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       Our politicians must show courage on immigration (Image: Getty)

       The German election showed how important and unsettling the issue of immigration has been to voters in that country – causing a massive protest vote. But growing disquiet across Europe and the world about how large populations might be resettled hasn’t yet stopped Britain from pursuing a policy of high immigration. That’s the obvious conclusion of the latest figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS), whose projections show that in the decade from 2022 to 2032, the population will increase by five million – and it will all be from immigration.

       That’s because births and deaths are at the same level, effectively cancelling each other out, even taking into account the assumption that medical technology will continue to extend life. This is still probably an underestimate. The ONS projections believe that while ten million migrants will come here by 2032, five million will return home. But since 2021, the sources of migration have shifted from people from Europe, who are more likely to go home, to people from Africa and Asia, who are less likely to go home. The ONS also assumes that net migration will decrease over the next few years, before settling at 340,000 a year on average from 2028 onwards.

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       The problem with this projection is that it is calculated by looking at an average of the last 10 years of net migration, so is likely an underestimate as after 2021, net immigration soared as high as 906,000 a year. Even though that has since dropped, in the year ending June 2024 it was still 728,000 – double the level it ever reached before 2021.

       Getting those numbers down to 340,000 will require drastically slashing the numbers of visas given out, which the Government has shown no willingness to do.

       For example, many of those who have come in the last few years have been social care workers. Leaving aside that this has artificially lowered wages in an occupation still dominated by British workers, those who used this visa are eligible for Indefinite Leave to Remain after five years.

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       That means hundreds of thousands of workers who came here in the past few years will be able to apply soon, at which point they can access our welfare state and start the path to citizenship, with the ability to bring over family members. That will be hugely expensive and lead to family immigration increasing.

       At the same time, the ONS also projects that the number of people of state pension age will rise from 12 million in 2022 to 13.7 million in 2032, even with the planned increase of the state pension age to 67. That will put an added strain on the public finances, as well as increasing the dependency ratio, which measures the number of people who are of working age compared to those who are not.

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       With fewer workers and more retirees, some argue we will need immigrant workers, and that large-scale immigration is good for the economy. But this is a flawed argument. Between 2021 and 2024 immigration soared yet economic growth remained stubbornly flat, with GDP per capita and productivity stuck in the doldrums. Same in Germany.

       That’s because most of the immigrants who came in 2021-24 were in low-paid occupations, contributing little in taxes while providing firms with cheap labour that crowd out productivity-increasing investments in new technology.

       Not only that, the arrival of millions of migrants puts huge stress on our infrastructure. More people on the roads, in the hospitals, and competing in an already expensive housing market makes life worse for everyone.

       Britain has already failed to build enough to accommodate the scale of immigration. Even the plan by the Government to build a further 1.5 million houses over this Parliament is insufficient to house all of the immigrants the ONS projects to come, let alone the many British people who desperately want to get on the housing ladder but can’t.

       The number of new arrivals will also drive up the share of the British population born overseas from 14% to over 20% by 2032. That will effectively make integration even more difficult, potentially leading to more incidents like the Harehills riots last year.

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       Rather than saving money, immigration has a high price – and we should face the facts. Instead of providing the wealth needed for Britain to off-set the costs of an ageing workforce, mass immigration is only creating new costs which will make the economic situation worse. It makes it harder for young people in Britain to have the children we need to pay for the future. The post-war Baby Boom only occurred because rising living standards allowed people to have more children – and to do so earlier.

       Thus, rather than trying to import economic growth, we should be getting rid of all the things which inhibit it domestically: onerous regulations, inefficient bureaucracy, a welfare state that too often is a cradle rather than a safety net, and the Net Zero disaster which has given us the highest industrial energy prices in Europe.

       The ONS has given us a projection of a worrying future – but British politicians can create a better one, if only they have the courage to tackle our problems.