Global Migration and Mobility (EUC Report)

Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts Excerpts

Thursday 6th June 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts]

My Lords, I begin by congratulating the members of Sub-Committee F on this very interesting and challenging report. Until a year ago, I had the privilege of being a member of the Sub-Committee so should have known that a committee chaired by the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, and with Michael Torrance as his clerk would produce a report that was rigorous, evidence-based and clear. I found myself applauding much of it, particularly the actions that could be taken to help speed up the economic development and increase the political stability of source countries. Yet as I read the report, an element of doubt crept into my mind and it is that element which forms the basis of my remarks today.

I want to focus on three statements in the report. First, there is the second to last paragraph of the summary, which reads, as the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, pointed out:

“The EU’s Single Market is predicated on the free movement of its own citizens between Member States. This freedom is fundamental to the United Kingdom’s continued membership of the EU”.

Secondly, there is the conclusion in paragraph 46, which, while encouraging migration to meet specific skills shortages, goes on:

“However, such an approach is not a panacea, and should form part of a comprehensive approach which also tackles the development of skills among the existing workforce”.

Thirdly and finally, there is the sentence in paragraph 2 which reads:

“Population density in the United Kingdom, which is roughly twice that of Germany and four times that of France, means that migration policy is a matter of keen political debate”.

“Keen political debate” is an appropriately measured phrase. In my remarks today I am seeking to be similarly measured because this is an issue that, as the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, said in his introduction, can all too easily be hijacked by groups for their own purposes, some of which are not altogether pleasant.

Here are a couple of statistics. Today the population of the United Kingdom is just over 63 million. For the record, England, with a population density of 383 people per square kilometre, has just overtaken the Netherlands to be the most densely populated country in Europe, leaving aside city states such as Monaco. England is now the sixth most densely populated country in the world after Bangladesh, Taiwan, South Korea, Lebanon and Rwanda.

I am afraid that that is just the beginning of the challenge that we face. As I said, our population is just over 63 million, but the mid-range projections from our Office for National Statistics suggest that the UK’s population will reach 70 million by 2027, 15 years from now. That is an increase of 7 million people. What do 7 million people look like? The city of Manchester has 500,000 people in it, so think 14 Manchesters. The larger Manchester conurbation, including Bolton, Bury, Oldham, Rochdale, Salford, Stockport, Tameside, Trafford and Wigan, has a population of just over 2 million. So, to house this increase in population we may have to build the equivalent of three Greater Manchesters by 2027. This increase in population will surely not be spread evenly across the country. The bulk of the increase may well take place in the south-east, where we may have to build two of those three Greater Manchesters to which I am referring. It will be something of challenge for future government Ministers to explain all this, not least to those who live in shires and leafy suburbs.

At this point, some noble Lords may be tempted to reach for the exemplar of Thomas Malthus, who in the late 18th century said that at some date in the future a global famine would take us because of a rising population. Such noble Lords are inclined to say that Malthus has so far been proved wrong, and we should not worry about these issues now. However, we are not talking about Malthus or about some date in the future but about the output of a respected government agency giving predictions for only 15 years from now, well within the lifetime of people in your Lordships’ House today.

Should we worry about this? I have already referred to our present population density of 383 people per square kilometre. Bangladesh has about 1,400 people per square kilometre, 3.5 or four times as dense, so we can certainly fit the people in—but at what cost to the quality of life? Sir John Sulston, who recently chaired a Royal Society inquiry on people and the planet, said that our target should not be to cram as many people as possible on to the planet. He went on to say:

“We have to look at what will allow humankind to flourish. We want to aim for a high quality of life and not just to scrape along”.

What gives this issue a particular edge in the context of this debate on the EU is the unique position of the United Kingdom in this regard. The report rightly points out that France, with 102 people per square kilometre, is about 25% as densely populated as we are while Germany, with 226 people per square kilometre, is about two-thirds as densely populated. No less importantly, though, both those countries and Italy have falling populations. Germany’s population today is 83 million, compared with our 63 million. On present German trends, that will fall to between 70 million and 74 million by mid-century. At some point in the 2030s, the UK’s population will overtake Germany’s, and we will become the most populous country in Europe.

The question that I have to pose today is this: if these current trends persist, can we continue to allow the completely untrammelled movement of labour within the EU without imposing increasing and unwelcome strains on our civil society? The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Derby touched on some of the first signs of how this issue may pan out. At the heart of this debate, which is faced by all EU member states, is the moral significance attached to a particular birthplace. In other words, does a country or any aspect of it belong to its inhabitants, no matter what their colour or creed? Do we follow what has been called the “cruise liner” theory of the nation, in which people come together temporarily and have no ongoing relationship, or should the fact of being born in Britain—the accident, if you prefer to use that phrase—automatically entitle you to your country’s collective heritage? These are deep philosophical waters and beyond the terms of our debate today, but they none the less provide the background against which this report has to be considered.

On a more practical level, it is perhaps worth reflecting on why the UK’s population might be growing so fast. Some may say that it is about the social security system, which is universal and means-tested, as opposed to being primarily contributory as on the continent. It may be, but I rather think that is only a minor feature. I think there are two more potent forces at work. The first is the point made by my noble friend Lord MacGregor of Pulham Market about the ability to learn English. For better or worse, English has become the world’s lingua franca and, in particular, it has become the lingua franca of technology, so how better to fit yourself for the modern world than by coming to the UK to learn English?

The second is the anecdotal issue of EU citizens coming quite legally to this country to undertake work that our fellow citizens appear unwilling to do. Every Member of your Lordships’ House will have anecdotes about this and the challenges it presents: this is mine. I have a house on the Shropshire-Herefordshire border. Every year, thousands of eastern European citizens perfectly legally come to pick fruit, yet there are many unemployed people in the city of Hereford and in Herefordshire. The special and specific challenge that we face is to see what we can do in Hereford and elsewhere to encourage people to take responsibility for their financial future and so to give them the self-respect that will follow. That is why I so strongly support the conclusion of paragraph 46 that immigration can be no panacea. If it is seen as one, we risk creating a disaffected, disengaged, sullen minority of what the late Lord Dahrendorf christened the underclass. If this is true in this country, how much more pertinent must it be on the continent in Spain, Greece, Portugal, Italy and even France, where unemployment among young people seems to range between 20% and 45%?

To conclude, I congratulate Sub-Committee F on addressing this issue. The challenges of absolute population size, age balance, equality of access to economic opportunity and the extent to which the UK and the EU open their doors to all comers are great. As my noble friend on the Front Bench prepares his reply, he will no doubt be thinking with relief that this all goes well beyond his brief and pass swiftly on. That is part of the problem. These challenges affect every aspect of government and every government department, but they are the responsibility of no government department. David Goodhart, the director of the think tank Demos and previously a senior correspondent for the Financial Times, has recently published a fascinating book on this topic called The British Dream. He describes himself as a public schoolboy leftie with an instinctive sympathy for those seeking a better life for themselves, but he none the less concludes that Britain has had too much immigration too quickly, that its economic benefits have been oversold, that it has demoralised the indigenous working-class population and, most importantly, that it threatens to undermine the contract between the generations and the consensus on which our entire welfare state rests. He is writing about Britain, but looking at his book and hearing on the news about other EU countries, one cannot help but be drawn to the read-across from the situation here to that elsewhere on the continent.

These remarks may seem uncompromising, unwelcome and unfriendly, and no doubt some noble Lords may wish to criticise me for making them, but Dean Acheson, the US Secretary of State, once famously remarked that in a democracy policies do not trickle down, they well up. This is an issue that is welling up fast.