Migration

The national treasure and naturalist, David Attenborough, has been pronouncing, yet again, on the subject of world population growth. In an interview with the Daily Telegraph he opined that the famines in Ethiopia are about too many people competing for too little land and in the circumstances it’s 'barmy' to address the problem by sending them bags of flour. The great thing about being 87 is that you can stop worrying what people think but Sir David seems unusually alert to the 'huge, huge sensitivities' about his opinions. And one is that: 'When you talk about world population … the areas we are talking about are Africa and Asia. To have a European telling Africans that they shan’t have children is not the way to go about things.' It’s a useful admission.

Home Having recalled Parliament to debate British military action over Syria, David Cameron, the Prime Minister, found the government defeated, much to his surprise, by 285-272, thanks to 30 Conservatives and nine Liberal Democrats voting with the opposition. He immediately told the Commons: ‘It is clear to me that the British Parliament, reflecting the views of the British people, does not want to see British military action. I get that and the government will act accordingly.’ Next day, Lord Ashdown, the former leader of the Lib Dems, tweeted: ‘In 50 years trying to serve my country I have never felt so depressed/ashamed.

Yesterday came the news that net migration has once again fallen, this time to its lowest level for ten years. In the year ending September 2012, net migration was 153,000. That is a fall of 89,000 on the previous year when it reached a dizzy 242,000. This is undeniably good news. The public have consistently shown their desire to see net migration reduced and we now have a government which is committed to lowering net migration and has so far had considerable success. Many on the left, who cannot bring themselves to admit that net migration of 200,000 per year is too much for a small island such as ours, continue to perpetuate the idea that, in the process of reducing net migration the government is harming the economy.

Today’s migration statistics show a marked decline in net migration to the UK (down 34 per cent to 163,000 in the year to June 2012). Although this still leaves the Government some way off their target of reducing net migration to less than 100,000 by 2015, ministers will be pleased to be able to say that things are, in their terms, moving in the right direction. But there is a catch, and the simple maths of net migration mean that the current Government may be, wittingly or unwittingly, laying a trap for themselves, or for a future one. Net migration is the difference between immigration and emigration.  So net migration rises if immigration goes up, or if emigration goes down; and falls if immigration goes down, or if emigration goes up.