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STORY OF THE CENTURY: Flawed Migration Policies to Cost the UK Government a Trillion Pounds a Year

After years of criticism and a campaign by Conservative Post readers, the OBR have at last acknowledged that the quality of immigrant and how long they stay, matters more than the quantity.

And the results are startling, a low value migrant (such as a dependent or unskilled worker) will cost the state a net £0.5m, if they stay till aged 80.

By contrast, British-born workers and high skilled migrants make large net contributions.

Unfortunately, the OBR’s modelling thereafter falls into the lazy usage of net-migration to create best- and worst-case scenarios, and ignores the bulk of migrants who do not come on work visas at all.

Moreover, immigration cohorts look very different to emigration cohorts. To get a true picture, we need to drill down into the quality of immigration and emigration.

As Shadow Minister Robert Jenrick and Karl Williams have shown, around 90-95% of current immigration is low value. That is low wage workers, students, dependents and unskilled migrants (often with poor English and high rates of criminality). The much-vaunted post-Brexit wave of surgeons and tech entrepreneurs has not been forthcoming, nor has it saved the NHS.

Only 2.8% of visas have been awarded to doctors or nurses: hence immigration is an enormous drain on the NHS. Given that we have been handing out over a million visas a year to low-end migrants (at a cost of half a million each if they stay), the bill is already eye-watering.

Only 2.8% of visas have been awarded to doctors or nurses: hence immigration is an enormous drain on the NHS.

Jenrick’s co-authored research highlights the unsustainable strain caused by current levels of immigration. Based on his findings, economically optimal gross migration levels would fall well below 200,000 per annum, necessitating negative net migration for the foreseeable future. Such an approach would not only enhance safety and economic stability but also help resolve pressing issues such as housing shortages, overstretched infrastructure, and wage stagnation.

Crucially, it would encourage efforts to reintegrate the ten million workless adults into productive careers, ensuring a brighter and more sustainable future for all.

There is also the emigration side. As has been widely report in the media, the UK is undergoing a brain drain. We are the OECD’s largest exporter of doctors and are forecast to lose more millionaires than any other country (we are already only just behind China). In other words, emigrants look to be mostly net contributors.

We are the OECD’s largest exporter of doctors and are forecast to lose more millionaires than any other country…

None of this should be a surprise. Given that low end migrants can expect £500k in freebies by staying, simple hedonic modelling suggests they are unlikely to leave and other countries will be reluctant to take them.

Meanwhile, high-end migrants and skilled British nationals can expect to pay £300-900k in net contributions. That is a good motivation to emigrate. Not least, because a growing number of countries (including EU nations) are offering preferential tax rates and visas to attract high end / low-cost migrants.

Thus, if we plug in the OBR’s assumptions, the worst-case scenario is terrifying. Assuming the OBR’s 400k net migration is composed of 900k low-end migrants each year (adding £450bn to long-term government spending), and 500k quality emigrants leaving (costing over £150bn in lost contributions); that is £600bn (over 20% of GDP) in liabilities every single year! Remember, this is coming on top of all our existing liabilities, like debt and unfunded pensions.

That £600bn itself may be an underestimate. Low skilled migration has been running at higher levels than that since 2021. Moreover, research has found very low levels of tax compliance among low-end migrants from the developing world – it seems migrants import their taxpaying habits of their home country.

We should have known this years ago. However, the unacountable Quango, the Migration Advisory Committee, has consistently failed to engage at all with British voters or perform any economic analysis. Run by woke academics, and hijacked by vested interests, its committee members have routinely expressed their personal contempt for British taxpayers. It is time to hold them to account for their failures.

From now on, we should demand that every single visa or settlement grant should include a full lifetime net contribution calculation. Only those making a large positive contribution should be signed off.

Any country that runs up liabilities at this rate will be as broke as Zimbabwe within five years. It may not take that long because financial markets are anticipatory. If they can see we are heading for crisis, they will panic early.

Any country that runs up liabilities at this rate will be as broke as Zimbabwe within five years.

Why haven’t we noticed till now? The answer is that mass migration is a very new experiment. Up until 1900, 90% of people never ventured more than twenty miles from their homes. Up until 1998, UK net migration barely ever exceeded 50,000 a year and was often negative. Now it is running at about fifteen times that. In fact, more people have migrated to the UK this century than in the previous 934 years since the Norman Conquest.

However, there is an alarming precedent. Lebanon was once an idyllic French colony, famed for its culture and fabulous geography. You could tan yourself on a beach in the morning and be skiing by the afternoon.

Today, Lebanon is known for violence, terrorism, corruption and what The World Bank has described as one of the worst financial crises since the 19th century. The 2020 economic meltdown and currency collapse has led to an ongoing spiral of political instability, widespread resource shortages, high unemployment and poverty.

Why did this happen? Lebanon has long been a guinea pig for extreme migration policies. Out of a population of just five million nearly two million are refugees, giving the country the highest ratios of refugees in the world. At the other end of the spectrum is the famous Lebanese Diaspora. More Lebanese people live outside of Lebanon than within it. The country is particularly renowned for producing outstanding businessmen (if you can run a business inside Lebanon, you can run one anywhere). Hardly any wealthy or qualified Lebanese people remain in the country. What Lebanon has done is to bring a lot of people in at the bottom of the social pyramid, while exporting those at the top. The result is total social and economic collapse.

What Lebanon proves is how fragile that economic pyramid is. In the UK, the top 1% of earners pay 30% of income tax and the top 10% of earners pay 60%. One would expect those trends to be even more extreme for other levies like inheritance tax or stamp duty. In other words, our whole system of government really depends on that top 10%. At the bottom end of the scale, around 1% of the population commit over half of crimes. That same 1% also massively over-index for benefits and healthcare.

Think about this. If you swapped out our top 1% of contributors for 1% at the bottom, that tiny change would leave you with have exactly the same population, but you would need an overnight cut of 35% to ALL public spending. Lose a few people at the top and add a few more at the bottom and that upended pyramid topples over.

If you swapped out our top 1% of contributors for 1% at the bottom, that tiny change would leave you with have exactly the same population, but you would need an overnight cut of 35% to ALL public spending.

Moreover, as with Lebanon, these trends are self-reinforcing. Thanks to chain migration, new arrivals will often attract more if the benefits are worth it. While at the top end, crime, loss of social cohesion and the rising taxes to pay for it all, will push away increasing numbers of the most productive people. Like a sinking ship, once you’re taking on water, you sink faster.

This makes the issue especially urgent. Since 2021, we have taken in over 4 million low end migrants. From 2026, the vast majority could gain permanent settlement or citizenship. At that point their costs will surge, as they become entitled to even more benefits. That alone could cost us £2 trillion.

Moreover, modelling of previous waves of developing world migrants shows that when settlement happens, vast numbers of dependents arrive using chain migration rights. By definition, those dependents will contribute little or nothing in taxes but heavily consume public services. Another eight million could be heading our way over the next decade, at a cost of £4 trillion or more. In other words, the bill from the Post-covid wave of new arrivals that are already here and their incoming dependents could be 6 trillion pounds, or 15 times the entire cost of Covid. That is why an immediate emergency stop on all citizenship, indefinite leave and settlement grants is vital.

This is not just a British problem, but a European problem. Europe accounts for 7% of the world population, but over half of welfare spending. It also has some of the world’s highest tax rates for the wealthy. That is very effective at attracting net consumers and repelling net contributors.

What Europe and the UK are suffering from is Lebanese Disease, and the economic consequences are huge. Europe’s sudden lurch to the right is not down to a loss (or gain) of morality. It is just facing up to reality.

That’s the bad news. However, what if we got migration right? Let’s say we attracted 400k quality immigrants each year, through a simplified visa system only for very high-end workers who must leave at the end of their visa, and perhaps a credible non-dom offer for multi-millionaires. That could add around £120bn for the Chancellor every year.

Moreover, what if we nudged out 400k low end migrants a year as well? That would involve more deportations of criminals, offshoring asylum seekers, paying costly migrants to leave as Sweden is doing, fewer available benefits and not issuing a single low-end visa or extension. Crucially, citizenship and indefinite leave must be restricted to a tiny minority of very high value immigrants. These measures could save the Chancellor around £200bn every single year.

Thus, an optimised migration system could gift the government at least £320bn (over 10% of GDP) annually.

The difference between these scenarios is almost a trillion pounds – that’s a third of GDP – every year!

And because our current migration patterns look remarkably similar to the worst-case, our flawed migration policies are costing the government (taxpayer) nearly a trillion pounds every year.

To put this in perspective, the entire cost of the Covid Pandemic was a snip at £400bn, while the NHS barely registers at £180bn a year.

Wow! Even Nigel Farage has underestimated how important immigration policy is. It really is the difference between being Switzerland in ten years’ time or Lebanon in five years’ time.

Wow! Even Nigel Farage has underestimated how important immigration policy is. It really is the difference between being Switzerland in ten years’ time or Lebanon in five years’ time.

If Labour were to optimise immigration tomorrow, they could afford to do all the things we want to do on things like public sector pay, health, education, justice, and still have money to pay for tax cuts and winter fuel.

If they do not, they cannot afford to do any of them. With migration policy set to consume 75% of public spending, this is going to annihilate the public sector. Over the next generation, current migration policies will cost at least half of public sector staff their jobs, while the few who are lucky enough to keep them will see real pay cuts of at least 50%, while public sector and state pensions will have to be cancelled. There is going to be an almighty showdown between the Labour government and its union paymasters.

At a trillion pounds a year, Lebanisation is the economic and political story of the century. It is no wonder fixing immigration has surged in polls as the top issue for all voters, and especially those on the right. The political and the economic stakes could not be higher.

It is time to expose the costs of migration. Please email this to your MP, the OBR and the Migration Advistory Committee and demand a response.

Share this with your MP: WriteToThem – Email your Councillor, MP, MSP, MS, MLA or London Assembly Member for free
Send it to the Migration Advisory Commitee: [email protected]
Write to the OBR:[email protected]
And if you or your friends are members of a Public Sector Union, please email this and warn them how Labour’s migration plans will destroy our public sector and our pensions.

Andrew Hunt and Claire Bullivant are co-Founders of the Great British PAC (coming soon!) www.GreatBritishPac.com

This article (STORY OF THE CENTURY: Flawed Migration Policies to Cost the UK Government a Trillion Pounds a Year) was created and published by Conservative Post and is republished here under “Fair Use” with attribution to the author CP

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