I have never been a fan of the low wage model for our economy. It is a bad idea to invite in people from abroad to fill low wage jobs every time business has vacancies.
It keeps wages low and puts business off investing in machinery and computers to help raise productivity.
It is a poor substitute for training people already living here for the roles.
Whilst it may be an attractive and cheap option for the businesses concerned, it is very expensive for taxpayers.
For years now, we have been told there is a temporary shortage of care workers, of farm workers, of a range of lower paid skilled jobs that needs the short-term fix of more legal migration.
These temporary shortages often become permanent fixtures of our jobs market.
To stop this action needs to be taken to make the jobs attractive to people living here, and to offer them the support and training they need to do the jobs.
It worked well with the driver shortages that resulted from the rush to online shopping over covid where a combination of better wages and more training for people living here eased the shortages quickly.
When there was massive movement of people into the EU in the middle of the last decade the EU worked out that it cost 250,000 Euros for a country to provide the home, school places and early years services and financial support for a single new migrant.
When we invite people in to do lower paid jobs we should want them to have decent housing, to be able to get good school places for their children, ready access to NHS care.
We pay them top up benefits for low incomes and housing costs and provide them with the roads, trains, utility services and the rest that they need for their lives.
1.2 million legal migrants arrive a year. That is 700,000 additional people after allowing for those who leave.
We need to build three cities the size of Southampton each year for them. They need shops, electricity, water, transport as well as homes and access to surgeries and schools.
250,000 euros seems too modest an estimate today of how much the state needs to pay for each additional arrival.
They need a home, often in a dear location like London.
They need school places and health provision. This imposes a capital cost to put in extra facilities, and a cost every year to pay the salaries of those who provide the services they need.
The Treasury sees that they add to total UK output, which is true. The Treasury fails to account separately for the extra public spending.
Instead of just seeking bigger national output by adding more low paid labour the Treasury should concentrate on raising output and income per head. We want higher living standards.
To do that we need to invest in the people already here, train them and help them into better jobs, and mechanise more.
No wonder public spending and services are under so much pressure when numbers needing the homes and public services are growing so quickly.
