Who’s going to pay our pensions in 20-30years if the UK keeps its birth rate low and also restricts immigration?

Unfortunately they are not.

And austerity did not hold down wages. Where did you hear that. Thats not how wages and fiscal conditions work. The wages are held down by poor productivity in the economy. And that started when Bliar and nu Labour opened up the borders to unlimited immigration in the late 90s while also creating a nation of welfare dependent handout takers who would do anything but work.

When you give people free money to sit at home and import low skilled, low wage migrants to do the work that locals should be doing or businesses should be investing in automation for machines to do, then wage suppressions happens.

And that disastrous immigration policy continues to this day. We have almost 10million people of working age on benefits in this country. That’s right, almost 10 million.

Benefits are not a symptom of low wages. They are a cause. Wages are suppressed because benefits can subsidise wages so employers don’t need to pay market rates or invest in automation. As well as benefits dependent local population, employers can also access unlimited low skilled immigrant labour who will work for lower wages and within a few years of being in the country are also claiming benefits themselves. So the cycles continues, suppressing wages more and more and more.

Potentially not, once they have been in the country long enough and start claiming benefits. And even if they are not eligible for benefits, the kind of immigration was have is people bringing their larger families and then elderly relatives with them. So they are a million miles from being net contributors, even with council tax.

Not over their lifetime they won’t be, including health and pension and care in older age.

A single person, healthy and no kids, will be net surely? bear in mind all the other taxes they'll pay, VAT, insurance taxes, council tax.

If they are still a "taker" then that truly does show how austerity and holding down wages has wrecked the country?

Not really sure why we are paying for so much of the most expensive childcare in Europe for everyone? on top of child benefit.

Why is it the most expensive in Europe? when staff earn a pittance, surely we should be looking at that and making sure we are getting value for money?

Won’t anyone on that salary be paying council tax though?

No one earning £30001 is a net contributor. So basically the laws in this country are set up to bring in people who have to be paid for by those already here.

I'm not expecting miracles @WunTooThree .

You don't say....? stunned surprise.....of course I am!

I am not an idiot. I have home insurance too and my house hasn't burned down or flooded either, but I continue to pay the premiums for the risk. I don't pay pet insurance premiums because now my dog is nearly 12 years old, no insurance company is going to pay for big treatments. Meanwhile, I will pay £90 for some physio training to keep PapyroDog comfortable during her last couple of years.

You are paying for the police or fire service to be there just in case you need them.

I am happy enough to pay for public services provided by the local authority; I already stump up almost £4k council tax annually, and on top we paid DMIL's care home fees in full at £50K pa, and educated our one child mostly privately, but my bins are emptied reliably which is my main requirement from the council. I have never called the police or the fire service in my life, so the services I am funding are not ones I use. Therefore they must be services someone else needs to have provided. I know I am fortunate to be competent and solvent, but when I bother to think about it, which is rarely, I do rather think someone is systemically taking the mick. I am not any kind of guru genius with special powers.

That doesn't matter, many of these people wont be able to afford to return home, even if they wanted too, a flight to Manila etc is not the same as a £15 Ryanair flight to Warsaw.
Who is going to cancel IDR? let alone make sure people leave.

There are no such plans to do so, they will eventually be another wave of pensioners to fund.

The idea we can can just keep importing people in some vain hope they will pay for current pensioners is total madness.

We need to accept that if we want decent public services and pensions, then we are going to have to pay for them.

Higher taxes don't have to mean lower growth either, schools roads hospitals etc all have to be built.

Its called investment - people would be a lot happier paying in if they actually got something back for it, instead a 2 year wait for a knee op or a £800 repair bill when they hit a pot hole.

Which is why indefinite leave to remain is being reduced (criteria now 10 years rather than five, and it could be cancelled altogether for this wave of immigrants). If these millions - the Boriswave - were given IDR it would cost us billions and billions as they are almost entirely net recipients of public money, once housing and pensions etc are taken into account.

Labour seem to think so. But they also said one tax hike ant last budget and borrowing is already up so welfare cuts and more tax rises on the horizon.

I doubt even they planned for that. So they’re struggling already.

Depends, some dependents are still allowed, but it really is a case of horse and stable door.

Brexit caused the 2m let in by the Tories plus yet again, failing to act once they saw the issues.
Prior to this, it was mainly EU citizens coming here, approx 230k per year, not the 1m pa under Sunak, & didn't bring in so many dependents, as they could easily go home again, as many did, our trust lost pretty much all its EU HCP's replaced by SE Asians, Africans and a great deal of language/training issues.

The shame is, most of these countries desperately need these HCPs themselves

Hang on. Hasn’t immigration legislation changed recently ? You have to earn >£30k and can’t bring dependents.

Any tax rise cold be argued to stifle growth, the govt had to pay for the £10 billion it costs each year to fund Hunts NI cut, pay for independent reviewed pay rises, settle compensation claims in Blood and PO, increase funding for the NHS and other public services, D&C Police are getting a 8% increase in funding.

None of which Hunt made provision for, then there is increased defence spend.

If you don't want Businesses taxes to go up, which taxes would you put up to pay for the above or which public services would you cut or would you not have funded any of the above??

Many businesses had a tax cut on investment in 2023, did they suddenly go out and recruit young people? no.

NMW also went up too, would you have not done that?

So the notion of increasing employers' NI and reducing the start point for paying it to £5k just reduces job opportunities for young people? That's going to fuel economic growth?

You understand proportions, right?

It's not the absolute number of people but the proportion of working age: non working age that is the concern.

The uk population is around 10 million higher than at the millennium and is forecast to hit 70 million by 2026; not sure where the shortage of people is?!

Student halls are definitely not like that now! My son’s halls were lovely - all with private en suite and comfy communal cooking facilities with plenty of cupboards/sinks/fridge freezers/large TV.

Gym on site too.

The student halls I went in in the 90s weren't one bed flats! A tiny room, communal bathrooms/ toilets and a dining hall serving the worst food known to man! Highlight one evening was baked potato with rice filling. Not even flavoured rice. Plain rice in a baked potato. The food budget was like £1 pppd.

I van forsee some grim institution like that for the 'have nots' in 30-40 years time.

It needn’t be a bad thing though if building standards are high. Councils built a lot of single level terraced, one bedroomed houses in the early 70s. Usually clustered around a central green. There was always a good community spirit.

I’m in agreement with @ThatBoldBear
our population is too large.

It’s short sighted to just consider the here and now. That’s what’s got us into this mess
We and the planet as a whole must look at the impact growing populations have on the planets resources and our wellbeing
It can’t be sustained

If that means increased taxes or reduced welfare provision so that our services are maintained then so be it.

The roads are still pretty busy and where we live it feels like you are in the minority so not sure about that

You see I don’t think it is. The issue we have is chronic underfunding of all key services which has been happening for years and is now coming home to roost. If we start decreasing our population the whole pack of cards will tumble.

if we had properly funded services people wouldn’t think the country was full.