Lower migration and the tax gap: raise taxes or ease restrictions?

I agree care workers should be paid a lot more, as I’ve previously said. This would encourage the large number of unemployed we already have in the country to take these jobs.

We shouldn’t be importing anyone who is not a net contributor.

@Mouldemort

The governments own body, the OBR, has estimated that the Boriswave will cost nearly half a million each in state support by the time they are 80. If 2 million people stay, that is one trillion pounds over the next 40 or 50 years.

Perhaps you could tell us what taxes you would raise to pay this bill?

People on low pay overwhelmingly stay on low pay for most of their lives.

We don’t have to do this to ourselves. We do not owe these people a lifetime of benefits in return for 5 years of work.

It’s completely irrelevant if British citizens cost more than migrants (which I would certainly dispute, for reasons discussed previously in this thread).

We already have too many people chasing a dwindling supply of jobs, with very little idea what the future holds with regards to AI and automation.

@EmeraldRouletteyes, it’s totally ridiculous and very poor value for money. Try pitching this system in Australia and NZ or many EU countries and you’d be absolutely laughed at!

@nearlylovemyusernamei’d prefer that, mostly because the welfare system contains ridiculous disincentives to work, but I’m also happy to do short term pain for long term gain, so that my kids get a Britain that is less dysfunctional.

I’d happily pay £1 of tax now to get £100 of benefit in 30 years’ time. Wouldn’t anyone?!

I wouldn't. I pay more than enough taxes, thank you very much. Before I agree to pay a penny more I want to see welfare system reformed. Until then I refuse - I retired much earlier than I originally planned and took all steps possible to protect my DC's inheritance.

@renovationchoas a lot of of them leave anyway. The Visa isn’t tied to the job or the sector. I agree, it’s perfectly normal for a work Visa to be tied to a job. Lots of countries do this.

Yes! That’s exactly the type of information that @Mouldemortdoesn’t seem to have read or considered. Technically, there is a fiscal gap identified in the numbers that the treasury measures because we are charging fewer people immigration fees to come to the U.K. and to work in jobs that are undersubscribed

BUT

1). The counterfactual (of perhaps someone who is underemployed working in that job, or care workers being paid more as a result is not modelled at all, so it looks as if someone coming in to work is +1 Job for the U.K. in the figures

AND

2. the person who comes in is only counted as a short term benefit and all the costs of providing for that person long term are not measured in official statistics long term at all.

As a result, I think it’s debatable whether even in the short term, less immigration of low paid workers truly costs us money (you can only measure what you count) but what figures there are suggests it is at best a temporal thing and it would be a saving in the long term. I’d happily pay £1 of tax now to get £100 of benefit in 30 years’ time. Wouldn’t anyone?!

well done @nearlylovemyusernamethat’s the one! And well done @EmeraldRoulettefor finding it too - clearly some level of ineptitude on my part.

@RedTagAlani wasn’t imagining it - that is an acknowledgement by the Migration minister that care workers will likely leave if they get ILR at five years and that is an undesirable outcome.

yes @nearlylovemyusernamei totally agree with you, it’s an obvious path to a better life - I don’t dislike or blame the people who do this in any way at all, but it represents extremely poor value for the British taxpayer and keeps labour costs low in the care sector, which surely lefties should not actually want.

Google finds it still in the Time and in the ipaper, but it’s behind a pay wall.

Andy Burnham proposes national care service — as it happened

“I don't want us to get into that spiral where people move out of the care sector because they've got [indefinite] leave to remain. And this is what we hear from people coming from other countries, that they're here to work, but they then want to go on to other things.”

The Times reports that White was speaking at a Fabian Society fringe event and was discussing proposals that could increase the qualifying period for indefinite leave to remain from five years to 10 or 15 years. It says she warned that allowing around 600,000 social care workers and their dependants to obtain permanent residency could lead some workers to leave the sector.

As I said above - if you live in shitty conditions and want to move to UK it's not a prohibitively high price to pay to spend five year wiping bums, then get ILR and Bob's your uncle. Brits don't want to do hard and poorly paid care work because they have other options, incl life on benefits. The moment immigrant care workers receive ILR they technically become Brits in all entitlements, so they have the same options. Why would they continue wiping bums if they can work in Tesco or develop anxiety and depression and go on benefits? and bring large family here as well.

Importing cheap labour to bridge the gap is exactly the same as government borrowing - you don't fix the issue, you're creating more debt and it's getting more expensive to service.

Cheers. I know what you mean re live feeds. I expect it will be on GB news soon enough.

@RedTagAlani can’t find it now - it might be because it was in a Live thread rather than an article so it’s not archived in the same way. You’d have to be a bit mad not to think about this issue though. Because if you reverse on the extension to ILR and lots of people leave the care sector in the next couple of years AND claim top ups and benefits, it will be an absolute gift to your opponents….

And @RedTagAlan@Mouldemorti really don’t understand why you would be even trying to argue anything else from an economic point of view. Shabana Mahmood obviously isn’t a racist - her reforms are not about pacifying racists either. She is obviously doing things to reduce migration because it is obvious to her that the current system is a shit show and is costing the country money - it’s the only reason someone would do it in her position and from her background, because she believes it is the right thing for the country. If you disagree with her, that’s fine, but you do have to ask yourself why someone with all the data would take this “illiberal” (in your view) position as a woman from an ethnic minority background in the Labour Party if she did not genuinely believe it was the right thing to do for the country. It would be far easier for her to stand up and say what her party wants to hear. I tend to believe she has a stronger grasp of the realities than her colleagues, or many left supporters. It’s fine to disagree with her morally, but it is very odd to dispute the financial position!

Thanks. Can't you quote it ? No matter if you can't.

How does a pyramid scheme stop being a pyramid scheme?

(Happens to be the truth though - economically, there is no benefit whatsoever to letting the Boriswave have ILR within 5 years and there probably isn’t for the care sector either, because it only helps people leave it. I personally don’t think it is bonded labour to require people to stay in the sector they got a visa for for more than 5 years, especially if they have brought dependents, or alternatively to say that these people who came to work in care as part of the Boriswave can have ILR but should have no recourse to public funds for longer because they will cost the exchequer more and have already had the very significant benefit of having a route to citizenship. Many countries have tied visas - people can go home instead. I don’t think it is acceptable for the government to sell off a route to citizenship and lifelong access to benefits for multiple people for the price of one person working in a care home. That is an unacceptable use of taxpayers’ money and I would rather use that money to train someone properly in care work and pay them properly.

Hi @RedTagAlanit was reported in the Times in their thread on the Labour Party conference. It is Jo White, the Migration minister. I remember it, because it was a very unusual admission for a Labour MP…..

I have not heard it. So we can look together. Who is the UK immigration minister. I get Jo White MP.

Britain's PM Burnham names Jo White migration minister | Financial News (lse.co.uk)

It's Migration minister. Not immigration minister. Semantics sorry, please ignore.
Duties are

Minister of State (Minister for Immigration) - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)

No results for Jo White news.

Can you remember where you saw this ? GB news, Telegraph, Facebook. I believe what you are saying. Just interested in where you saw it.

But this line., quote " that she had concerns that actually care workers would not remain in care work."

I do struggle to believe that. Because Labour do tend to be quite big on understanding the concept of bonded labour, and being against it, I mean don't they all have to know just a bit about Marx ? Could it be that she said " The data shows on the whole, that migrants move up the employment chain, contributing more to society "

That's the sort of thing a lefty would say.

Do you agree a lefty would say that ?

You might find these two sources useful

This has a graph that shows how things cancel out over time

https://migrationobservatory.ox.ac.uk/resources/briefings/the-fiscal-impact-of-immigration-in-the-uk/

this goes into a lot more detail, but it is ages since I skim read it!

https://ifs.org.uk/publications/migration-and-public-finance-forecast

I think the OBR themselves have admitted that they are not factoring in infrastructure and they are not factoring in what happens with dependents, or what happens with age and further entitlement to benefit for those who choose to stay here.

Oh, I’ve just looked back and saw that you replied to me last night sorry I missed that

why is it projection? The figures aren’t presented in any meaningful way in the terms that I mentioned. So I’m afraid I’m not convinced that there is a gap. Unless you are talking about stopping all immigration. Which is the political position of pretty much no one.

I thought we were talking about taxes…