Exchange of the week Do we need migrants?

To The Times

The Migration Advisory Committee (MAC) has concluded that there is no need for low-skilled workers after Brexit. One has to wonder what bubble they live in: have they not noticed that a high proportion of staff in the hotels in which they stay and the restaurants in which they eat are foreign? Speaking as someone in the hospitality industry, all I can say is that if this policy is followed through, then get ready to service your own hotel room, and to collect your own food in a restaurant from a serving hatch. We need these people: they are here doing real, valuable jobs that we can’t otherwise fill. Michael B. Cornish, Bassenthwaite, Cumbria

To The Times

The committee’s report on migration is generally welcome, but it remains at base a report about the economy written by economists on economic criteria. Those are among the least important. Broadly considered, the economically measurable consequences of migration are usually small and always debatable.

Other, more strategic consequences are not. A recent report by Migration Watch concluded that more than 80% of recent UK population growth arose directly and indirectly (through children) from international migration. Most (more than 60%) of recent additional households have been headed by people born outside the UK. There are no benefits to that growth. Few care to consider its effect on the composition and culture of the population, despite its potency in the Brexit debate.

Easy access to labour distorts the economy and creates dependency. Employers have used the great pool of willing labour from eastern Europe to create and expand low-wage, low-productivity activities to the detriment of UK productivity, innovation and training. That is short-sighted. The MAC report seems to pay no attention to the radical changes in the nature of work on the horizon. Given appropriate investment, we will no longer need to import people to pick fruit and veg – and that is just the beginning. David Coleman, emeritus professor of demography, University of Oxford