Net Zero? A healthy UK needs controlled migration

BRITAIN’S population will fall sharply in the next three decades unless net migration hits around 200,000 every year. And the falling fertility rate is creating a different problem for ministers and policy gurus, says leading expert Professor Brian Bell.

- By Michael Knowles

He says Reform UK leader Nigel Farage’s call to slash net migration to zero would require drastic measures, including telling Britons “you are no longer allowed to fall in love with a foreigner”.

Prof Bell, chairman of the Migration Advisory Committee, said: “Going forward, we are in a very different situation than we have been for the previous 50 to 60 years. If you have net migration of zero for the next 30 years, what you are actually saying is you want the UK population to fall significantly.

“The Office for National Statistics predicted — which is pretty strongly going to come true — the amounts of deaths and births of British people will essentially become negative. There will be more deaths than births because the fertility rate has gone down so much.

“If you have no migration, you will have the UK population falling in the order of millions over the next 10 to 20 years. The alternative way — we could have net migration of 200,000-250,000 for the next 30 years - wouldn’t change the population.”

Prof Bell points out zero net migration is very hard to achieve. In the last year, 50,000-80,000 partners of British citizens came to the UK through the family route.

He says: “Once they are here, they don’t leave. If you want net migration of zero, you either have to ban that and say you are no longer allowed to fall in love with a foreigner, or send 50,000 to 80,000 people [on other routes].

“There’s quite a bit of immigration where it is quite hard to see how you change [things]. And if you can’t, then net migration of zero is just a pipe dream.”

But, after years of broken promises and record numbers of arrivals, would people be happy with that?

Tighter curbs on overseas workers and foreign students saw numbers fall to 431,000 from 866,000 in the year to December 2023.

Prof Bell argues: “What does the economy need? I don’t think it needs anything in particular.