John Redwood: Labour's immigration policy will boost migrant numbers and waste money
We're all in agreement that people shouldn't arrange for risky and unlawful boat rides across the Channel for migrants. Many of us also believe that parents shouldn't put their kids' lives in danger by taking them on such vessels.
Additionally, we believe that it is inappropriate for someone to enter the UK unlawfully from a secure nation like France. Some of them have destroyed their passports in order to fabricate an asylum application, which we believe is wrong.
Even if there are many legal options available for legitimate asylum seekers, our government is incapable of taking down the gangs it denounces and is lenient when it comes to allowing many of those who breached the law to enter the country the right to stay.
The government terminated the Rwanda program, which was starting to discourage some undocumented entry into the UK, but they have not yet named the new Border Commander, who they claim will apprehend traffickers and puncture boats.
The government's plan will increase the number of illegal immigrants who choose to live here, significantly raising welfare and housing costs rather than saving money.
In 2015, the European Union, of which we are a member, stated that the state set up costs for housing, early childhood benefits, and public services for a single immigrant cost a member state 250,000 euros.
This was prior to the significant increase in rent and other living expenses. Therefore, if Labour approves just 40,000 illegal entries, it amounts to £10 billion in unfunded additional public expenses, assuming that each entry still costs just £250,000.
Given their limited budget, the accommodations for a large number of migrants who wish to live in London will be quite small. Every immigrant has a new home that is costly.
Swelling the numbers of migrants we welcome is unfair on everyone. The country is short of homes. Rents have risen sharply as migrants and existing residents compete for scarce accommodation.
We are short of NHS capacity everywhere and lack school places in popular areas. Our pipes and sewers cannot cope properly with population numbers already living here, and energy policy now depends on imports to keep us going.
All these issues are made worse by welcoming too many legal migrants on low or no wages and granting an effective amnesty to illegals. It means we make problems for existing residents worse and are unable to offer the new migrants decent accommodation and services.
The costs of all this when we are inviting a million or more migrants in every year is huge, given the high proportion who need taxpayer support for housing and or public services.
That is one reason why the government says it has to remove the winter fuel payment from most pensioners. It lies behind the search for new ways to tax those who have bothered to save for their retirement, and those who do want to invest, create jobs and build enterprises.
A heady mixture of unfunded pay awards for favoured public sector workers and these huge liabilities to help migrants have knocked a large black hole in the accounts. It looks as if pensioners and savers will be expected to pay the bills.
Bad Treasury thinking said more migrants was good for growth.
They failed to point out growth per head drops if you invite in people to do low-paid work well below the average income. Worse still they failed to tell us just how much of an increase this required in housing and welfare budgets.
The Treasury was not being as cautious as the majority of the population, who want considerably stronger limitations on numbers.
By acknowledging that reasonable boundaries are necessary to maintain a respectable standard of living for everyone, the public opinion is also more considerate of us all.