than leave, and the inflow is excessive, a perpetual spiral of demand for further immigration can be created. Population growth of about 250,000 a year from 2001-2004 has not solved the 'problems' of skills shortages. It has instead created additional demand for goods and services which employers claim they need to import yet more labour to satisfy. See Economy .
Some visas or work permits are issued for categories of work which encourage cultural exchange (for example student schemes and au pairs). Work permits are also issued to fill gaps in the labour market - particularly in high-skilled areas where it takes years to train a new recruit, and in international companies where diverse linguistic talent or cultural knowledge are vital. If these migrant exchanges are very specifically targeted at skills gaps and the overall migration numbers are (numerically) balanced, they need not increase population pressure on the environment. OPT believes that (zero net immigration effect) quotas should be set on work permit levels and expiry of permission to stay needs to be rigorously enforced. (Sectors can be chosen according to priority skills - the supply of cheap labour for conferencing and corporate entertaining could be curbed, for example, and the supply of construction workers for unpopular, unnecessary and environmentally destructive demolition and mass-housebuilding schemes, many of which are to accommodate expected future migrant flows.) There should also be strict limits on the granting of Indefinite Leave to Remain and UK citizenships, so that this does not have a population growth effect. The government views levels of migration as a matter to be dealt with mainly by market forces, with 'no obvious upper limits' to inward migration. Once granted, however, citizenship is an open-ended commitment, valid for the lifetimes of the original applicant and his or her descendants. Market forces do not effectively measure long-term environmental impacts and economic obligations against short-term benefits to the economy, which are usually not considered for more than a few years ahead. Applying a market forces policy to the granting of citizenships is the equivalent, in economic terms, of matching a 5-year asset against an obligation extending for thousands of years.
Opposition to excessive immigration has been strong and consistent in the UK for several years. Below are the conclusions of just a few recent polls:
HOW MANY MIGRANTS? |
OPT's conclusion has always been that the general public's wish to substantially reduce immigration is not generally related to issues of race, but to the impacts of rising population numbers. Opinion surveys appear to support this view. It is therefore difficult to understand why the government continues to pursue its 'no upper limits' immigration policy.
The government has taken action to reduce illegal immigration, but not to reduce legal immigration. On 8 January 2003 the government's UK Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act 2002 came into force. This and subsequent measures show that the government is taking the necessary measures to stop widespread abuse of the asylum system, and asylum applications have decreased. Policies to control legal immigration, however, have not prevented further increases in inflows, with the effect of raising the rate of population growth.
Since the UK government came to power in 1997 migration has added more than a million people to UK population (see UK Population Figures), yet the government still has a pro-growth policy. Its economic case for this appears to be based on a Treasury/Home Office report on the economic benefits of migration: a research study by the Home Office Research, Development and Statistics Directorate with the Performance and Innovation Unit and the Institute for Public Policy Research [The migrant population in the UK: fiscal effects, RDS Occasional Paper 77, Gott & Johnston, published 22 February 2002]. This study cites a £2.5 billion a year fiscal benefit from immigration. The basis of this calculation has been been criticised as flawed by Cambridge University Professor of Economics Robert Rowthorn (download PDF of critique from Civitas), and the assumed economic benefits of excess immigration by Professor Rowthorn and Oxford University Professor of Demography David Coleman in their 2004 paper The economic effects of immigration into the United Kingdom [Population and Development Review 30(4), 579-624, December 2004]
Economic arguments in favour of excess immigration include the proposition that increasing numbers of young people, including immigrants, are needed to support an ageing population: however, like all young people, immigrants, if they settle and/or become citizens, in turn grow old and require support. (According to the 2001 Census 4.8% of people aged 85 or over in England & Wales were born outside the UK.) A further flow of immigrants would then be needed to restore the balance, leading to unlimited population growth. A United Nations Population Division study Replacement Migration, UK Scenario V, 2000 demonstrated that for the UK to retain as a constant its 1995 support ratio of working-age people to older dependants (4.09), it would need to import 59.8 million immigrants between 1995 and 2050. This would involve inward net migration of more than a million people every year and more than double UK population to 136 million by 2050. There are other solutions to the economic'problems' caused by ageing. See Ageing and hidden unemployment..
As stated already, immigration is only one component part of any population policy with the aim of long term economic, environmental and social sustainability. Seven out of 10 people say that Britain is already overcrowded [overpopulated]. Yet the government still has no minister responsible for overall population policy, nor any stated view on what levels of population are sustainable or desirable for the UK now or in the long term. To the best of our knowledge no government department has conducted any studies of the effects of overpopulation or continued population growth on the environment. Reports on the impacts of economic growth on the environment tend to brush aside the underlying issue of population growth and deny the effects of long-term compound growth. It can only be concluded from the government's actions, therefore, that although it has curbed illegal immigration, its deliberate population policy is still to encourage higher inward legal migration and therefore continuous population growth. See Action and politics . The opposition Conservative Party appears to have considered the issue of population growth, but still maintains it should continue, at a slower rate.
Current EU policy is designed to reduce illegal immigration into the EU, but there is no clear intention to restrain internal movements of legal migrants within the EU.
Before the May 2005 General Election, for the first time in history, voters for mainstream political parties had a clear choice of policies on immigration and could decide which was most likely to help to halt population growth. Conservative party policy proved overwhelmingly more popular than those of the other parties, and since the election the Labour government has adopted some Conservative policies, such as the introduction of a points-based immigration system. No party, however, has yet addressed the issue of the environmental impacts of UK population growth or the potential benefits of gradual decrease to a lower level. See Action and politics . (For party policies on reducing teenage pregnancies, see Fertility .)
A population policy with clear targets and limits to growth should be the responsibility of government. As far as the immigration component is concerned, the government has now firmly stated its wish to curb illegal immigration, but its 2005 five-year plan maintained a 'no upper limits' policy on legal immigration. Government policy still favours net (excess) inward migration and therefore continued overall population growth, with no clear limits set. We hope that a 'zero net effect migration' policy will be the next step, after fuller consideration of the environmental and economic costs of further population growth.
Of the measures listed below (a menu of possibilities), some are already being introduced, and it is now clear that significant numbers of would-be illegal migrants and asylum seekers have been prevented from entering the UK. The number of legal immigrants, however, continues to grow.
Solutions to curb population growth by excess immigration and the excess granting of work permits and citizenships can be chosen according to which are the most effective and acceptable to legitimate British citizens, with consideration for those refugees suffering genuinely life-threatening state persecution, and allow scope for accepting more genuine asylum-seekers, providing that there is a compensating reduction in the flow of economic migrants. Measures could include one or more of the following:
Briefing by Rosamund McDougall,
Advisory Council, Optimum Population Trust
This website launched June 2002
Items last updated 16 November 2007