UK: Population

Lord Green of Deddington Excerpts

Thursday 16th July 2015 Grand Committee

Asked by

[Lord Green of Deddington]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what plans they have to prevent the population of the United Kingdom reaching an unsustainable level.

[Lord Green of Deddington (CB)]

My Lords, I am grateful for this opportunity to raise a matter that is crucial to the future of our society, but which does not remotely receive the attention which it deserves. I thank the House of Lords Library for its comprehensive briefing pack on this subject.

There will be many views on what would be a sustainable population for the UK, but what is clear is that our current population growth of half a million a year is simply unsustainable—socially, practically and politically. Indeed, the speed of our population growth is propelling the train towards an inevitable crash. It is not a case of signal failure. The Office for National Statistics is flashing orange and red lights, but at rather a low intensity. It seems that the train crew, in the shape of Governments past and present, are determined to ignore them. They seem to fear that they will be accused of seeking to impose on the passengers a Chinese-style one-child policy. Or perhaps they fear that they will be accused of blaming those passengers who have only recently joined the train.

Whatever the reasoning, the whole issue of the growth of our population needs revisiting. It is now increasing at the fastest rate for nearly a century. In the year to last August, the UK population increased by nearly half a million—that is the equivalent of the entire population of the city of Manchester, or, indeed, of Bradford

It is important to be clear that our birth rate has been below the replacement rate of 2.1 since 1972. Mortality is gradually falling, but in the long run immigration will be responsible for almost all our population increase, either directly or indirectly.

It is surely common ground that migration in both directions is a natural, necessary and desirable part of an open economy and society. Indeed, many immigrants have made an extremely valuable contribution to our society, including, of course, a considerable number of noble Lords.

Immigration becomes an issue only when its scale becomes excessive, leading to unacceptable increases in population. I believe that that is now the case in the UK, certainly in respect of England, and in recent years successive opinion polls have confirmed that three-quarters of the public share my view.

Until 1998, net migration was not much more than 50,000 a year and was even negative in some years. However, decisions by the Labour Government led to that flow increasing by a factor of five. Unfortunately, there was no substantial reduction under the coalition Government. As a result, average net migration over the past 10 years has been at an extraordinary 240,000 a year. If that level were to continue, as it might well, our population would grow from the present 65 million to around 73 million in 15 years. That is an increase of almost 8 million, which is the equivalent of the combined population of the cities of—wait for it—Birmingham, Leeds, Sheffield, Bradford, Manchester, Edinburgh, Liverpool, Bristol, Cardiff, Newcastle, Aberdeen, Leicester, Coventry, Glasgow, Nottingham, Stoke-on-Trent, Portsmouth, Bolton and Doncaster, all in 15 years. That is frankly absurd; we cannot allow it to happen. Indeed, of the almost 8 million I mentioned, 7 million in that 15 years will be in England. It could even be worse. Last year, net migration reached 318,000. At that rate, the numbers are even greater. The UK population would soar to 75 million in 15 years and to 80 million in 25 years. That would make the UK the most populous country in Europe, overtaking Germany some years before that.

There are, of course, some who continue to claim that Britain needs migrants because our population is ageing. It is surely obvious that immigration is not the answer, for the very simple reason that immigrants themselves grow older. The effect, therefore, is to add to our population in some kind of giant Ponzi scheme. In fact, it is well understood by demographers, including UN demographers, that population ageing cannot be solved by immigration.

There are many ways to tackle an ageing population. The most important is for people to work longer in their longer and healthier lives. So the Government have been exactly right, in our view, to raise the retirement age in the way that they have. England, the destination of the vast majority of migrants, is already one of the most crowded countries in the world, almost twice as crowded as Germany and nearly four times as crowded as France. Yet successive Governments have ducked the issue of population. They are happy to discuss it on a world scale but are not willing to address it as a national problem, despite the fact that there are huge implications for all parts of our society and government.

One immediate impact is on education. In many parts of the country there are already shortages of places in primary schools. The Local Government Association estimates that three out of five local authorities will have a shortfall of places by 2018-19. Even now more than 100,000 primary school pupils are being taught in classes of more than 30 children. Only yesterday we learnt that the proportion of children born in England and Wales to foreign-born mothers reached a record level of 27%.

Collective heads are buried even deeper in the sand over housing. Successive Governments have long failed to ensure the construction of the estimated 250,000 new homes that are required every year. Last year, only 140,000 were completed. The most recent publication on household formation from the Department for Communities and Local Government did not even consider the impact of immigration on housing. It was left to the Office for National Statistics to estimate that 95% of the growth in households since 2010 have been households with a foreign-born head—technically a “household reference person”. That is the source of most additional housing demand and has been for some years. Indeed, in the previous debate the noble Lord, Lord Gardiner of Kimble, spoke of the need for more housing in rural communities.

Certainly, we need to build more homes, but equally, we must tackle demand and in practice that means bringing down the scale of immigration. Effective action of that kind would help very greatly in tackling the housing crisis. Otherwise, the situation is perfectly clear: we shall quite simply have to go on building large numbers of dwellings indefinitely. That seems to me to make very little sense.

We also have to ask whether we can really integrate 3 million immigrants into our society in the next 10 years. What would such an influx mean for our sense of community and identity? What is it doing to the character of our nation? How do we stop our society becoming less cohesive and, indeed, more fragmented? We cannot allow these matters to drift any longer. The train is hurtling along and it is time to apply the brakes. In practice, that means applying the brakes to mass immigration.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Bates]

I understand that the noble Lord is doing a good job of seeking to draw out from me a statement that X number represents sustainability and Y number indicates unsustainability. I am trying to say—I agree that it is a slightly nuanced argument even for a Thursday afternoon—that we want to talk about migration levels because, effectively, we can deal with those. He is talking about something in the future which we cannot control. We are interested in dealing with the now.

[Lord Green of Deddington]

My Lords, the key point is that virtually all future population growth is as a result of immigration. We need to be clear about that. Therefore, as a practical matter, we do not need to say that we want 80 million, 90 million, 70 million or 40 million. If we think the numbers are getting too great and if we understand that three-quarters of the public think that, we have to bring the level of immigration down, as the noble Lord was outlining.

[Lord Rosser]

I agree, to an extent, with what the noble Lord, Lord Green, has said, but what I was trying to establish—and I appreciate that net migration has an impact on the figures, as do birth rates and mortality rates—was whether it is the Government’s view that their own projections constitute an unsustainable level of population. I am unable to get an answer from the Minister as to whether the Government believe that their own figures constitute an unsustainable level of population.