The UK will need to build at least 15 cities the size of Birmingham to cope with rising immigration figures, according to a new think-tank report.
Migration Watch UK suggests current levels of net migration will see the population on course to rise by nearly 16 million to 80 million by 2046.
It estimates this would result in the need to build between 6 and 8 million more homes—equal to between 15 and 18 more cities the size of Birmingham.
The reduction would also preserve the countryside from being bulldozed to make way for housing.
The think-tank released the report as it launched a campaign demanding the government sets out a target of reducing immigration, backed by a petition which has already received nearly 34,000 signatures.
It comes weeks after Prime Minister Rishi Sunak faced a Tory backlash as official estimates indicated net migration reached a record high of 606,000 people last year.
Sunak said the number was “too high” but insisted he had not lost control of the immigration system.
Public Ignored
Speaking about the latest findings, Chair of Migration Watch UK Alp Mehmet said: “The impact of runaway, mass, immigration is huge, and housing is just one aspect of our lives that is adversely affected. But, if net migration were reduced to 100,000 per year or less, the housing shortage would be no more; the pressure would lift—at a stroke.“Young people would have better prospects of getting onto the housing ladder. And more of our beautiful countryside would be saved for future generations.”
Mehmet said the public want immigration cut, but have been “ignored.”
“The ‘cut immigration campaign’ with our petition is their opportunity to send the government a loud, unambiguous message that enough is enough.
“If the government fail to act now the fundamental changes to our towns and cities and, indeed, to Britain itself will accelerate even further.”
The record high for 2022 was driven by people from non-EU countries arriving for work, study and humanitarian reasons, the latest Office for National Statistics (ONS) estimates show.
The figure, which is the difference between the number of people moving to the UK and the number leaving, is up from 488,000 in 2021.
The estimates include people who have come to the UK from Ukraine and Hong Kong under resettlement schemes, as well as overseas students—though there are signs that those who first arrived for study reasons in 2021 are now starting to leave, according to the ONS, which compiled the figures released last month.
Legal Immigration Higher
The Migration Watch UK report states that the UK labour market has been “deliberately opened to the entire world” with no limits on numbers and at much lower levels of qualifications and salary.It said the government have abandoned the previous requirement that employers should first advertise vacancies on the domestic labour market which it says “in other words, complete capitulation to employer demands.”
The report added that the government’s focus on small boat crossings obscures the fact that legal immigration is at least 10 times higher and is clearly out of control.
The think-tank says that from 2001 to 2021, the UK population increased by 8 million—of which almost 7 million was owing to immigration.
“That equates to the populations of Birmingham, Manchester, Belfast, Cardiff, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Leeds Leicester, Liverpool, and Newcastle plus Peterborough, Ipswich, Norwich, Luton and Bradford,” it said.
“A similar, indeed much higher, population increase can now be expected in future years unless immigration is sharply reduced.”
It added that immigration has taken place on such a rapid scale that Baroness Louise Casey’s 2016 report found that some areas had changed “beyond recognition in a short space of time.”
In London, Birmingham, Manchester, and Leicester overseas arrivals and the children of migrants already constitute the majority in those areas, according to the group.
The report added: “The scale and nature of our population are rapidly changing without the consent of the majority.
“It is very hard to see how change at this scale and pace can possibly serve the wider interests of our community or help integration.”
Tory Anger
In 2019, the Tory party manifesto promised that “overall numbers will come down” as the government ended freedom of movement from the EU in the wake of Brexit.Sunak has vowed to bring down the number from the level he inherited when he took office last year.
A total of 1.2 million people are likely to have migrated to the UK in 2022, while 557,000 are estimated to have migrated from the UK in the same period.
Speaking on ITV’s “This Morning” last month, Sunak said the numbers are too high and he intends to bring them down.
Asked whether immigration is out of control, he said, “Well, no, I think the numbers are just too high.”
He said measures put in place this week to prevent overseas students from bringing dependents with them “are significant” and will bring levels down over time.
But Tory anger at the inability to control net migration—a frustration dating back to former Prime Minister David Cameron’s failure to bring it down to the “tens of thousands” he promised—was evident in the Commons.
Conservative MP Aaron Bell said the figures were too high and his voters “will expect to see them fall,” while his Tory colleague Louie French said the “unsustainable levels of migration” were having a “significant impact” on housing in southeast England.
The government has to balance its commitment to reducing net migration with the need to fill vacancies in areas where there is a labour shortage.
But veteran Tory Sir Edward Leigh said, “Some people in the Treasury seem to think a good way to grow the economy is to fill the country up with more and more people, but this is bad for productivity and bad for British workers who are being undercut by mass migration from all over the world.”
