Pointless bureaucracy

I got chatting to an immigration lawyer at the weekend (friend of a friend) who told me that the whole thing is a futile waste of time and money.

The Home Office identifies citizens of EU Member States (who are actually entitled to be here) who are 'homeless' (as defined) and serves them papers asking them to leave the country or else they'll be deported.

Half of them ignore it, homeless foreigners being notoriously difficult to track down, and half of them fill in a 137-page form (I think he was exaggerating a bit here, but who knows?) applying for leave to remain (or whatever the technical term is), some of them get some of the trick questions wrong and are earmarked for deportation. Most of these then go to an immigration lawyer who knows how to fill in the form correctly and do the appeal cover letter, and then most of these people can stay.

And so on and so forth. Of the handful who are actually deported, most of them are back in the UK within days or weeks.

So far so good.

He also said that the HO identified a lot of people by bullying homeless charities into handing over data, which is easy to appeal against. This sounded like a conspiracy theory to me, but lo and behold, this morning's Metro covered the story.

The Regional Skills Gap

Something else that has been bothering me for a while is the notion of the 'regional skills gap', as mentioned for example here.

Productivity and Skills for West Midlands Combined Authority (WMCA) region are one of the biggest challenges for the regional economy. GVA per head in the WMCA is currently at £19,423, nearly £3,500 [less than the UK average] for each of the 4 million WMCA residents leading to a £14bn output gap compared to the national average.

WMCA report that the components of the output gap highlight issues across all the productivity drivers with insufficient skills, too few in employment and the quality of the indigenous WMCA business base.

* Skills: % of number individuals with qualifications at NVQ4+: in the West Midlands Region is 27.6% against a national picture of 34.9%

* Employment: employment rate in the West Midlands Region is 67.2% against a national picture of 71.5%...

It is essential that Education and Business work together, not just through the Corporate Responsibility Agenda and supporting students develop the essential work ready skills but also to:

* Shape academic programmes and content to reflect the needs of regional sectors

*Identify the key growth areas across the region to ensure that training and development reflects the local economy

It's a bit like the notion that you can get house prices down in the South East by building more homes - it only makes sense if you ignore the fact that people can migrate freely within the UK.

If you assume that people growing up in the West Midlands intend to stay there, then sure, train them in things which will get them a job locally. But they won't.

It's a circular problem.

1. Those with the initiative to undertake education and training want to do whatever will earn them the most money, which is unfortunately not the productive sector but the non-productive sector, finance, insurance, real estate, legal and accounting (i.e. little old me).

2. The best paying jobs are in London, which is why, apparently, nearly half of recent graduates from UK universities move to London.

3. So the reason why relatively few people in the West Midlands have NVQ4+ qualifications is not because there's anything wrong with their education system, but because many of those with NVQ4+ qualifications bugger off elsewhere.

4. The less ambitious/less qualified remain in the West Midlands, inevitably, productivity and output declines, exacerbating the effect; businesses do worse, meaning fewer well paying jobs, meaning people are more likely to bugger off.

5. If the West Midlands offers more education and training, that makes it even easier for people to bugger off.

As an aside, Flipchart Rick did a post a while back called "Why a richer Africa means more migrants" explaining that this is effect is observable on an international level.

To paraphrase, few people from really underdeveloped countries emigrate because nobody wants them. Developing countries try to lift themselves with their own boot straps and invest what little surplus they have into improving their education systems - but that makes it easier for their people to emigrate (Filipino nurses, for example) instead of staying and helping grow the economy. So for some decades, this is a net loss to the country. It is not until the economy has developed to the level where there is less incentive for people to move abroad that their economies really benefit; but you can't grow an economy until the better-educated people stay there etc etc in a vicious circle.

"Based on ONS data, immigration has put English house prices up by 20% over the last 25 years"

I must admit that I have downplayed the impact of immigration on house prices and rents, clearly, it must have had some impact. AFAIAC, it's just a population increase. As we well know, even at pathetic modern UK house building rates, supply has more than kept pace with demand. The real reason is the phasing out of Georgism Lite.

Via FullFact, who link to the ONS press release concerned:

Immigration has contributed 21% towards house price growth in England, according to analysis by the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government. But MHCLG also says the data doesn’t provide a complete answer and should be used cautiously. It found that income growth is the biggest driver of increased house prices.

English house prices have risen by 320% on average over this period... When factoring in inflation, according to the Consumer Price Index, the increase amounts to 137%.

People still throw this in my face when I try to explain about Georgism Lite. One cretin on Twitter linked back to the ONS figure and said, there, that proves it, it's all down to immigration.

I asked him, OK, even if the 20% figure is correct (it does seem plausible - even though FullFact do their usual and point to other research showing the impact was negligible or even negative at local level), how do you explain the other bloody 300% or 117% or however much can't be explained by immigration/population increases?

* Deafening silence*

This whole Windrush generation fiasco - questions

Background here.

So some people grew up and lived here all their lives on the reasonable assumption that they were British citizens (for most things, being permanently resident here is good enough), even though technically they weren't.

What strikes me, is that only UK and Commonwealth citizens are entitled to vote at most elections (different for EU Parliament elections, which we won't need to worry about any more).

So, with the benefit of hindsight, either all their votes were invalid; they were de facto accepted as British citizens (in which case the matter is settled); or there is some leap of bureaucratic logic that says they were notionally citizens of their [parents'] country of origin (most likely a Commonwealth country), despite that country probably having no record of them?

I also wonder why this wasn't noticed decades ago, at the latest when they were old enough to need their own (British) passport to go abroad on holiday, which surely plenty of them must have done.

Hmm.

Economic Myths: Immigration and economic growth

City AM is a cheer leader for landlords and banks (it's the newspaper equivalent of the Taxpayers' Alliance). It has consistently been in favour of liberal immigration policies for foreign workers, which gives us a bit of a clue a to who benefits most from immigration of foreign workers. NB, I am heartily agnostic on the issue and have no strong view one way or another.

But, like the right wingers who insist that reductions in tax rates always lead to higher tax revenues overall, they have jumped the shark with this:

Economists have repeatedly warned that a government can either have economic growth or it can have net migration reduced to the tens of thousands.

It cannot have both.

Woah, woah, woah! If that were true, then overall global GDP growth would always be zero. It would increase in immigration countries and fall in emigration countries in equal and opposite measure. That is clearly not the case, and I doubt that any serious economist has ever said anything quite as stupid as that.

"Migration figures: Highest number of EU nationals leaving UK in a decade"

... screams the BBC:

The number of EU citizens leaving the UK is at its highest level for a decade, figures from the Office for National Statistics show. It estimates that 130,000 EU nationals emigrated in the year to September, the highest number since 2008.

Oh dear, so our European brothers and sisters are voting with their feet like the Remainers threatened they would and the Leavers hoped/promised they would? I suppose some of the wilder forecasts made by either side prior to the Referendum will actually happen, if only by coincidence.

I wonder who'll do our nursing and harvest our vegetables instead...

Meanwhile, 220,000 EU nationals came to live in the UK - 47,000 fewer than the previous year. Net EU migration - the difference between arrivals and departures - was 90,000, the lowest for five years.

OK, nothing to worry about then. This is all as fatuous as Nixon's comment that "The rate of increase of inflation is going down."

Fun Online Polls: Student immigration numbers, hurricanes and man-made climate change.

The results to last fortnight's Fun Online Poll were as follows:

Should students from overseas be included in the UK's maximum immigration target?

Yes - 58%
No - 21%
We shouldn't have a maximum immigration target - 8%
I'm heartily indifferent to the whole topic - 12%
Other, please specify - 2%

That answers that question, I suppose. But as the official target is a made-up number which the UK government cannot achieve and has no intention of achieving anyway (it's an 'aspiration' rather than a 'target) and the net number of overseas students who overstay is apparently quiet small, I don't suppose it matters.
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It's hurricane season again. It's been pretty bad this year in the Caribbean/Gulf of Mexico and this year's monsoon was pretty hefty in India.

I'm pleasantly surprised to see that many (possibly most) BBC articles or news bulletins don't contain the solemn statement that the severity of hurricanes has increased because of man-made climate change.

So that's this week's Fun Online Poll:

Are this year's strong hurricanes and Indian monsoon evidence of man-made climate change?

Vote here or use the widget in the sidebar.

Fun Online Polls: Protest marches; students and immigration targets

The results to last fortnight's Fun Online Poll were as follows:

What's the correct response if people with whom you disagree organise a march?

Ignore them, hope they get bored and perhaps organise your own event a few weeks later - 84%
Organise a violent counter-protest to ensure maximum coverage and encourage them even more - 9%
Other, please specify - 8%

Good, I was with the majority on that. People don't seem to get the "other, please specify" option, it got eight votes but only three people left comments, heck knows what the other five were voting for.

Thanks to everybody who took part (104 voters).
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Just to change the topic a bit, let's look at the whole mess that Ms T May is making of immigration targets, in particular how students from overseas fit in.

The debate seems to jumble three topics;

a) whether we should have immigration targets at all (large employers against; nationalists and low-paid Brits in favour);

b) whether overseas students should be included. One the one hand, they pay top dollar to be here and should be welcomed like any other high-spending tourists IMHO; on the other, some of them overstay their visas (again, whether that is acceptable or not depends on your point of view)

c) what the actual figure for over-stayers is. For some reason the lefties (see linked article from NS) seem to think that the fact that the true number of over-stayers is very small (allegedly) is a reason to exclude them. Logic fail - if the number is so small, it doesn't matter whether they are included or not (seeing as the official target is a made-up number to start with, which the Tories have no intention of actually delivering).

So that's this week's Fun Online Poll.

Vote here or use the widget in the sidebar.

Fun Online Polls: Whose responsibility is integration & Boris Johnson's comments on the Saudis

The results to last week's Fun Online Poll were as follows:

Whose responsibility is 'integration'?

Immigrants - 99%
Citizens of their chosen host country - 1%

A good turnout with 97 votes, thanks to everybody who took part, and not much more to say on that.

Top comment: H: The correct answer is no one's. It is certainly not mine, and it is only yours if you chose to assume such a responsibility. But you don't offer this as a possible answer… Why are we so worked up anyway? Everyone seems to think it's sweet that there are Welsh people in Patagonia still speaking Welsh, or funny that Brits in Saudi get bladdered in their compounds. The problem, I am guessing, with muslims is that some actively promote an alien ideology.

Fair points (except the Welsh in Patagonia, they have been there as long as Spanish speakers). Of course, there are degrees of this. IMHO, as long as people don't actively seek to overturn/completely ignore whatever traditions and systems are in place in their chosen host country or demand special treatment, then I'm not that fussed. I certainly wouldn't expect them all to start playing cricket and doing Morris dancing.
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From The Guardian:

A defiant Boris Johnson told friends he had no intention of apologising for his outspoken comments about Saudi Arabia during a trip to the Gulf and hit out at party critics who said he might be better suited to another job in government.

The foreign secretary delivered a carefully crafted speech in Bahrain on Friday evening, playing up the economic and strategic links between London and the Gulf States, while allies said he would be “open, honest and moral in his approach” regarding political issues in the region.

On Thursday, Johnson was rebuked by Downing Street after it emerged he had accused Saudi Arabia of being among countries engaged in fighting “proxy wars” in the Middle East, breaking the Foreign Office’s convention of not criticising a key UK ally in the region.

Johnson seems to go round saying stuff at random, most of it rubbish but inevitably he hits the nail on the head every now and then.

So that's this week's Fun Online Poll - what do you think?

Vote here or use the widget in the sidebar.

Muddled argument for contributory benefits

Ryan Bourne writes a largely sensible article about immigration in City AM, marred by this diagonal comparison:

Indeed, the cost of immigration quotas can be seen with a simple example. Suppose an entrepreneur wanted to come to the UK and had the potential to build a business worth billions. Ludicrously, if he was number 100,001 that year, he’d be kept out.

That is the crassest diagonal comparison I have heard for ages and has no place in a sensible discussion. You could counter it with some nonsense like this:

Indeed, the benefit of immigration quotas can be seen with a simple example. Suppose an violent extremist wanted to come to the UK and had the potential to blow up a building worth billions. Conveniently, if he was number 100,001 that year, he’d be kept out.

There is a killer argument against Citizen's Income that says welfare payments should be contributory, i.e. you can only claim unemployment benefit if you have been working and paying tax for a minimum period and then are made redundant. This is economic nonsense but has a lot of political appeal. Worse still, it is cancelled out by the equal and opposite notion that welfare payments should be means tested, which is also economic nonsense with a lot of political appeal. (I suppose means-testing in turn is largely cancelled out by tax breaks for 'savings' which are also economic nonsense with a lot of political appeal...).

Anyway, returning to the article...

Ideally, this would mean lowering barriers to migration as broadly as possible but making the UK’s welfare system more contributory to avoid any welfare draw factors.

Complete bollocks.

Outside the EU, we can merrily restrict welfare payments to UK-resident British Citizens only (including or excluding immigrants who have been naturalised) or to those who have lived (or indeed worked) here legally for a set number of years, or make up any other conditions that keep the electorate happy. This test can be applied to non-contributory/universal benefits like a Citizen's Income, the right to vote or to use the NHS 'for free' etc.  just as much as it can be to contributory benefits.

Nobody move or your state pension gets it!

Emailed in by Lola, via Professional Pensions from NIESR:

Our main conclusions are that reductions in immigration would have a negative impact on the public finances. To offset these impacts policy change in the form of increases in national insurance contributions, reductions in pensioner benefits, or increases in the state pension age could be used. More restrictive immigration policies would, not surprisingly, have more negative impacts.

However...

Aargh! Disasater looms, but what's that "however" leading up to..?

However, these impacts could be mitigated, and indeed reversed, were the government to be able to successfully implement a very significant change in the incomes (and implicitly the skills or qualifications) of new migrants by introducing a skills or points based migration policy (perhaps similar to the policy in Australia).

The reduction in EU migrants, an increase in total non EU migrants and an up-scaling of skills are all possible policies which have been aired in the referendum debate. However, an important policy question, which we do not address here, is whether these policies would and could actually be delivered in practice.

Most migrants from other EU member states are net contributors, of course, so a sensible points system would have little impact on them; I don't think we want an increase in non-EU migrants, again, a sensible points system would weed out the half we don't want. Of course it could be "delivered in practice", we managed perfectly well up to 1997.

Sorted.

Economic Myths: A richer Africa means fewer migrants

As Flipchart Rick explained last year, the bulk of immigrants (who are all ultimately economic migrants*) to wealthier countries like the UK are from developing countries rather than the very poorest.

So as the poorest countries develop, more people will emigrate from those countries, not fewer and this will not reverse/stabilise until a country is close to Western living standards.

He does some good stuff on immigration, see also this more recent post. Makes you think.

* But what about refugees from Syria? Those who leave Syria are fleeing a war zone and can be considered refugees; those who cross the nearest safe country to get to the nearest wealthy countries (Europe) are economic migrants. End of. That is not a value judgment, I'm an economic migrant myself.

Something worth haggling over.

From the BBC:

EU states have approved an action plan for Turkey, which it is hoped will ease the flow of migrants to Europe.

Nearly 600,000 migrants have reached the EU by sea so far this year, many of them travelling from Turkey to Greece before seeking to head north. Turkey made a number of demands in exchange for helping to stem the flow…

Turkey had also asked for €3bn (£2.2bn, $3.4bn) in aid, something German Chancellor Angela Merkel said EU states were considering.

1. From Turkey's point of view, they have to hold out for at least as much as it costs to put up tents and camps for all these people, something the Turks are apparently very good at. The short term cost is knowable, the long term cost could be much lower or zero, depending on how well the people integrate.

2. From European countries' point of view (unless you are insane like Angela Merkel), each 'asylum seeker' has a known short term cost for food and accommodation, but the long term cost is unknowable. Some of them will integrate, work hard and contribute to society (thus being a benefit rather than a cost) but an unknown number will be terrorists, criminals or slackers. It is very difficult to estimate the overall cost of the last three categories, and you can't put a price on 'social cohesion'.

3. Suffice to say, the price Turkey needs to be paid to keep one person is much lower than the (potential) cost to European countries of one such person. As long as the price paid is somewhere between those two, then both parties to the deal have made a profit.

4. So we do the two calculations and I don't think that Turkey is being overly greedy:

a) There are about two million people in their camps. £2.2 billion divided by 2 million is only £1,100 per person, which doesn't seem like much to me, even if it's payable yearly not just a one-off.

b) From the UK's point of view, let's assume one-quarter of the 600,000 trying to get to Europe end up here = 150,000 and we have to pay a quarter of the £2.2 billion cost, that's £3.700 each. That's a lot, lot cheaper than processing an asylum claim. That's a tiny fraction of what it costs us if somebody turns out to be a terrorist, criminal or slacker.

It cost £2 million to get rid of Abu Qatada and pay his family welfare. There only need to be a few dozen bad apples among our 150,000 and that's burned straight through our one-quarter of £2.2 billion.

Yes, we will lose a few genuine hard workers who have no interest in stirring up tensions, but so what?

Looking at it this way, if I were Turkey, I'd hold out for a bit more, a bit like Colonel Gaddafi tried (and failed).

Theresa may have a point,

From the BBC:

[Theresa May] also said high migration made a "cohesive society" impossible.

Fair enough, you might think. That is just simply a statement of fact. We could argue about the word 'impossible' or point out that 'cohesiveness' is not an either-or thing i.e. high immigration merely reduces cohesiveness by a few per cent on some arbitrary scale, but hey.

(And as a Home Secretary, she is probably just as useless as most of the Home Secretaries we've had before, but that is irrelevant here.)

There was the inevitable outpouring of wailing about this. But why? You might not like it, you might wish it were not so, you might say that this is only because British people are racist (they're not). I am not aware that Theresa May said she liked this state of affairs. But that doesn't stop it being true.

Taking a longer passage from the article, you can see that she even threw in a bit of the usual PC crap:

Mrs May also said refugees should not be "conflated" with economic migrants.

Why not? A refugee is somebody fleeing a war or disaster zone to the nearest safe country, not somebody who has made the decision to travel half way across the world to somewhere that's considerably wealthier than the nearest safe country.
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Disclaimer: I like foreigners. I'm half German and my wife is from a distant Commonwealth country. Many of our friends are mixed-race or mixed-nationality couples/families. But I like individual foreigners, those who try and fit in, you can have all sorts of interesting conversations with them, but I do not particularly like large groups of foreigners walking round like they owned the place and trying to impose their rules on us.

Fun Online Polls: The global financial crisis & Muslim migrants

The results to last week's Fun Online Poll were as follows:

What caused the global financial crisis which has seen the UK mired in recession for the last seven years?

The global land price and credit bubble, mortgage backed securities etc. - 81%
UK government deficits of a few percent of GDP in the years before the crisis - 5%
People under 25 claiming benefits rather than looking for a job - 4%
Other, please specify - 10%8

Correct. So treat the cause, not the symptoms.

Which is the opposite of what UK governments (of whatever party) have been doing for the last seven years.
* Taking away benefits from the under-25s is something the Tories are doing quite ruthlessly (aka 'bayonetting the survivors). Despite the fact that most of them were still at school back in 2007-08 and thus can be absolved of any blame.
* If government deficits were a minor or secondary cause, then why have they run a cumulative total deficit of over fifty per cent of GDP over the last seven years? (considerably higher than what Labour was doing until 2008).
* Seeing as the land price/credit bubble was the actual cause, why have UK governments done their level best to prop up house prices and prop up speculation and banks by depressing interest rates?

Strikes me, they are making things worse and just delaying the inevitable. Perhaps until 2025-26?
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Muslim migrants have been in the news a lot recently. History shows that they are not very good at fitting in Western/non-Muslim countries and tend to stay "within their own communities", so we can assume that Muslims prefer to live among other Muslims.

So fair enough, people are fleeing the war zones (I know that I would), but that's only part of Syria/Iraq. Surely your easiest option is to move to a more peaceful area in Syria/Iraq; your next option is move to a neighbouring Muslim country; your next option is the easy overland route to a Muslim country further afield (from the Atlantic to Pakistan, if you gloss over Malaysia/Indonesia).

From Wiki:


So why are so many of them taking the most difficult journey across continents and oceans to north-west Europe, where they will never fit in anyway? And yes, that is more or less a rhetorical question.

So that's this week's Fun Online Poll.

Vote here or use the widget in the sidebar.

"Harman vows to weed out all cheats"

From the BBC:

Harriet Harman has said 3,000 alleged "cheats" have so far been excluded from migrating to the UK, with more expected.

The acting Labour leader said: "It is not funny or clever for people from other countries to try to cheat their way into our system," and only people who supported the "aims and values" of the United Kingdom would be allowed to enter.

She was speaking after a meeting with the four leadership contenders. She said the verification process was "robust" and would go on until the "very last minute"...

Under new rules introduced by her party in 1997, residents of other countries could sign up to become British citizens with a minimum of vetting procedures. More than 160,000 people a year took up permanent residence in the UK.

The party said this brought the total size of the population to 64,000,000.

"Mass immigration is due to climate change"

Over at Comedy Is Free.

Glorious, just glorious.

Throwing the baby out with the bathwater

From the BBC:

What is the government doing?

Ministers want EU migrants to live in the UK for four years before they can claim benefits. However, without EU treaty change such a move could be deemed discriminatory and breach EU law.

Not a problem, says the government, let's kill two birds with one stone and f--- over some random group of younger people as well, few of them bother voting and those that do certainly don't vote for us.

One option is to implement a four-year residency rule for all benefit claimants. This could mean Britons, even if they had lived in the UK all their lives, from their 18th birthday would be ineligible for the benefits for four years until they reach 22.

The changes would affect working tax credits and housing benefits. About 50,000 UK citizens under the age of 22 receive tax credits. Most of them have children. The proposal is currently being discussed by ministers and senior officials.

And as we well know, it was the 18 to 22 age group which caused the financial crisis... seven or eight years ago.

Fun Online Polls: Abroad and The News

The responses to last week's Fun Online Poll were as follows:

Abroad. All very grim, all very tricky.

Waves of migrants in the Mediterranean - 44%
Isis and Syria - 16%
Iran nuclear deal - 11%
Grexit or not - 7%
Ukraine-Russia war - 5%
Ebola - 5%
Chinese islands - 4%
Other, please specify - 7% (4 votes)

Going by the headlines, it's the waves of migrants which are people are concerned about most. My approach is the same as on anything else, the UK government should do whatever is in the best interests of the existing British population/electorate as a whole.

It appears that people still haven't quite got the hang of the "Other, please specify" option. Four people voted for it but only one person made a suggestion.
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This week's Fun Online Poll:

"What were you doing when you heard the news?"

Vote here or use the widget in the sidebar.

It's a Fry and Laurie one-liner, I think.

Leader's Debate

I didn't watch it. Apparantly Nicola Sturgeon did well, though, no doubt promising the Scots a pony for all based on some inflated numbers on oil prices, but something that stuck out was what Farage said.:-

Nigel Farage was rounded on by other party leaders on ITV’s Thursday night debate after he complained about foreigners with HIV costing the health service up to £25,000 per year per patient.

The Ukip leader steered the debate on to the topic of health tourism when he was given the opportunity to talk about the NHS.

Plaid Cymru leader Leanne Wood tackled him on the subject during the seven-way discussion, saying it was scaremongering and that he should be ashamed of himself.

...

SNP leader Nicola Sturgeon responded saying: “One of the things we’ve learned is there’s nothing Farage wouldn’t blame on foreigners.”

...

Having not intervened during the debate, Labour leader Ed Miliband tweeted afterwards that Farage’s comments were “disgusting”, adding: “He should be ashamed. The fact he isn’t says so much.”

...

Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg also took to Twitter to condemn the remarks, saying: “Farage’s comments about foreign people with HIV were simply vile and desperate. Politics of the lowest form.”

...

David Cameron remained silent, but when asked to comment, chancellor George Osborne said he would not dignify them with a response. Later, on the BBC’s Newsnight, he refused once again to rule out the idea of a post-electoral pact with Ukip.

I think this sums up a problem we have in this country, that our political class have contempt towards the public.

I wouldn't mind if Cameron, Clegg or Miliband had challenged Farage to show his numbers (which it turns out are about right).

But what they're really saying is that it's beyond the pale to even discuss something that the government spends money on. Now, I know the game that Farage is playing, but that doesn't mean that it doesn't dignify a response. This is public money being spent. Maybe not as much as Guido reports, but based on House of Lords numbers, it's around £500m/year for England. Personally, I'm not at all happy if some Africans are coming over here just to get treatment for a disease (if we're saying it's OK, should we therefore be treating all Africans)?

And I'm not against people arguing that this is morally OK. I'm not against a politician saying that it's morally wrong to screen people coming to the UK, or that it's not worth it, but to just say that something costing half a billion of public money is off-limits for discussion is contemptible and shows the political class at its worst.