Let me try a statistic on you. Homes headed by someone born abroad accounted for more than 80% of the total growth of households in London's rented sector between January 2008 and January 2017. (Yes, 80%: 265,000 out of 328,000 net increase).
Now a question - can facts - simple, true statements that are 100% factually accurate - be racist? That would surely be a preposterous suggestion, though obviously facts can be deployed selectively in a way intended to inflame opinion. Especially in times when there is so much moral outrage at perceived slights or micro-aggressions. I nearly said mock outrage but, worryingly, it often doesn't seem to be put on.
I'm taking the "fact" above to be true because it was published by Migration Watch, a think tank that takes the view that current levels of migration are neither sustainable nor well managed. Migration Watch has had a good handle on immigration statistics over the years and has rarely been "called out", to use the latest Americanism to take hold in our language, for getting things factually incorrect. Does the fact that the stat comes from a Migration Watch report influence your opinion of it? Indeed, should it?
I ask these questions because there is a worrying trend to suppress freedom of speech in our country. At universities, with no platforming for example. And sometimes by the howl of "raaaaacissssst!" when a valid point is made in debate.
The reason the statistic is important is that rents in London, in the same period, went up by 36% whereas earnings increased by 21%. While not a scientific proof of a connection between immigration and high rents, that would seem to me to be far more than circumstantial evidence.
The impact on housing costs has been greatest in London, though the stats country wide are even more extreme: 1.1 million households with a foreign born head out of 1.2 million total growth, over 90%, but with the rent rise being "only" 23%, presumably because of a less adverse supply and demand position than in London.
As nearly half of households headed by a person aged 25 to 34 live in private rented accommodation, the impact has been greatest on young people. The very people who tended to vote against Brexit and believe strongly in freedom of movement.
Let me try another pair of stats on you: there were 140,000 recorded errors in NHS maternity units last year, ranging from minor to life threatening. And more than six in ten babies born in London hospitals last year had mothers who were either immigrants or were visiting from abroad. That latter stat isn't from Migration Watch, by the way. It's published by the Office for National Statistics. Is it any surprise that maternity units are under such pressure?
So are the problems in housing or the NHS due to austerity or, to use a word used by David Cameron, immigrants and visitors "swamping" the system?
None of this is to say that immigration hasn't been beneficial for the economy and the country because, for the most part, it has: plenty of commentators have gone through that.
But what is exercising my mind is this. We now need to invest significant extra resources in house building. The target 300,000 units a year is 50% more than the highest levels we have normally achieved in many decades. Arguably, we should have started sooner but there was a financial crisis after all. Similarly, yet more money may well be needed for the NHS and other services like education. But if the economy has done so well as a result of immigration, why isn't the exchequer flush with funds to spend from all the extra taxation, when in fact we still have an alarmingly high deficit and so the debt gets higher every year.
A number of studies have shown that immigration has been positive for the economy but they have tended not to consider the extra spend needed on services and the extra investment needed on infrastructure.
If the proceeds of immigration were paying for top class new facilities and additional services perhaps the rise of UKIP, the kamikaze EU referendum and Brexit would not have happened. But that is not the case.
I hope readers don't think that promulgating these gobsmacking facts is racist. There are serious issues here that we will continue to have to grapple with for some time, even if the government were to be successful in limiting net immigration to the tens of thousands, whether or not it should. Which might of course put brakes on the economy. Or might lead to industry and commerce investing in ways of increasing our chronically low productivity.
Let's hope someone has some answers and 2018 is a prosperous new year. But either way I wish you all a happy one.
*the Migration Watch report "Migration and Housing" was published on 21 December and is at https://www.migrationwatchuk.org/briefing-paper/438
The summary article "Young people are paying the price as high net migration contributes to housing crisis" is at https://www.migrationwatchuk.org/press-release/517
I have never understood those with racist views and for UK citizens to complain about immigration is just bizarre based on our history of exploiting others all over the world. There are millions of people all over the world with UK ancestors, should they not have gone?
ReplyDeleteBut a thought closer to home. As I grew up I became aware that my Grandmother on my Dad's side of the family would often make anti-Semitic remarks. I did not know why she did it but sadly I heard my Dad agreeing with her. When I asked my Dad late in his life why he had a downer on Jewish people it became apparent that it was probably just passed down from one generation to another. The bottom line was that it was racial prejudice nothing more. It made no sense to me and never will.
That we even have to discuss racial issues in 2018 disturbs me. And we like to think of ourselves as civilised!
I agree entirely and that immigration is generally beneficial. But try this argument. What if we had taken all the immigrants arriving into Europe over the last few years, every one of them. Hypothetical, I agree. Countries should take their share of asylum seekers. But, hypothetically, if that had happened, could we have coped? There must be some scale and rate beyond which serious problems arise. The Migration Watch stats suggest the housing crisis is due, in large part, to the scale and rate of immigration. That isn't to say we shouldn't just build more houses (which is effectively government policy). But it is only sensible to be aware of the implications of the various policy decisions we are taking. There is a credible argument that reducing immigration would ease the pressure on housing in the future. My point was simply that having this debate isn't fundamentally - or even at all -racist.
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