If rampant immigration were allowed as a spur to economic growth the consequences would be disastrous from the point of view of the general quality of life. On the other hand, the notion that the number of residents can be limited to some ideal figure fails to acknowledge inevitable demographic changes.
So what are politicians to do in the face of the dilemmas posed by population and immigration and the well-defined views that so many Islanders have on these controversial subjects?
The first principle – which Chief Minister Terry Le Sueur might like to note – is to be careful with comments about population levels of 100,000, even if such projections are carefully surrounded by caveats. The last thing that the population debate needs is a background atmosphere of alarm driven by speculation about a figure that most people would see as unreasonable and unacceptable.
In terms of positive strategy, what is required is a detailed analysis of the complex factors that will affect the Island’s population in the coming decades. We now have evidence that this is in progress, thanks to an appendix attached to the draft Strategic Plan, a document in the public domain which invites the public to comment on its wide range of proposals.
As well as making it clear that the population debate will be conducted in the wider context of the Strategic Plan – which is where it surely belongs as a matter of such fundamental importance – the draft analysis spells out the consequences of zero immigration in the face of a falling birth rate and an increasing age profile. In essence, it paints a picture of a community which, by the middle of the century, could have too few workers to support the social and health services demanded by the elderly.
The dynamics of probable population change are complex. And they are not treated anything like exhaustively in the draft plan’s appendix. As a result, a headline figure rather than the subtleties of the argument will, in all probability, capture the public imagination. That figure is the immigration rate of up to 430 individuals a year which is proposed as an acceptable and, indeed, necessary rolling average.
Selling this to Islanders haunted by the spectre of an overcrowded rock dominated by high-rise development and having no green spaces will be no easy matter. Indeed, it will be impossible if the underlying arguments are unsound.
Two duties therefore impose themselves. Government must, with full candour, continue to explain, and Islanders must, with due scepticism and objectivity, take the trouble to examine the explanations before rushing to judgment.
