"Pressure on public services"

The BBC reports that officials in almost every British region report pressure on public services as a result of immigration. This omits four points:
1. Immigration is a way of relieving pressure on these services. How long would hospital waiting times be if it weren't for immigrant nurses or doctors? How much more expensive would it be to clean hospitals (insofar as they are cleaned at all) were it not for immigrant cleaners? And how much more expensive would it be to build new schools if it weren't for immigrant builders?
2. Who prepared this report?:

The eight regional co-ordination groups which prepared the report included local authority members, police, health and education officials.

Isn't there a clue here? Bleating about how they are under pressure is a standard trick rent-seeking bureaucrats use (pdf) to squeeze more money out of government to increase their budgets and self-importance. Did you ever hear a bureaucrat say: "Actually, we're coping fine. You should cut spending on us"? Even if migrants posed no problem at all for public services, you'd expect state officials to say otherwise. 
3. Isn't more pressure on public services the result of bad management rather than immigration? How do the costs of the two compare?
4. Controlling immigration puts pressure on public services too, as it diverts resources away from them. The state spends now £1.5bn a year  trying to control migration. Tougher migration controls would require a big increase in this. But what if this spending were doubled?  That £1.5bn could pay for a 27% rise in police spending (table 5.2 of this big pdf), or for 50,000 extra nurses. Or it might mean higher taxes. It's equivalent to twice the money Darling raised by increasing capital gains tax in his Pre-Budget Report.
So let's be clear. Those who call for tougher limits on migration want either worse public services or higher taxes. And for what? Even Andrew Green of MigrationWatch agrees that migrants don't reduce GDP per head. But higher taxes probably would.

Comments

[mat]

We wouldn't have to worry about any of this if "public" services were privatized.

[The SageKing]

Lets see now, we add build a city the size of Birmingham with all its infrastructures, buildings , sewers, water supply, airports, hospitals, schools, roads, supermarkets, food distribution, traffic and the people of course, ect ect, every 7-8 years or so and you think there is no cost to that?

And where is the space for all this? 2/3 of the land mass is either flood plain or hills , and just to add to the mix the insurers have just told HMG to either cough up on flood defenses or they will refuse to insure households. net result fewer new build starts i should imagine and we need 95K of new homes to house the newbies a year.

The economic growth created is not productive growth is it? its the economy adjusting to the new population level, just like divorce creating two households and adding to growth in nominal GDP. its an illusion.

Granted Immigration controls are not the be all and end all, much more changes need to be done, especially in welfare but his is an outrageous and irresponsible experiment, one conducted without the consent of the native population.(not that you are bothered by consent) but then again Marx did not really believe in the nation state did he? (Kant did though, have a read of Perpetual peace, I guess Karl was too busy listening to the psychotic Hegel)

But as I was pointing out the other day, the modern Pseudo-liberal left need to face up to the fact that choices have to be made, If we don't have physical borders (which the UK is blessed with) than meta-physical ones will be invented such as ID cards.don't bleet about one if you don't want the other.

The one country in the world that has really managed its immigration policy well is Australia, which is probably the richest country in the world at the moment (with a very small manufacturing base to boot) it imports people based on skill and what they can add, and its not part of the EU, thus it does in fact govern itself., which its mother country does not.

This is the problem with Marxism its complete relativism.

[Paulie]

Bryan Caplan has made similar points Chris:

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/politics/brassneck/oct07/foreigndemocracy.htm

[dearieme]

You write as if immigrants were just a huge interchangeable flock of sheeple. Is it really impossible to imagine a policy that admitted applicants who seemed likely to add to the wealth and health of the nation, and rejected the others? Under the present government, yes; but always?

[Matt Munro]

Migrants make disprotionate claims on the public sector though - they are generally lower earning, more likely to use NHS than private healthcare, state than private education, social rather than private housing and so on. They are disproportianately likely to be arrested, need social workers etc etc. Being lower paid they also pay less tax an own fewer assets, so they are a net liability.
The argument about us "needing" their labour is cobblers. All that has happened is that previously low paid jobs are now done by migrants for even lower pay, with shareholders pocketing the difference.
I don't remember there being any labour shortages in the public sector or anywhere else 5 years ago. The liberal/migrant love in is more to do with the cognoscenti being outraged at the idea that skiled manual workers earn more than they do, or the difficulty of finding a decent nanny/gardner than any concern for migrants or the economy. And before anyone invokes Godwins law, both my parents are migrants.

[Dipper]

a couple were on TV bemoaning the state of the NHS recently. His 90 year-old mum is blind and deaf, and this wasn't stated but we might as well throw in incontinence and senility as well. Not surprisingly she needs full-time help.

Umm. Lets do a quick calculation. If x% of everyone's life is spent in complete helplessness, and one person can look after y people in an 8 hour shift, then .... it soon gets very expensive. And that's without the very expensive anti-cancer drugs as well.

Isn't pressure on public services largely down to unrealistic expectations?

[Unity]

Migrants make disprotionate claims on the public sector though - do they?

they are generally lower earning - true

more likely to use NHS than private healthcare - but in the case of economic migrants from Europe, they tend to be younger, fitter, healthier and have less need of healthcare services than the indigenous population.

state than private education - the numbers using private education generally are relatively low in any case, as are the number of economic migrants arriving with their family/children.

social rather than private housing - not entitled to social housing except in exceptional circumstances, most economic migrants rely on the private rented sector.

They are disproportianately likely to be arrested - not seen data on that as yet, but they are disproportionately likely to be victims of crime.

need social workers - nope, not much of that either.

Being lower paid they also pay less tax an own fewer assets - but take less out the system than they put in.

Nope, you're definitely talking out your arse, Matt.

[Matt Munro]

Thanks Unity for that well argued and beautifully referenced refutation - by your tone I suspect the only time you have any contact with a migrant is when you pay your cleaner and buy an oyster card.
Care to explain why 5 UK regions are stating that there are unnaceptable pressures on healthcare, crime, education and housing and want extra money from the government to adress it ? (BBC news 18/10/07) - are they (many of them left wing councils) "talking out of their arses" too ?

This idea that migrants "arent't entitled to social housing" is utter cobblers BTW. I drive past some social housing on the way to work every day, and the ethnic make of the occupants has obviously and dramatically changed in the last 18 months -maybe they're all "asylum seekers" as I'd imagine that counted as exceptional circumstances.....

[Matt Munro]

Dipper - I think peoples expectations of public services rise as a function of the amount of tax they pay, hence they'll put up with a ford escort service at horse and cart prices but not a horse and cart service at rolls royce prices.

[Max]

Matt -- your point that "5 UK regions are stating that there are unnaceptable pressures on healthcare, crime, education and housing and want extra money from the government to adress it".

There was a comment piece in The Times (I think) this morning about the fact that the way the government is allocating resources does not take into account areas of high immigration. If there's an influx of migrants into an area, they don't get more money to handle it (or reap a portion of those immigrant workers' income tax). It chimes musically with something Chris posted a week or so ago about the problems with the NHS, etc. and population expansion being not caused by a lack of resource, but inflexibility and a failure to allocate resource as needed.

[Unity]

Actually Matt, it's explained here:

http://www.ministryoftruth.org.uk/2007/10/17/migration-and-public-services/

It all a matter of the general inefficiency of a too-heavily centralised, inflexible and overly bureaucratic system of taxation and local government finance.

It's not difficult to figure out when you deal in facts and evidence, rather than in personal prejudices.

[Matt Munro]

But resources are limited, you can't just "allocate more" without cutting services or raising taxes. Even if the government were to embark on a schools, hospitals and house building programme (which they won't) wouldn't it be easier to just restrict migration and keep the population at a level the current infrastructure can (in theory) support. The solution seems worse than the problem it purports to solve.

[Matt Munro]

For goodness sake - am I supposed to take seriously an opinion piece which starts with "the bleating about pressure on public services" ? Have you tried using a public service recently ? Tried to get a doctors appointment, been in hospital, tried driving anywhere ? Buying a house ? Are you happy that children are shooting each other on the street ? There are too many people already here, only an idiot would deny it.
Why are the pro-migration lobby so convinced that their prejudices are somehow "facts and evidence" but anyone who refuses to uncritically buy into the multi culty utopia is exhibiting a "personal prejudice".

[john b]

"Are you happy that children are shooting each other on the street ?"

I'd've thought you'd be pleased by that one, since it cuts migrants' demands on the education and benefit systems...

[Matt Munro]

Except that they are not all migrants.

[Zorro]

What I think you meant to say is that migrants are needed to keep pressure on house prices which our whole economy seems to be balanced on top of. Were migrant numbers to go down, then the housing supply/demand balance would swing back away from the current massive undersupply, to an oversupply and the IMF's estimate of 40% drop in house prices would probably occur.

Then Cyclops would be fucked. Proper fucked.

[dreamingspire]

Did anyone else see that recent TV footage of a raid on a house in the London area where drug dealing was suspected? The house was rented out room by room, and in most of the rooms they found each one occupied by a complete family of adults and children. Too many people in the house, but what could the Local Authority do about it? Close it down? Then where would they re-house all those families? That is an example of the pressure: we should limit immigration for that reason.

[Unity]

Too many people?

We're actually 35th in the world in population density (246 per sq km) which is lower than Holland, Belgium, India, Sri Lanka, Israel, the Philippines, Vietnam, etc.

If you want crowded try Singapore (6,309 per sq km) or maybe Monaco (23,600 per sq km)

[Matt Munro]

But I don't live in any of those countries I live here, and since when was high population density something to aspire to ?

[Unity]

Matt:

The point throughout is that most of your assertions regarding alleged migrant pressures have no real basis in fact when it comes to those arriving in the UK from, in particular, the EU accession states.

As for your point that you can't just allocate more resources, well actually you can to some extent because migrant labour contributes significantly to economic growth and its the proceeds of this growth, in increased revenue from taxation, that you're allocating.

The economic figures say that, currently, economic migrants pay themselves and then some - getting the resources to the right places is the real issue.

[Matt Munro]

What assertions ? I merely repeated a widely reported story about local authorities asking for more resources to cope with an influx of migrants. In what sense does that have any less "basis in fact" than any other post ? The only post which cited "facts" referenced a well known left wing blog !
Yes you can obvioulsy allocate more resources, but based on the current governments track record is that likely ? Even if it is, will it have any effect on public service ouputs (the NHS's outputs have barely moved despite years of increased funding). Even assuming an efficient public sector, how long would it take for the alledged increase in tax revenue to be translated into extra public services ?
You can find figures to support whichever side of the argument you like (I have for example read the net contribution of an average migrant is £0.002 pa) but ultimately migration isn't a matter of ideology, it's pragmatic. Higher population density has a number of social and economic downsides, which shouldn't be ignored just because they don't fit with an Islington guardianista agenda.