Too many immigrants? Rubbish, soon we'll be begging them to come

With an ageing population, millions of Britons unwilling to work and thousands more emigrating every year, the last thing this country needs is fewer immgrants, says Simon Nixon.

Last week I was lucky enough to sit next to Gran Persson, Sweden's former prime minister, at a private lunch. Persson ran Sweden for a decade until he lost a general election in 2006, during which time he was at the heart of all the big debates over the future of Europe. The lunch was off the record, so unfortunately I can't pass on his insights into Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, both of whom he worked with closely during his time in office. But he did make one observation that prompted discussion at the table. He noted that in the future, the world could face increasing competition for immigrants and that this could present a real challenge to Britain and the EU.

Two items of news this week reminded me how true this is. The first was official figures showing that two million Britons have left this country over the last ten years to settle abroad. The second was the last Home Office data showing that the number of Eastern and Central European migrants applying to work in the UK had fallen by almost 15% in the first three months of this year, compared to 2007, to the lowest level for three years. That supports recent research by the Institute for Public Policy Research, which calculated that half the one million migrant workers estimated to have come to Britain in the last four years have returned home.

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Simon Nixon

Simon is the chief leader writer and columnist at The Times and previous to that, he was at The Wall Street Journal for 9 years as the chief European commentator. Simon also wrote for Reuters Breakingviews as the Executive Editor earlier in his career. Simon covers personal finance topics such as property, the economy and other areas for example stockmarkets and funds.