Oct 30 2007
More migrants -the government cannot count
It came as no surprise to learn today the government had failed to add up all the different categories of migrant worker who have joined the workforce in the last decade. Just as they greatly underestimated the numbers coming from the newer member states of the EU, so they have understated the total numbers of new migrant workers. Finding more workers will make the productivity and income per head figures worse again if they also excluded these from the relevant calculation.
The government has reduced labour flexibility by their employment legislation, but have offset some of the consequences of that by allowing large numbers of new workers to come in from overseas, in some cases ignoring the rules. Any cursory examination of the workforce in large areas of the economy from hospitality and catering through building to casual labour for agriculture shows just what a contribution recently arrived migrant labour makes to our economy.
The big problem for the government is why they have allowed 5.4 million people of working age legally settled here and usually born here to remain on benefits, whilst inviting in so many people from overseas to fill the many jobs being created in the lower pay ranges of the labour market. Mr Brown now says he believes in “British jobs for British workers”, but must know this is a fiction or fantasy. Under the open borders policy within the EU - which this government signed up to - it is EU jobs for EU workers not British jobs for British workers. Under Mr Blair and Mr Brown this has been supplemented by substantial inward migration from outside the EU.
Inward migration has prevented the inflexibility generated by too much regulation and the system of benefits from doing as much damage as they might have done unaided. The challenge now, if the government is serious about EU jobs for EU workers, must be to limit non EU migration and to change the benefit system to offer greater incentives for people to take the jobs that are available. If he really wants “British jobs for British workers” then he needs to negotiate an opt out from the common borders and employment policy of the EU so that he can limit inward migration from the rest of the EU. The government should look at the success the Clinton administration had with their back to work policies in the USA and see how they can adapt them here to start to get some results.
I assume the government will extend the transition arrangements for Roumania and Bulgaria. They say the Conservatives do not have a policy. That’s strange, as I have heard Damian Green and David Cameron articulate a very clear policy, favouring ways of gaining control of our borders,and reducing the numbers of migrant workers allowed in each year from outside the EU. The Conservatives had an opt out from the EU system of common borders which this government surrendered.
The government has lurched from claiming inward migration is beneficial and essential to saying they want “British jobs for British workers”. What we need from the government is some honesty about the figures,and more constructive thoughts on how to get many more people back into work off benefits. What matters is income per head and output per head, not total output. Looking at the poorer parts of the UK it is quite clear incomes are still too low, and the main reason is there are not enough people settled here in jobs.
RSS Feed
John Redwood has been the Member of Parliament for Wokingham since 1987. First attending Kent College, Canterbury, he graduated from Magdalen College...
On Newsnight yesterday Caroline Flint tried to argue that immigration brings a net benefit of 6Bn . These mythical 6bn figure seems to be banded around by various members of the Government every time they are trying to put forward an argument . I heard it plucked out of thin air by Gordon Brown to describe the assumed “black hole” in our tax plans without any explanations as to how they calculated it and in the same way this figure was not challenged yesterday by Kirsty Wark . It would have seemed logical to ask how they calculated this figure and how accurate it could be considering that they missed the number of immigrants working here by 30%. Furthermore what do this supposed 6Bn brought by immigrant workers mean? Are they just gross income figures ? net of taxes ? net of costs to social services , health and infrastructure ? Can we see some figures that prove this calculations?
Why is it that everytime we come up with a proposal it is always critically dissected by the BBC with the obvious intent of finding a flaw in it ,whereas this Labour Government can keep on plucking figures out of thin air with calculations which are evidently done on the back of a packet of cigarettes and they are never even slightly questioned .
On today’s Daily Politics Andrew Neil reported that their researchers had found that even the new revised figure of 1.1 million immigrants is wrong and that two sources have the real figure at 1.5 million. The deceit goes on!
As for the 5.4 million people of working age on benefits, they comprise a large proportion of Brown’s client state to whom he looks for support at the ballot box so don’t expect any real action in that direction either.
Oh, why don’t the Great British Public (for it is they that decide our future when they vote - or not - at General Elections) realise how incompetent this Labour hegemony has been for the last 10 years.?
They must be kicked out if we are to maintain a stable society.
I know Labour are incompetent, but I thought they could at least count. Then again, our government being unable to count explains why so many school leavers can’t count either.
http://lettersfromatory.wordpress.com/2007/10/30/extraordinary-development-in-hains-incompetence/
If you put an advert in a national paper paying welders
Many of the people in Britain have been kicked down by this and previous governments. A fifty year old ex-factory or shipyard worker is not going to move from the north to the south for six quid an hour, even if he could, and the teenagers have not got it in them. Hence many young sort of middle class East Europeans fill the jobs. Adventure and maybe a little money. Simple.