English-speakers due recognition Could taxation deter migrants to UK?

THE interview in Welsh by Ben Davies has attracted considerable reaction.

He is at will to speak his first language, but it is still, although historically a first language, not at present a majority language.

Hence many will feel marginalised and, until Wales is fully bilingual the English-speaking majority, are due recognition.

To use every major occasion to promote nationalism and the language is divisive and not a way to get people involved. Patience in it’s progression from bottom up is needed not the usual political stick.

Windsor Davies, Blandford

THE number of migrants accepted into the UK over the next decade will, even by the highest plausible estimate, be a tiny fraction of the billions of people in poorer countries who would be better off if they could join this migration.

This leaves us to find a moral and practical basis for getting an extremely large number down to a merely very large one.

We attempt this through a system of rules, barriers and limits. This meets with resistance from those who call for no borders or who wish the barriers to be leaky and the limits upwardly flexible. It can also be circumvented.

Another approach is to keep numbers down by making life here less attractive to migrants. This can be in terms of money, leaving other motivators (such as safety) intact.

That takes us towards those who are a higher ethical priority being self-selecting rather than subject to bureaucratic decision.

The great demotivator at our disposal here is taxation.

We can counter the suggestion that a higher tax rate for migrants is exploitative or punitive by ringfencing the revenue for use in foreign aid.

Is it not right that the windfallprofit or lottery-win from borderhopping is shared out (albeit very thinly) to provide a consolation prize for those who are excluded for reasons unlikely to seem fair to them?

Varying the rates for migrants is consistent with our norm of progressive taxation.

The rate varies for lower or higher earners: that is depending upon how one’s income compares with the median. For a migrant, the relevant median income for comparison is arguably that of their country of origin.

We need to see and tax migrants as relatively very affluent citizens of that country rather than as poorer residents of this one.

John Riseley, Harrogate