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Balancing the Scales: Tackling the UK’s Top Two Most Intransigent Problems Solves a Lot of Ills

Jan 94 min read

Co-founder of Whole Nation Conservatives Igraine Gray is a Conservative activist and former council candidate, writer, published author and rehabilitated rough sleeper. Prior to the 2024 General Election she was Policy Assistant to Sir Simon Clarke.


Our great country has several problems. That statement should not be shocking or news to anyone. However, two issues are particularly intransigent: our inability to build, well, anything, and our impotence when it comes to controlling immigration.


The domino effect from these two problems alone contributes to many others. Lack of housing and infrastructure, exacerbated by too high a level of immigration, is feeding into lower fertility rates and an ageing population. The total fertility rate in England and Wales in 2023 dropped to 1.44 children per woman, its lowest value since records began in 1938 (1). In a survey for the Hyde Group housing association in 2023, a quarter of people in England, about 14.1 million people, said insecure housing had led them to put their lives on hold, with the figure rising to more than two-fifths of adults under 35 (2). Our ageing population also has higher associated costs. Today, we have over 1.7 million people over the age of 85. In 50 years, this number will rise to 4.7 million. The state pension costs over £100 billion a year and has increased 3-fold since the year 2000. By 2040, there will be more than 17 million people aged 65 and over, 4 million more than today, and so these costs will rise even further with even fewer births to replace the taxpaying workforce required to fund them (3).


It is also stagnating economic growth and deepening regional inequality. The shortfall in infrastructure has and will cost our economy billions. The cost of the UK having infrastructure that fell short of typical developed economy standards was £78 billion each year between 2000-10 (4). The cost of youth homelessness alone is estimated to be around £8.5 billion (5) without considering the rest of our homelessness bill and all the other indirect costs/lost opportunities as a result of the housing crisis. Considering the historic neglect and under-investment in many of our post-industrial towns, infrastructure and housing builds would need to far surpass our previous achievements. We have not yet done so, and so that inequality remains. Where there is an uptick in transport and business infrastructure building, those areas are starting to recover - the Tees Valley is a prime example of this.


If we can’t build enough to keep up with current needs, we haven’t a chance in hell of keeping up with the demand caused by excess levels of immigration. This is why dealing with these two problems is the most powerful action we can take. Too often, this particular debate is simplified down to YIMBYs vs Immigration Sceptics. The solution here is actually to be both.


We cannot just build more. Unprecedented levels of immigration are only intensifying a poor situation. We are not building enough housing and infrastructure to get through the backlog of resources needed for those already here, let alone for the level of immigration we have. Net migration in the last four years now stands at over 2.5 million, which represents population growth of 3.8% – equivalent to the combined populations of Leeds, Liverpool, Sheffield, Manchester, and Bristol. Analysis by the Centre for Policy Studies shows that we would have needed to add more than 800,000 to housing targets over those four years (on the methodology used by the Government until recently) just to cope with current levels (6). There is also the strain on our already creaking infrastructure. As Neil O’Brien said regarding his work as co-author of the Centre for Policy Studies’ Taking Back Control report: ‘It has also put significant strain on public services and infrastructure: migrants may bring skills with them, but they cannot bring additional roads, school places, or GPs surgeries’ (7). Finally, though we are not even close to approaching the limit, we must acknowledge that there is only a finite amount of land available to build on if we are to protect those truly outstanding areas of our environment, and so cannot meet demand in perpetuity if we fail to get a grip on immigration.


We cannot just lower immigration. In the Centre for Cities’ Housebuilding Crisis report in February 2023, they highlight that compared to the average European country, Britain today has a backlog of 4.3 million homes that are missing from the national housing market as they were never built (8). And that was two years ago. Considering we built 231,100 homes in 2023 (9) and all signs are that housebuilding remained stagnant in 2024, we have come nowhere near addressing that backlog. The recent Institute for Government/CIPFA 2023 Performance tracker estimates that the total value of the UK Public Estate maintenance backlog is £37bn (10), and this is without factoring in increased demand for current and new from uncontrolled immigration. We could have literally zero immigration, and our infrastructure and housing woes would still stand.


Balancing these scales, restoring harmony between the two, restores us back to factory settings. Then, and only then, can conservatives start to deliver a sustainable and independent future for the whole nation.


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