Council taxpayers foot the bill for unexpected immigration

Higher council tax rises, cuts in services and job losses for local people are some of the direct costs of Labour's failure to control and measure immigration.  The Tory Chairman of the Local Government Association Lord Bruce-Lockhart has written to Home Secretary John Reid to highlight the problems facing local authorities - particularly in southern England.  Download REIDLETTER.pdf

The Daily Mail highlights the particularly acute problems facing Slough:

"According to figures provided by the Office of National Statistics, only 300 immigrants are settling in Slough each year.  But the local council says there are at least 10,000 Poles alone living there...

Since local councils are paid according to the number of residents living in their areas, failure to calculate the number of immigrants can lead to critical shortfalls in funds.  This leaves the entire community suffering as schools and hospitals are overstretched.  The LGA believes the arrival of immigrants could lead to a 6 per cent rise in council tax - which has already soared by more than 70 per cent under Labour."

Related link: Immigration is endangering Britain's quality of life, warns Julian Brazier MP.

Comments

[Nadim]

O yes, it's a problem in Slough alright!

There are thousands of poles here, many without jobs, and some schools are having to employ bi-lingual teachers. There has always been a large Asian immigrant community (by 'always' I mean the past 50 years or so!). With urdu/punjabi arabic polish as the only spoken language, you begin to see that the pressure on the council to educate children (and parents), provide healthcare etc is very costly indeed.

[Chris Ryder]

Well as a council tax payer all be it not for much longer I guess the powers at be better start gearing up and making prison places ready for the many!...

[Chris Palmer]

These headlines will go down well with the general public I am sure. However, has David Cameron and CCHQ made any attempt to capitalise? John Reid has performed another spectacular U-turn in now calling for limits to immigration, even though at the last election, when it suited them, they claimed that a similar Tory policy was racist. What is the Conservative party going to do about this?

Many people I know are asking why they should fund the lifestyles and services of people who have only just arrived and contributed nothing (yet) to this country other than, in some areas, rising levels of crime and social break down.

Unhindered and unlimited immigration to this country cannot be sustained - that much is clear.

[Denis Cooper]

Gosh, what a surprise this all is!

Sunday Times April 4th 2004:

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2088-1061920,00.html

""Nobody can be sure quite what the exact figures are. I was told recently, for example, that according to an unpublished police estimate, 25% of the population of Slough has come from eastern Europe, most of it in the past decade."

Slough Express January 20th 2006:

http://icberkshire.icnetwork.co.uk/0100news/slough/tm_objectid=16606779%26method=full%26siteid=50102%26headline=9%2d000%2dmigrants%2darrived%2din%2dslough%2dlast%2dyear-name_page.html

"9,000 migrants arrived in Slough last year"

I expect you may have seen that, Nadim.

[Don Jameson]

This is so right!

"Why, do you know, only today I read that Dame Shirley is once again unexpectedly among us. The City of Westminster (aren't they MARVELLOUS?) will suddenly have an extra bin to lift, parking permit to process (well she'll claim the disabled won't she? they always do that sort, probably want a new hip on the NHS, too), bus pass to issue, and what council tax has she paid all this time she's been abroad, I'd like to know? And you know what demands these in-comers make...and as for housing benefit, well don't get me started. And it's not as if she'll contribute to the local economy or anything, probly get illegals to do the cleaning. My Raquel says her daughter JanetStreet is just as bad..."

[michael mcgough]

Nigel Farage of UKIP will be on Newsnight tonight discussing immigration with Polly Toynbee, someone from the IPPR and a Labour wonk.No Tory apparently ,but then Dave is pro mass unlimited immigration is he not and to discuss this might involve dirty talk,like Europe and the EU.

[Patsy Sergeant]

Yes well at long last the problems are beginning to have to be faced and somehow coped with - of an irresponsible attitude to immigration.

Perhaps those posters on other threads who said things like well if English people were prepared to work for less money then we wouldn't have to have so many immigrants, will be quite prepared to pay higher Council Tax. Mind you I wouldn't be surprised if they didn't pay CT anyway!

Can anybody tell me why it seems to be taken for granted that the UK - one of the smallest in land mass, but most densely populated per klm - of the developed Western countries, has to be the country that has to pay in every way to have excessive immigration, AND we are supposed to be grateful for it!

[legal eagle]

I totally agree with Chris Palmer. Labour made great play at the last election of the so-called 'dog whistle' on immigration, when all we were saying was that it needs controlling.

This issue is going to be on tonight's Newsnight. This is what the preview for show says: "There's something in the air today. Normally die-hard left-wingers are calling for a limit on immigration as councils say they can't cope with rising numbers. Normally die-hard right-wingers are calling for more immigration to allow the economy to prosper."

[Ian Williamson]

The immigration meltdown has another devastating consequence.With God knows how many 'lost' failed asylum-seekers and illegal immigrants -- 500,000 is a very conservative estimate -- and around 100,000 illegal immigrants annually (hopeful government estimate), the system is not only failing, there is a palpable lack of determination to put things right (eg having illegal immigrants working in the Home Office). Quite apart from the threat to what's left of a national identity, there's another major consequence.
At this rate, we'll need to build another city the size of Manchester every few years. No wonder we've been told by our current masters that, like it or lump it, we've got to build another million houses. Roll on the revolution!

[Richard]

I thought immigrants were supposed to contribute more to the economy than they took out. Furthermore I thought they were supposed to contribute to the economic growth that would fund the services they would be using. Those are the usual arguments used by the pro-immigration lobby anyway.

People do not like seeing newcomers getting free access to services that they or their family have funded over a number of years. We need to introduce a system whereby newcomers are not entitled to free healthcare, education etc until they have lived here and paid taxes for a certain number of years. Yes, I am aware that many "natives" get free access to services they don't or haven't contributed to but that is a matter for another debate.

[Ian Williamson]

it's interesting to see that, according to the BBC's for tonight's Newsnight, "Normally, diehard right-wingers are usually calling for more immigration to allow the economy to prosper." I must have missed something.

[Chris Ryder]

Still it was jolly good to hear what the official opposition had to say about this issue today!, ..oh! sorry, silly me, my mistake, I was just imagining I did, it must have been the predictable silence that got me carried away on the belief it would champion a serious public concern such as this!, oh well yet another issue thats slipped right through Dave's fingers, after all what's a little increase like this on Dave's council tax matter to him, against those that'll end up broke.

[legal eagle]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/religion/moralmaze.shtml

If you can catch it before it updates tomorrow, the last edition of the 'Moral Maze' on R4 concerns immigration and contains another Labour MP arguing for tighter immigration controls.

He also says that the poor "suffer disproportionately" from immigration...can you just imagine the reaction if it was a Tory MP!?

[Wat Tyler]

The head of the Immigration Advisory Service says Slough Council has got it wrong- these new immigrants are all young and single and don't actually consume local services. Slough Council just wants some more money.

Does anyone in Slough have any facts?

[michael mcgough]

Apparently Frank Field is the Labour MP on Newsnight tonight-----should prove interesting.

[Denis Cooper]

Nobody has the facts, that's the point. I probably have some info from various other sources on file but it's too late to look it out tonight.

[Yet Another Anon]

Most of the immigrants I've come across are young and most are working, there are partly problems with the way Council Revenue is structured so that large amounts come in Block Grants from Central Government, more money raised locally from a combination of charging for services and through more localised taxation and cuts in spending per head both by Central and Local Government and moving towards debt elimination and perhaps moving budgets into surplus would reduce impacts of higher than expected local populations, perhaps if Local Councils could get hypothecated a proportion of the VAT and Income Tax raised locally, if immigrants are working then they will be paying more - it wouldn't need a seperate Local Tax but more of identifying what was raised locally - the rate might still be the same right across England.

[Richard]

Good God, Toynbee and Farage are batting for the same team on Newsnight!

[John Hustings]

Don't know what happened to Frank Field, he might have had something interesting to say.

[michael mcgough]

I wonder what happened to Frank? There would probably been concensus between him,Polly and Farage!

[Yet Another Anon]

Withdrawing from the EU would enable the UK to treat citizens from the EU on the same footing as people from the rest of the world, certainly stopping people from entering the country freely if they have been convicted on a bona fide basis of a serious crime in another country even in the situation in which they are tortured or killed if they return to their home country whatever country they have come from in those circumstances they should be sent back, currently there is little that can be done to stop criminals coming in from other EU countries (as Nigel Farage pointed out), once the UK has complete power of veto over anyone wishing to enter the UK then if it is so wished then immigration can be restricted or even stopped completely if parliament so decides, I'm not bothered about numbers but I don't want to see people who the Security and Intelligence Services believe to be probably terrorists or criminals being allowed to move freely in the open inside the country - if the evidence is not such as to convict them then they should be detained or kept out until either they prove they are innocent or evidence is obtained that shows clear guilt such as is sufficent to obtain a conviction.

[TomTom]

John Reid is shifting perceptions too - now if they could transfer their Leftwingers to LibDems or Conservatives - Labour could stay in power for decades as a centre-right party

[Jack Stone]

When we are discussing immigration lets focus on the faults in the system and the incompetance of the politicians who have allowed a situation to happen where the rate of immigration is higher than the country can bare and not blame immigrants for this situation.
As for council tax I think we should have the courage to scrap this unfair tax completly which is not based on the premise all taxes should be based on and that is ability to pay and replace it with a local sales or income tax which would be far fairer.
We should also give local tax payers a greater control over high spending councils by insisting that any budget increase higher than say the rate of inflation was put to local taxpayers for there approval. This would make local councils far more efficient with there spending and stop them wasting millions which personally I suspect they do at present.

[Denis Cooper]

Jack is absolutely right, for well-behaved legal immigrants. In effect they've been invited here by the government, and they can hardly be blamed if they take up that invitation. So any criticism about problems which arise should be directed firstly at the government, secondly at the feeble opposition, and thirdly at groups like the Immigration Advisory Service mentioned above. The small minority of legal immigrants who commit crimes obviously must take personal responsibility for their misdeeds. For illegal immigrants it's different: while the government has connived at allowing them in and allowing them to stay, they know full well that they are automatically breaking the law simply by being here.

No Tory on Newsnight last night. No Damian Green, no deputy for Damian Green.

I repeat my advice that Cameron should find someone else to lead on immigration policy - someone who actually has the interests of the British people at heart.

[John Hustings]

Personally, I rather think the Tories didn't want to appear on Newsnight last night, since they basically want to avoid the immigration topic as much as possible (indeed, Damian Green's job is to waffle as much as possible without saying anything).