Immigration and Social Security Co-ordination (EU Withdrawal) Bill

Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts Excerpts

Committee stage & Committee: 4th sitting (Hansard) & Committee: 4th sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 16th September 2020 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts]

77: After Clause 4, insert the following new Clause—
“Charter for EU Immigration and Demographic Change
(1) The Secretary of State must prepare a document, to be known as the Charter for EU Immigration and Demographic Change, explaining the formulation of the policies of Her Majesty’s Government relating to immigration from the European Union.(2) The Charter must, in particular, set out—(a) the Government’s demographic objectives in relation to such immigration, and(b) the means by which such objectives will be attained.(3) The Government must lay the Charter before Parliament within one year of the commencement of this Act.”

[Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts (Con)]

My Lords, I will also speak to Amendment 78, which forms part of this group. I do not often quote Lenin, but he is supposed to have said, “There are decades where nothing happens; and there are weeks where decades happen.” Our present era is one of the latter. It presents challenges and opportunities to the people in this country and across the world, and a challenge for Governments in managing these changes in a way that enhances our overall quality of life while balancing the inevitable tension between preservation and progress. However, politicians of all persuasions find it hard to address these mega-issues, which have a 10, 20 or even 30-year timescale. Inevitably, and quite properly, they have their eyes fixed on the five-year electoral cycle. Given this, it is perhaps unsurprising that, for many politicians, the long grass is an effective way out.

Many Members of your Lordships’ House will be aware of my long-standing interest in demography and the impact of demographic change. The results of increases or decreases in population—I am glad to see the noble Baroness, Lady Ludford, in her place, because she referred to the dangers of decreases in her speech when I was not here last Wednesday; she was quite right about that—are inexorable in their effect and are of extreme importance to the settled population of this country. When I refer to the “settled population” I mean every person legally entitled to be in this country, irrespective of race, colour or creed, or whether they have lived here for five months or 500 years. The views of the settled population on the issue of population growth could not be clearer. Recent polling found that 64% of us think that the UK is too crowded and 74% felt that the Government should have policies to address this challenge.

Nevertheless, there remains an influential minority, particularly among the commentariat, who agree that this is all too difficult and what will be will be. On the right, the argument is that the market will decide. On the left, the brotherhood of man means that we should keep our arms and our borders open. However, I am afraid that these arguments would not be supported by the overwhelming majority of this country. For many, a perpetually growing population in a relatively small island has not obviously resulted in an improvement in their prosperity or their way of life.

A couple of figures help set the matter in context. In the late 1990s, when the Blair Government decided to encourage large-scale immigration, the population of the United Kingdom was 58.1 million. Today, it is 66.4 million—an increase of more than 8 million. The ONS mid-projection for 25 years from now is 72 million —another 6 million increase. Therefore, over half a century our population will have increased 14 million, or 24%—a particularly significant figure in a country with some very densely populated regions.

Even reciting these figures gives critics the chance to allege a little Englander mentality, with machine guns on the white cliffs of Dover. That is not so: I absolutely recognise that new arrivals bring an economic and cultural dynamic from which our society has benefited greatly. This is an argument about scale, the wider impact of population growth and responding to the concerns of the people of this country in a way that builds trust in government.

Most of the arguments in favour of the demographic policies followed to date have been economic ones. Total GDP is often waved about by politicians as some sort of totemic symbol of success. Like many, I find that argument unappealing. GDP per head would surely be a more accurate measurement, and since economic gains are often not fairly shared, median GDP per head would be even better. We can argue about these and many other economic factors and we have done so at great length in this House over the years. What is unarguable is that no one is weighing in the scale the long-term non-economic challenges for our environment, our ecology and our society.

According to the latest ONS figures, released a couple of weeks ago, our population is currently growing by an average of 1,172 per day—428,000 per year. We live 2.3 people per dwelling. So on that metric, the inevitable maths show that we need to build 509 dwellings every day, 21 an hour, one every three minutes. By 2040, we seem likely to have built over an area the size of Bedfordshire—this after a decade in which Danny Dorling, professor of geography at Oxford University, has said:

“In absolute terms this is very likely to be the largest increase in the number of square miles that have been tarmacked or paved over in any decade in British history”.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall) (Lab)]

My Lords, I have received no further requests to speak after the Minister, so I call the noble Lord, Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts.

[Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts (Con)]

I thank all who participated in this debate. This was the first time we have taken the car out on the track and I think we got around without a wheel coming off. I am particularly grateful to my noble friends Lord Horam and Lady Neville-Rolfe on the economics, the importance of productivity and the problem of crowding out and to the noble Baroness, Lady Greengross. When I was preparing my pamphlet, I went to see a captain of industry about employing older people. He said “Of course, we are very keen to employ older people”, and I said “Well, let us look at your human resources booklet”. It did not have a person over 30 in it. The way our society looks at people is unfair.

Of course, the noble Lord, Lord Green, has forgotten more about immigration than I will ever know. To the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, I say—without wishing to flog my pamphlet—that there is a map of the ecological footprint of London in it, on which you can see the numbers she referred to. I thought I got half— no, a quarter—of a loaf out of the noble Baroness, Lady Ludford. It was a principled refusal but the car needed a bit of tinkering to get her to come onside.

To the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, I say that we had a classic knockabout. We were all biffed about. I will make one serious point, which is meant to be gentle. If the Labour Party does not get its act together and its policy clear on the issues of people coming to this country, it will not regain the red-wall seats that went blue. People outside the M25 feel passionately about this. How you tackle it is up to his party but just saying “Never mind; it will all be alright” does not, to be honest, sound like a good political strategy.