Britain’s ILR Emergency

Published last week, the latest ONS migration figures show that immigration to Britain has topped 1.2 million for the third year in a row - with a net figure of more than 700,000 for 2024. 

This is one of the most consequential changes in our nation’s recent history - the largest wave of migration to this country since records began. If, as the Prime Minister says, our migration policy constitutes “a different order of failure”, then the Government must reform immigration rules to reflect the real needs of our economy and the expressed will of the British people. The principle of “quality over quantity” is instructive here - as outlined in our recent Selecting The Best research paper. The overall level of migration will need to come down; fewer restrictions on domestic training and the removal of blockers to automation will be needed to help the UK’s workforce adapt to this new lower-migration environment.

But even if rules for new migrants are reformed, we are still left with a conundrum. Migrants resident in the UK under the Work or Family visa route will be eligible to apply for Indefinite Leave To Remain (ILR) status after a qualifying period of legal stay in the UK - in most cases, this will be five years. ILR status conveys a right to remain in the UK for an unlimited period of time. ILR status holders have access to the National Health Service, social housing, and universal credit. After ten years of National Insurance Contributions (however small), ILR status holders will also have access to the UK state pension. 

Each year, more and more of the people who came to the UK since 2021 will become eligible for ILR. Given the sheer number of visas handed out in recent years, ILR eligibility could climb into the millions by the time that new immigration rules are implemented; our system was not designed to cope with long-term settlement at such scale and pace.

At a time when HM Treasury’s fiscal burden continues to increase year-on-year, this poses profound challenges to the UK’s balance sheet. After just five years of work here, however low-skilled and low-paid, ILR holders will be eligible for a lifetime of support from the British state. They also have a right to bring dependents to this country, meaning that a single five-year stint of work could see the British taxpayer burdened with the cost of an entire family - benefits, social housing, healthcare, pensions, and more. 

According to figures produced by the OBR, the average “low-wage migrant worker” will cost the British taxpayer £465,000 by the time they reach 81 years of age. According to analysis conducted by Karl Williams, from the Centre for Policy Studies, just 5 percent of all visas in 2022-23 were given to high-skilled migrants who are likely to be net contributors - fully 72 percent of skilled work visas went to migrants likely to be earning less than the average UK salary. Against this backdrop, it is clear that opening the ILR door to millions of new migrants will impose a considerable and unwanted fiscal burden on the British taxpayer, for decades to come.

The case for scepticism is not merely a fiscal one. In a democratic society, the will of the people must be paramount - and yet this change has happened against the wishes of the British public. According to November 2024 figures from YouGov, 68 percent of Britons believe that immigration has been too high over the past ten years; just 5 percent say that it has been too low. In every YouGov poll conducted on this issue since July 2019, a plurality of those polled have expressed the view that immigration has been too high over the past ten years. In all but two of these polls, this opinion has been expressed by an absolute majority. Even if the migrants of the past few years proved to be net positive contributors to the Treasury, they came to this country against the explicit wishes of the British people. Can it be right that British citizens should have to live with the consequences of policy failure which they did not ask for?

As such, the Government should reform existing rules around Indefinite Leave To Remain, to limit the long-term harms of the so-called ‘Boriswave’. Given the scale of democratic discontent with the scale of immigration over the past few years, and the Prime Minister’s own admission that this policy has been a failure, it would be both possible and just to create new, emergency rules to restrict long-term settlement of visa holders who arrived in the UK over the past few years. 

In doing so, the Government would achieve two things. First, it would give itself greater control over the question of whether to reissue visas to those who arrived over the past few years. If the Government determines that it was mistaken in handing out visas to particular individuals or to particular categories of person, then it could reasonably refuse to reissue those visas; this process is made easier without the addition of a ‘ticking clock’, namely the five-year ILR threshold for many visa holders. Secondly, it would mitigate the long-term fiscal burden of low-skilled migrants who are unlikely to be net contributors to the public purse, as already explained.

There is already precedent for such a change - in 2006, the period of time required to obtain ILR was extended to five years, an extension which applied retroactively to those already actively pursuing ILR. At that time, ILR was granted after four years of residence - then-Home Secretary Charles Clake issued HC1016 of 2005-06, laid before Parliament under s. 3(2) Immigration Act 1971. This instrument changed ILR eligibility criteria from four years to five. This instrument provides a clear precedent, and a useful legal framework, for another such reform of ILR. Under s. 3(2) of the Immigration Act, the Secretary of State “shall from time to time (and as soon as may be) lay before Parliament statements of the rules, or of any changes in the rules, laid down by him as to the practice to be followed in the administration of this Act for regulating entry into and stay in the United Kingdoms of persons required by this Act to have leave to enter.” However, “if a statement laid before either House of Parliament under this subsection is disapproved by a resolution of that House passed within the period of forty days…then the Secretary of State shall as soon as may be make such changes or further changes in the rules as appear to him to be required in the circumstances.” In other words, to change the rules for ILR eligibility, the Home Secretary should lay a statement before Parliament which outlines their plans for reform, and these changes should not be disapproved of by a resolution of either House of Parliament. These powers are granted under the Immigration Act 1971, and allow the Home Secretary to change UK immigration policy by issuing a Statement of Changes in Immigration Rules.

There are additional such precedents found elsewhere in Europe. As of September, the Dutch government updated its own immigration rules, extending the waiting period for naturalisation from 5 to 10 years. In Sweden, rules have been amended to allow revocation of residence permits - the local equivalent of ILR -, as of February 2023.

However, the UK should put safeguards in place to ensure that it remains an attractive destination for a small number of high-quality, compatible migrants. 2019-20 data published by HMRC on the tax contributions of non-UK nationals noted that nationals of countries such as the United States, Australia, and Canada were disproportionate net contributors to HM Treasury. Many of these migrants work in high-skilled professions, and play an important role in supporting sectors such as technology and financial services.

Building an immigration system which depends upon the migration policies of other countries is unwise in the long-term. Extended periods of migration liberalism in other developed countries could result in undesirable second-order migration to the UK. As such, in general, assessments on whether or not to grant the right to settle in this country should be conducted on a case-by-case basis.

In the short term, the existing ILR rules should continue to apply to nationals of the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, the British Overseas Territories, and the EEA. Of the 4.584 million visas handed out under the ‘Family’, ‘Study’, ‘Work’, and ‘Other’ groups (excluding Visitors) since 2021, migrants from these countries constitute less than 12 percent of the total. 49 percent of the migrants who came to the UK from these countries came here on work visas; on the other hand, less than a third of migrants who came from other countries did so. Migrants from these countries are disproportionately likely to be employed, net positive tax contributors, who do not rely on significant support from the state.

This would not mean an open door for nationals of these countries - they would still be subject to existing ILR rules. However, this carve-out would help to ensure that Britain remains a competitive destination for genuinely high-quality talent while it reviews and reforms its broader immigration policy environment.

Naturally, determining propensity to contribute by reference to nationality is necessarily a broad-brush approach. The existing rules for Innovator Founder and Global Talent visa holders should thus be retained, irrespective of nationality.

The mechanical process by which ILR rules should be reformed is as follows:

STATEMENT OF CHANGES IN IMMIGRATION RULES

The Home Secretary has made the changes hereinafter stated in the rules laid down by them as to the practice to be followed in the administration of the Immigration Acts for regulating entry into and the stay of persons in the United Kingdom and contained in the statement laid before Parliament on 23 May 1994 (HC 395) as amended. The amending statements were laid before, or presented to, Parliament on 20 September 1994 (Cm 2663), 26 October 1995 (HC 797), 4 January 1996 (Cm 3073), 7 March 1996 (HC 274), 2 April 1996 (HC 329), 29 August 1996 (Cm 3365), 31 October 1996 (HC 31), 27 February 1997 (HC 338), 29 May 1997 (Cm 3669), 5 June 1997 (HC 26), 30 July 1997 (HC 161), 11 May 1998 (Cm 3953), 7 October 1998 (Cm 4065), 18 November 1999 (HC 22), 28 July 2000 (HC 704), 20 September 2000 (Cm 4851), 28 August 2001 (Cm 5253), 16 April 2002 (HC 735), 27 August 2002 (Cm 5597), 7 November 2002 (HC 1301), 26 November 2002 (HC 104), 8 January 2003 (HC 180), 10 February 2003 (HC 389), 31 March 2003 (HC 538), 30 May 2003 (Cm 5829), 24 August 2003 (Cm 5949), 12 November 2003 (HC 1224), 17 December 2003 (HC 95), 12 January 2004 (HC 176), 26 February 2004 (HC 370), 31 March 2004 (HC 464), 29 April 2004 (HC 523), 3 August 2004 (Cm 6297), 24 September 2004 (Cm 6339), 18 October 2004 (HC 1112), 20 December 2004 (HC 164), 11 January 2005 (HC 194), 7 February 2005 (HC 302), 22 February 2005 (HC 346), 24 March 2005 (HC 486), 15 June 2005 (HC 104), 12 July 2005 (HC 299), 24 October 2005 (HC 582), 9 November 2005 (HC 645), 21 November 2005 (HC 697), 19 December 2005 (HC 769), 23 January 2006 (HC 819), 1 March 2006 (HC 949), 30 March 2006 (HC 1016), 20 April 2006 (HC 1053), 19 July 2006 (HC 1337), 18 September 2006 (Cm 6918), 7 November 2006 (HC 1702), 11 December 2006 (HC 130), 19 March 2007 (HC 398), 3 April 2007 (Cm 7074), 4 April 2007 (Cm 7075), 7 November 2007 (HC 28), 13 November 2007 (HC 40), 19 November 2007 (HC 82), 6 February 2008 (HC 321), 17 March 2008 (HC 420), 9 June 2008 (HC 607), 10 July 2008 (HC 951), 15 July 2008 (HC 971), 4 November 2008 (HC 1113), 9 February 2009 (HC 227), 9 March 2009 (HC 314), 24 April 2009 (HC 413), 9 September 2009 (Cm 7701), 23 September 2009 (Cm 7711), 10 December 2009 (HC 120), 10 February 2010 (HC 367), 18 March 2010 (HC 439), 28 June 2010 (HC 59), 15 July 2010 (HC 96), 22 July 2010 (HC 382), 19 August 2010 (Cm 7929), 1 October 2010 (Cm 7944), 21 December 2010 (HC 698), 16 March 2011 (HC 863), 31 March 2011 (HC 908), 13 June 2011 (HC 1148), 19 July 2011 (HC 1436), 10 October 2011 (HC 1511), 7 November 2011 (HC 1622), 8 December 2011 (HC 1693), 20 December 2011 (HC 1719), 19 January 2012 (HC 1733), 15 March 2012 (HC 1888), 4 April 2012 (Cm 8337), 13 June 2012 (HC 194), 9 July 2012 (HC 514), 19 July 2012 (Cm 8423), 5 September 2012 (HC 565), 22 November 2012 (HC 760), 12 December 2012 (HC 820), 20 December 2012 (HC 847), 30 January 2013 (HC 943), 7 February 2013 (HC 967), 11 March 2013 (HC 1038), 14 March 2013 (HC 1039), 9 April 2013 (Cm 8599), 10 June 2013 (HC 244), 31 July 2013 (Cm 8690), 6 September 2013 (HC628), 9 October 2013 (HC 686), 8 November 2013 (HC 803), 9 December 2013 (HC 887), 10 December 2013 (HC 901), 18 December 2013 (HC 938), 10 March 2014 (HC 1130), 13 March 2014 (HC 1138), 1 April 2014 (HC 1201), 10 June 2014 (HC 198), 10 July 2014 (HC 532), 16 October 2014 (HC 693), 26 February 2015 (HC 1025), 16 March 2015 (HC1116), 13 July 2015 (HC 297), 17 September 2015 (HC 437), 29 October 2015 (HC535), 11 March 2016 (HC 877), 3 November 2016 (HC 667), 16 March 2017 (HC 1078), 20 July 2017 (HC 290), 7 December 2017 (HC 309), 15 March 2018 (HC 895), 15 June 2018 (HC 1154), 20 July 2018 (Cm 9675), 11 October 2018 (HC 1534), 11 December 2018 (HC 1779), 20 December 2018 (HC 1849), 7 March 2019 (HC 1919), 1 April 2019 (HC 2099), 9 September 2019 (HC 2631), 24 October 2019 (HC 170), 30 January 2020 (HC 56), 12 March 2020 (HC 120), 14 May 2020 (CP 232), 10 September 2020 (HC 707), 22 October 2020 (HC 813), 10 December 2020 (HC 1043), 31 December 2020 (CP 361), 4 March 2021 (HC 1248), 10 September 2021 (HC 617), 11 October 2021 (CP 542), 1 November 2021 (HC 803), 14 December 2021 (HC 913), 24 January 2022 (HC 1019), 17 February 2022 (CP 632), 15 March 2022 (HC 1118), 29 March 2022 (HC 1220), 11 May 2022 (HC 17), 20 July 2022 (HC 511), 18 October 2022 (HC 719), 9 March 2023 (HC 1160), 17 July 2023 (HC 1496), 19 July 2023 (HC 1715), 7 September 2023 (HC 1780), 7 December 2023 (HC 246), 15 February 2024 (HC 556), 14 March 2024 (HC 590), 10 September 2024 (HC 217), and 26 November 2024 (HC 334).

Review

Before the end of each review period, the Secretary of State undertakes to review all of the relevant Immigration Rules including any Relevant Rule amended or added by these changes. The Secretary of State will set out the conclusions of the review in a report and publish the report. 

The report must in particular: 

(a) consider each of the Relevant Rules and whether or not each Relevant Rule achieves its objectives and is still appropriate; and 

(b) assess whether those objectives remain appropriate and, if so, the extent to which they could be achieved with a system that imposes less regulation. 

“Review period” means: 

(a) the period of five years beginning on 6 April 2017; and 

(b) subject to the paragraph below, each successive period of five years. 

If a report under this provision is published before the last day of the review period to which it relates, the following review period is to begin with the day on which that report is published. 

“Relevant Rule” means an Immigration Rule which: 

imposes requirements, restrictions or conditions, or sets standards, in relation to any activity carried on by a business or voluntary or community body; 

or relates to the securing of compliance with, or the enforcement of, requirements, restrictions, conditions or standards which relate to any activity carried on by a business or voluntary or community body.  

Changes to requirements for indefinite leave to remain

1. In the Skilled Worker Appendix:

i. at SW 21.1, replace “5 years” with “15 years, except for nationals of exempted countries, for whom the period shall remain 5 years”

ii. at SW 42.1, replace “5 years” with “15 years, except for nationals of exempted countries, for whom the period shall be 10 years”

2. In the ECAA Settlement Appendix:

i. at ECAA 3.1(b), replace “5 years” with “15 years”

ii. at ECAA 4.1(b) replace “5 years” with “15 years”

iii. at ECAA 6.2 replace “5 years” with “15 years”

3. In the Private Life Appendix:

i. at PL14.1, replace “5 years” with “15 years, except for nationals of exempted countries, for whom the period shall remain 5 years”

ii. at PL12.3, replace “5 years continuous residence” with “the period of continuous residence stipulated by PL14.1”

iii. at PL12.4, replace replace “5 years continuous residence” with “the period of continuous residence stipulated by PL14.1”

iv. at PL27.3, replace “5 years” with “the period of continuous residence stipulated by PL14.1”

v. at PL27.4, replace “5 years” with “the period of continuous residence stipulated at PL14.1”

4. In the Family Members Appendix:

i. at E-ILRP 1.3, replace “5 years (60 months)” with “15 years, except for nationals of exempted countries, for whom the period shall remain 5 years”

ii. at S-EC 1.4(b), replace “10 years” with “15 years”

iii. at S-EC 1.4(c), replace “5 years” with “15 years”

5. In the Long Residence Appendix:

i. in preamble, replace “10 years” with “10 or 15 years depending on nationality”

ii. at LR 3.1, replace “10 years” with “15 years, except for nationals of exempted countries, for whom the period shall remain 10 years”

iii. at LR 11.1, replace “10 years” with “15 years, except for nationals of exempted countries, for whom the period shall remain 10 years”

6. In Part 11: Asylum

i. at 352ZM, replace “five years” with “15 years, except for nationals of exempted countries, for whom the period shall remain 5 years”

ii. at 352Q(i) replace “ten years” with “15 years, except for nationals of exempted countries, for whom the period shall remain 10 years”

iii. at 352Q(ii) replace “ten years” with “15 years, except for nationals of exempted countries, for whom the period shall remain 10 years”

7. Create new appendix, ‘Emergency Indefinite Leave To Remain Reform’:

EILR 1.1. For the purposes of reforms to indefinite leave to remain instituted by [title of statutory instrument], “nationals of exempted countries” shall include nationals of:

i. The United States of America

ii. Canada

iii. Australia

iv. New Zealand

v. Singapore

vi. The Republic of Korea

vii. Japan

viii. Taiwan

ix. Austria

x. Belgium

xi. Bulgaria

xii. Croatia

xiii. Czechia

xiv. Denmark

xv. Estonia

xvi. Finland

xvii. France

xviii. Germany

xix. Greece

xx. Hungary

xxi. Iceland

xxii. Ireland

xxiii. Italy

xxiv. Latvia

xxv. Liechtenstein

xxvi. Lithuania

xxvii. Luxembourg

xxviii. Malta

xxix. The Netherlands

xxx. Norway

xxxi. Poland

xxxii. Portugal

xxxiii. Romania

xxxiv. Slovakia

xxxv. Slovenia

xxxvi. Spain

xxxvii. Sweden

xxxviii. Switzerland

Given the UK’s increasingly litigious culture, and our increasingly interventionist judiciary, these changes are likely to be subject to some form of judicial review. While the Secretary of State is legally empowered to make these changes, we should not assume that the courts will respect this fact. As such, Parliament should pass a supplementary piece of primary legislation, fast-tracked within the forty day period outlined within the Immigration Act 1971, to clarify the following:

“(1) [Title of statutory instrument] shall have effect notwithstanding any relevant international or domestic law which may be incompatible or inconsistent, and shall be considered to be a legitimate and lawful exercise of the Secretary of State’s powers under s. 3(2) of the Immigration Act 1971.

(2) Regulations or decisions made in order to implement, or in respect of, [title of statutory instrument] are not to be regarded as unlawful on the grounds of any incompatibility or inconsistency with relevant domestic or international law.

(3) No court of tribunal may entertain any proceedings for questioning the validity or lawfulness of [title of statutory instrument] or decisions made by relevant officials which rely upon or give effect to [title of statutory instrument]. This includes any claim for judicial review in relation to England and Wales, any application to the supervisory jurisdiction of the Court of Session in relation to Scotland, and/or any application for judicial review in relation to Northern Ireland.

(4) The period mentioned in each of the following provisions (standard time limits for seeking judicial review), or any corresponding successor provision, may not be extended under any circumstances in relation to a relevant claim or application:
(a) rule 54.5(1)(b) of the Civil Procedure Rules in relation to England and Wales;

(b) section 27A(1)(a) of the Court of Session Act 1988 in relation to Scotland;

(c) rule (4)(1) of Order 54 of the Rules of the Court of Judicature (Northern Ireland) 1980 (S.R.(N.I.) 1980 No. 346 in relation to Northern Ireland.

(5) For the purposes of this Act:
“relevant international or domestic law” expressly includes, but is not limited to, (a) the European Convention on Human Rights, and (b) the Human Rights Act 1998.”

The ‘ouster clause’ featured here is modelled on that found in Clause 47 of the United Kingdom Internal Market Act 2020; this clause would prevent decisions taken on the basis of this amendment from being struck down by judicial review. Given the pressing importance of this issue, it would be entirely inappropriate for the judiciary to subject individual cases of ILR extension - or the legislation itself - to a lengthy and expensive process of review. Immigration control is a matter of political judgment; it is incumbent upon our sovereign, supreme Parliament to make its will crystal clear for the benefit of the judiciary.

Of course, reasonable reform might also go further. There is a strong argument to be made for scrapping Indefinite Leave To Remain status altogether, giving the Government greater control over migration policy by disaggregating temporary work and study visas from the settlement and citizenship process altogether. There is also an argument for the introduction of a ‘golden route’, whereby migrants are eligible to apply for ILR under the existing five-year rule, but at a far higher cost - increasing the fee from the existing £2,885 to a far higher figure, such as £25,000, would create a more nationality-agnostic route for productive migrants. As Legatum Institute’s Guy Dampier has argued, existing migrants could be prevented from bringing dependents to the UK by tightening requirements, including raising the salary cap at which visa holders can bring family members to the UK.

Based on early indicators as to governance style and political priorities, it seems unlikely that this Government will institute the ILR reforms proposed in this short essay. However, this fact alone does not mean that the British people need to live with the mistakes of the past few years for decades to come. A future Government could theoretically revoke ILR status from existing holders, by amending Section 76 of the Nationality, Immigration, and Asylum Act 2002 to introduce a new grounds for revocation (“The Secretary of State may revoke a person’s indefinite leave to enter or remain in the United Kingdom at their discretion, as part of their duties in determining national immigration and settlement policy”). Indeed, the 2002 Act already has a process by which ILR status can be revoked, on three grounds. Once again, this amendment would need to be accompanied by a cast-iron ouster clause, in order to avoid judicial review.

But in the short term, the most urgent step that the Government ought to take is the reform of Indefinite Leave To Remain rules, mitigating the long-term downsides of this short-term policy mistake.

If our experiment with mass migration has, in fact, been a mistake, then why should the British people have to live with the consequences for decades to come? With Britain already facing an enormous fiscal burden, allowing this burden to grow over the next few decades would not only be incautious - it would be unconscionable.

This is an exceptional measure, but these are exceptional times. There is both an available mechanism and an existing precedent for an emergency reform of ILR rules. The only obstacle to such a change is political will - and, given the shape of public sentiment on this issue, any Government brave enough to institute such a change would likely have the support of a clear majority of the population. These changes are more than a technical possibility - they are the democratic duty of any politician who presumes to represent the British people.

We do insist that people are rational - no, really

It’s fair enough to say that people aren’t quite as calculatedly rational as the most simplistic economic model might assume as a starting assumption. On the other hand most people are, most of the time, largely rational about their own interests. This is why we’ve more off sick these days:

Sickness benefits are worth £3,000 a year more than a minimum wage job, according to a new analysis of Britain’s worklessness crisis.

An investigation found low-paid workers are now trying to get themselves signed off with ill health in order to boost their income.

Analysis by the Centre for Social Justice think tank found people on the top level of sickness benefits now earn an average of £23,900 a year while those on the minimum wage take home just £20,650 after tax.

If sickness benefits are as generous - or, perhaps, more so - as working for a living then more people will be sick. Which gives us a certain tension, obviously. We’d not really and wholly want the vicissitudes of a fragile physique to result in poverty but we’d also probably prefer to have people who could work doing so. The difficulty being that solving both at the same time isn’t really one of those possible things.

Thus, as we remarked:

But if there is going to be such a system then there will be those who claim to be sick who might not, quite, be as sick as is being claimed. Humans can be lazy and greedy after all.

There is no solution to this. Only trade offs. For people are, largely, by and by and enough, rational about their own interests. The same income for not working as working? There will be more not working.

Tim Worstall

Mail Fail - Why the Post Office is right to be shuttering offices

It’s been a tough year for the Post Office, with the Horizon scandal still ringing in its executives' ears. Now the boards are going up for 115 Post Office branches. Some commentators on social media have lamented that this is a further ‘betrayal’ of many communities and, especially, for those who care deeply about cash. Petitions have started, calling for these cash-bonfires to have more taxpayer bills used as fuel.

The Post Office is a part of the welfare state, oddly situated in the Department of Business and Trade. Its primary functions, outside of those postal, is as a retail business and a government office. With a subsidy of £190m per year, it does provide a healthy net return of £40m per year, but is this enough to retain the net cost to the state? No. 

With service digitisation for those provided by the Post Office, from passports to Universal Credit to tax returns, the government’s role in owning and running the Post Office now only exists for technological stragglers. 

Postal services are likewise easier to access digitally. Not only did the email transform communication, with total addressed letter volume plummeting from a peak in 2005 of 20 billion units to a record low of 7 billion units in 2022 (and falling if you look at Christmas Card data), but it is now possible to order stamps or arrange returns online. This is not even considering the rapid move to online bill paying and banking, with over 6,000 closed since 2015 as consumers move to digital. The world of post is fast outpacing the physical store - these are now surplus to a digital world.

As a Citizens Advice report highlights, a majority of people only use their Post Offices for the post and to retrieve cash because it is ‘near home’, rather than use it for specialist services (even for the post) or its retail offering. This is unsurprising, as the government imposes a number of criteria, including that 90% of the UK population to be within one mile of their nearest post office outlet, and other such necessities. This is deafeningly similar to the madness of the Universal Service Requirement imposed upon Royal Mail, which ensures that every individual in the UK receives mail six days a week - a highly inefficient and bankruptingly expensive rule.

With increased competition and modernisation in the package delivery and postal space, with delivery companies such as DHL (which own and run Germany’s profitable Post Office equivalent), Evri, and sub-contractors for companies such as Amazon. It is clear that the current analogue model cannot survive.

The Post Office is right to cut costs and drive towards modernisation, and we should all embrace it.

A difference between being true and being useful

Just one of those little observations. There are many things in economics - in life - which are strictly true but also not useful.

For example, there’s an economist out there who insists that any analysis which assumes free markets is not just valueless but actively wrong and damaging. We’ll not mention names to spare blushes. The argument is that as we never do have actually infinite suppliers, nor consumers, therefore any and every one has some measure of market power. Thus that vaunted idea of all being price takers disappears in a puff of pure logic.

We cannot - not just should not - analyse the economy as containing free markets therefore. Everything is an oligopoly and therefore government should have much, much, more power to regulate.

This does have the merit of being true. We do not have infinite suppliers. Everyone does have some tad at least of market power.

But is this useful?

No, not really. For of course everything is just a model, we all know that no structure is actually wholly representative of reality - that’s why we’re using models. From observation we also get to a reasonable conclusion, that having four or five suppliers is usually enough for it all to be much more like that mythical free market than it is an oligopoly. True, some eight might meet even for merriment and then become that cartel as, say, the vitamin industry was once said to be. But we really can observe that only a handful gives us results much more like that free market. The UK supermarket industry for example. Just the arrival of two more companies - Aldi and Lidl - has led to the halving of profit margins at the incumbents over the past couple of decades. That’s a pretty free market result even as it’s also suggesting not enough competition that couple of decades back. We’ve even proof of markets solving their own problems - juicy margins lead to the competition that erodes them arising.

Another way to put this point. Economics contains many models and the useful trick is to apply the one that most concords with that reality out there - not necessarily the one that is wholly and strictly true.

Tim Worstall

People react to plans, d’ye see? They react

Not that we’re for or against - we’d prefer to stay studiedly neutral in fact - what is going on here. We’d just like to point out that it’s inescapable:

Online “sickfluencers” are helping their followers maximise their benefits as more than 15,000 people a week are approved for long-term sickness and disability payments.

The accounts on YouTube and TikTok have received millions of views and thankful followers have shared their stories of successfully receiving disability benefits by using the advice.

The advice included lists of keywords to use in assessments that match up to the scoring criteria such as “psychological distress” as well as template claims “to increase your chances” and warnings not to answer certain “trick” questions at the interview.

It’s righteous that there is a system to support those who are sick. Whether it should be quite the one we’ve got - or even necessarily one run by government - is a different matter. But if there is going to be such a system then there will be those who claim to be sick who might not, quite, be as sick as is being claimed. Humans can be lazy and greedy after all.

There will also be, inevitably, those who advise on how to be sick enough to gain the support without, actually, being quite that sick. Both chancers and grifters do exist, after all. How many will be a function of how generous, compared to non-sick incomes, the support for the sick is. All well known and obvious we would have thought.

This is not to say, not here and now, that the system should be different from what it is. Rather, we just want to point out the difficulties of planning. For there are always second order effects. First order is that we wish to take care, financially and economically, of the sick. We’re a rich nation, we can do that, we don’t have to put Grannies on ice floes for them to sail off into that v short future. But we do get second order - chancers looking for an easy life. We get third order effects, grifters glomming onto charging for advice on how to do so. No doubt there are fourth order effects we’ve not thought of either.

Planning’s difficult, see? Which is why it so often doesn’t, in fact, work out.

Still, as Alistair Campbell has just noted we now have, for the first time ever, an entirely state educated Cabinet. Undoubtedly things will now get better as we no longer have the chinless wonders there purely by merit of their birth. Undoubtedly.

Tim Worstall

Of course self-sufficiency experiments are illegal in Britan

A fun story:

When Marco de Kat starts planning his meals, he doesn’t need to travel far for fresh food. Right outside his house is an 800 square metre plot with all sorts of produce – apples, pears, peppers, basil, beets and cauliflower, to name a few. During the winter months, he and his wife can pretty much survive off the vegetables stored in their freezer. Even after living in Oosterwold for a number of years, it’s something that still excites him.

And why not? Those who wish to play with nature - to taste, return to medieval peasantry, become self-sufficient - why not? A liberal and free polity allows all to find their own way through this vale of tears.

It’s also true that any commitment at all to the joys of free markets requires that experiments be allowed to happen. Only then can we find out what works and then do more of it. Plus, obviously, less of what doesn’t.

As a liberal and free polity obviously Britain should do this too. Not everywhere, not yet at least, but at least try it out.

Ahahahaha.

Oosterwold, where de Kat has lived since 2017, is a 4,300 hectare….The area, which has about 5,000 residents….Residents can build houses however they like

Ooooh, no Missus. We cannot have people building houses as they wish. They require the not just guiding hand of but the firm thwack of the State. After all, people left to their own devices might build a house in the style they actually wish to live in. Then where would the planning classes be?

Perhaps more importantly such spaciousness is right out. Under current English planning insistences that 4,300 hectares would have to support no fewer than 129,000 dwellings. No, we have not added an extra zero there - 30 per hectare is that insistence*. Which does not leave space for 800 metre plots for anyone at all. Nor, in fact, space for anything more than a herbal border each let alone a veg plot.

The reason we cannot have nice things is the Town and Country Planning Act 1947 and successors. As ever, nationalisation of the use of land has meant little land to use at exorbitant prices. The answer therefore is to blow up the TCPA - proper blow up, kablooie. Then we can have nice things again - you know, experiments in living, gardens, room to swing a cat…..

Tim Worstall

*Yes, obviously, space for roads etc but still….

Another one of those failures of state planning

This is something that is neutral:

Women will soon form the majority of doctors, after the female workforce doubled in 20 years.

A report by the General Medical Council (GMC), which regulates doctors, found the profession was reaching “parity” between male and female.

As women have been the majority of trainee doctors for many years now therefore the profession - as the age cohorts move through the workplace - will beome majority female. As we say, this in itself is something neutral. Now that we’ve decided to be neutral about sex (or gender, to preference) in employment the outcome is neither here nor there. It just is.

Of course this is also, at heart, something glorious. By being that neutral about employment we’ve fostered the economic liberation of women. Which is indeed a glory of this modern world.

But there’s also another lesson here, the gross incompetence of state planning. Doctors’ training has been a nationalised monopoly pretty much since the start of the NHS that seven to eight decades ago. It’s not exactly the work of genius to be able to note that more female doctors means that we require more doctors.

There are, after all, those maternity leaves to cover. There’s the likelihood that some of those highly trained professionals will go on half- or part-time working while the children are young. We might mutter that there’s no logical reason why it would be women alone that do this but then a peek outside the window will show us that it does indeed tend to be mothers, not fathers, that do so.

In order to gain the same amount of doctoring going on as the profession feminises we need to have a higher headcount of doctors. Where, before, training 100 doctors (at that £250k cost per head or whatever) might gain us 90 Full Time Equivalent doctors (some will always slope off to write books, go into politics, waste their lives in other ways, that sort of thing) we might, in a feminised profession, train 100 and gain 85. Entirely made up numbers there just to show the logic.

An all seeing state, that state that takes unto itself the task of planning everything, should be able to see this. We’ve been pointing to it for a couple of decades now ourselves and if we can see it then the people who do this planning for a living obviously must have been able to do so. We mean, obviously, right?

While the total number of qualified GPs working in NHS general practice in England rose from 34,474 to 36,492, after taking working hours into account, the full time equivalent (FTE number of qualified GPs fell from 27,948 to 27,321. Factoring in population growth, the average number of GPs fell from 0.53 to 0.45 for every 1000 patients, representing a fall of 15%. Nursing numbers remained stable.

Ah. No. They didn’t.

Which is all we need to know about state planning, isn’t it? Not competent to deal with something both as plain as the nose on a face and also moving at the speed of percentage points a decade.

We’ve had state planning of land use for the same period of time and have a shortage of land that can be used. State planning of doctoring and a shortage of doctors. The Soviets - recall, Tsarist Russia exported grain, post-Soviet Russia and Ukraine export grain, Soviet Russia imported grain - had state planning of food and had a shortage of food. Venezuela had state planning of toilet paper and guess what?

There are indeed those arguments that can be had about the ethical, moral, logical attributes and desirability of state planning. But let’s not lose sight of the fact that it does not, in fact, work. Simply because the state is not good at planning.

To test this contention on the efficiency, effectiveness, of state planning try making a GP appointment. Well?

Tim Worstall

Freedom in Death

As Assisted Dying is an emotive topic, we remind readers that as with all our publications, ASI does not have a “house” view.

The views expressed in this piece are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect any views held by the publisher or copyright owner. They are published as a contribution to public debate.

Defending assisted dying and the freedom to smoke

Liberals have faced a major issue of importance this week: The prohibition of tobacco for those born after 2009. Yet it went by with hardly any fuss at all. On the other hand, assisted dying being debated tomorrow has attracted huge attention. Interestingly, Kim Leadbeater who will introduce the private members’ bill retweeted her endorsement of a quote which read: ‘If liberal democracy means anything it is this: that every individual should be free to live their life in the way they want’. Yet Leadbeater voted for the tobacco ban. In moral reality, the reasons we have to support assisted dying and the freedom to smoke are the same. It is about time individual freedom, lifestyle pluralism and a true conception of voluntariness are defended against the misguided doctrines of paternalists and conservatives who seek to either deny the truth of these ideas or distort them out of their proper shape. 

When it comes to smoking cigarettes the central argument of its proponents is it should be banned because it is bad. This is questionable as reducing your lifespan in exchange for pleasure cannot be assumed to be bad per se. Very often, we cross the road to go to a different bakery simply because their pastries are tastier; no one argues this is irrational, but this is to concede marginal pleasure can outweigh marginal longevity. If the considered judgement of smokers, e.g., Sammy Davis Jnr., is the pleasure of smoking outweighs its costs it is very plausible their good is not really served by banning smoking. This is especially so for smokers who quit before forty which eliminates 90% of the risk of smoking-related diseases. I’m not arguing not smoking is irrational, rather, I’m claiming there is a pluralism of goods in our separate lives. And what J. S. Mill called ‘experiments in living’ are required to come to our good.  

The monism of longevity is simply far-fetched, indeed, even Streeting implicitly admits this by contending: ‘I have not yet seen evidence to persuade me that vaping is harmful enough to introduce a ban’. But this monism is the implicit theory of the good many proponents of the tobacco ban are operating on. However, when it comes to assisted dying many of the Labour MPs who will have backed the tobacco ban will suddenly switch to arguing longevity is not all that matters. So: The longevity argument must really be rejected even by its proponents. It is here where another two arguments against tobacco and assisted dying which divide liberal-leaning and conservative thinkers will be put. Many conservatives such as Jacob Rees-Mogg follow Pope John Paul II in rejecting a ‘culture of death’ on the moral basis ‘Man’s life comes from God…it is the property and gift of God’, who we wrong in taking it. A short article cannot address this argument, enough can be said against it by pointing to the fact it would have to rule out suicide too.  

The liberal-leaning argument against assisted dying and smoking is both cannot be said to be voluntary. A thick conception of voluntariness is employed which requires the person make choices not according to the pressure of others or their addiction to chemical substances, rather, the choice must be of their real selves. It is this thick conception which Kim Leadbeater is hurriedly trying to assure her colleagues her bill meets its requirement for two doctors and a judge to sign off on the sincerity of the choice. However, this thick conception of voluntariness is patently implausible. Physical processes such as addiction cannot undermine freedom as a strong wind stopping me from standing up straight outside cannot be said to undermine it either. There is an implicit admission on the part of most people that the terminally ill can voluntarily choose to die even though great pain from disease makes them do it; so why can’t the tiny pain of withdrawing from smoking be taken to not undermine their voluntary choice either?

Pressure from others, or, the sense of feeling a burden on society, does not undermine voluntary choice too. Many women have got married at the altar despite their truest wishes simply to avoid embarrassment and many more have ordered starters at restaurants just to fit in. No doubt, a few men have signed up to the army and died in battle just to not be considered a wuss. All of these choices are voluntary despite the fact they arise from pressure from others, parity of reasoning dictates then, choosing to die simply due to pressure from others is voluntary too. Voluntariness properly understood simply consists of the individual having an understanding of what he is doing and its central consequences. An opponent of assisted dying might object they don’t really care about voluntariness then but simply stopping pressure on the terminally ill to end their lives. 

Should pressure from others itself be taken as good reason to ban the pressured activity we face big problems though, because pressured activities are all pervasive in society. For starters, many of the parliamentarians who may adopt this view take no issue with people, the state and the tax system pressurising smokers to quit. I once danced with a girl pretty much solely because her friend pressured her into it: Should I have been stopped from dancing with her? No. Are people to be controlled at restaurants with brain chips to stop them from pressuring others, e.g., displaying they would be very disappointed if you didn’t choose their favourite fish? No again. If influencing people’s decisions via inflicting a form of cost on them is pressuring them there is nothing wrong with it per se. Saying ‘I won’t pick you up from the airport if you fail to wash and continue to have bad breath’ is pressuring my friend into doing those things: No wrong is done. 

Pressuring people is wrong where the threatened inflicting of cost on them is one they are morally entitled not to bear. This is why pressure in the form of threatening to violate a contract or violate their property rights is wrong, and, here, warrants forceful stopping. Reciprocity, i.e., doing unto others as you would do unto yourself, and the claim this creates on the part of most of us is why pressuring the terminally ill to die is wrong (though being outside of our domain of rights it remains a wrong which cannot be subject to enforcement). 

What many supporters of prohibiting tobacco and assisted dying really believe in is paternalism, i.e., the idea that the freedom of the individual can be limited to stop them from making bad choices. Let us just accept the truth of this moral idea for the moment. Given there will always be some people whose good is not served by paternalist policies they are immoral for riding roughshod over such people’s rights. These individual rights protect the pursuit of the ultimate good within each of us. Isaiah Berlin puts the basic idea eloquently:

‘[T]o coerce men in the name of something less ultimate than themselves--to bend them to my will, or to someone else's particular craving for (his or their) happiness or expediency or security or convenience…[is] aiming at something desired (from whatever motive, no matter how noble) by me or my group, to which I am using other men as means. But this is a contradiction of what I know men to be, namely ends in themselves.

None of us would accept state officials banning desserts in restaurants because the obese and overweight could not control themselves, or, vasectomies being made illegal because some men really regret them. Analogously, neither should most smokers who do want to quit, or, the tiny minority who would imprudently choose death be allowed to stop everyone else from choosing. None of us have the privilege of treating others as vases which can be smashed in the quick rush to our own goals. 

Finally, the paternalist idea itself must be challenged. It is an often-made point, but it warrants repeating: Where does the state’s control of our bad choices stop? Is junk food and alcohol to be rationed and exercise to be required next? Does the state have the right to choose our partners, our career and the house we live in provided it makes the best choice for us? No. A natural principle of human respect dictates we must be free to pursue our own flourishing in our own way; even if that way turns out to be the wrong way. This is the deep truth of morality; not a social convention, or, a political command, but a moral law to be adhered to as if it were gravity. 

Individuals have the right to pursue their own good in their own way, or, indeed, to go to hell in their own handcart. This is the fundamental right which opponents of assisted dying and the freedom to smoke deny. As liberals have always said, this is to deny the true respect everyone deserves in virtue of their nature and to open the door to government which has the potential to control every aspect of our lives. Although concerns about voluntariness regarding addiction and pressure from others initially appear to be of a liberal ilk, they ultimately hide an implausible idea that government should protect a particular kind of autonomy at all costs; including to freedom.  No. Freedom must stand, as it should in life, and, as it should in death too.

NHS asthma inhalers - not grasping climate change at all

The National Health Service is insisting that everyone change their asthma inhalers because climate change:

Patients will be told that inhalers are bad for the environment as they ­contain a hydrofluorocarbon propellant used to carry the medicine into the lungs that has a “greenhouse gas effect”. They will be given a leaflet showing the carbon footprint of each type of inhaler, and told that the total dosage from a single blue inhaler has a bigger carbon footprint than a 75-mile journey by petrol car.

This is to get climate change wrong. Which is a pity given all that work that M’Lud Stern put into his 1,200 page report.

The NHS has estimated in the past that inhaler emissions account for about 3 per cent of its carbon footprint, with 60 million prescribed in England each year.

One observation is that inhaler emissions do not accrue to the NHS. They are Scope 3 emissions and so accrue to those using the inhalers, not the NHS. In the same way that the emissions from my diesel car accrue to me not BP or Shell (or, as it often happens, Galp).

Another is that this is a pitifully small number to be concerned about. 75 miles by car is, to use average mpg, about 2 gallons of fuel. -ish, which is the level of accuracy we need here. That’s - again, -ish - 9 litres. And we know from the Stern Review what the social cost of carbon is, that $80 per tonne CO2-e. Which becomes, through the miracle of arithmetic, 11 pence per litre of fuel used. Or, running at our same level of accuracy, £1 per inhaler, £60 million for the country for the year.

That’s the damage being done. That £60 million. That’s The Science and don’t you go arguing with that you denier you.

Which then brings us to the logical mistake being made. Logical mistakes usually having greater import than mere errors with sums. Our task is to attempt to maximise human utility over time. That’s the whole construct of our very concern about climate change itself. This means that those things which increase human utility more than the loss they cause should continue to be done. It is only those things where the loss from climate change is greater than the benefit gained from doing them should cease to be done.

Depending upon which search result you believe an inhaler will last a couple of months to a year. Average that out and say 2 inhalers per year per asthma sufferer. The use of inhalers saves 500,000 people a year from choking on their own lungs. Or, if we want to minimise that benefit, the feeling that they are choking to death on their own lungs.

This is, we would submit, worth more than £60 million in human utility. Even as a societal benefit, leaving aside the feelings of those who would have to do the choking. After all, it would be at least mildly distressing if someone were to choke to death next to one on the Tube without there being anything that could be done. Just to confirm that, an inhaler contains 200 doses and the average treatment is two doses, so our £1 of damages is a cost of 1 pence per treatment. It’s worth a penny of damage to the pretty butterflies to stop someone choking on their own lungs - or feeling as if they are? We think we could get the Benthamites on side with that, yes.

500k non-choking, £60 million in climate damages - b’ggr the climate then.

Now, yes, it could be true that the new inhalers produce a greater health benefit. Medicine does advance after all. But that’s not the point we’re making here. The one we are is that the ceasing to use the blue inhalers should not be driven by climate change concerns. Simply because a proper evaluation of those climate change concerns leaves us with the answer - don’t be damn stupid, use the inhalers.

If only people actually bothered to understand, grasp, the actual arguments about climate change.

Tim Worstall

Fred Lee Smith, 1940-24

We at the ASI were saddened to hear of the death of our friend Fred Smith, founder and former President of the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) in Washington DC.

It was a joy to be in the presence of someone who enjoyed life to the full, and who was characterised by his cheerfulness, optimism, wit, energy and charm. He was invariably smiling, even when making serious arguments. He talked non-stop (as he was amusingly well aware of), but in a way that was always engaging, informative and entertaining, and never tedious. He exuded goodwill to all, including those he thought sorely mistaken politically — and even they could not help liking him. 

He enjoyed company and cigars, bourbon and beef, all of which made him a regular at Smith & Wollensky across the road from his office. (One week, they had special wine-tasting lunches. He took me on the Monday, saying ‘I’ve booked here from Monday to Thursday. If I’m still alive, I’ll come back on Friday, too!’)

But as well as loving life, he was dedicated and effective. Raised in Alabama, Fred took a degree in Mathematics and Political Science, earning the Dean’s Medal for excellence. He founded the CEI in 1984, saying that such an institution was needed to answer the economist Joseph Schumpeter’s question, ‘Can Capitalism Survive?’ Fred certainly thought that capitalism was being weighed down by excessive regulation, and much of the think tank’s work would be to focus on regulation, to catalogue and critique it, to show how large, established firms used it to keep out competition by lobbying their political cronies, and to propose market-based alternatives to top-down, and usually inept, bureaucratic dictates.

Fred’s larger-than-life personality was what gave CEI its freewheeling style and its razor-sharp edge. Incorrigibly outgoing, he knew everyone in Washington, and everyone new (and liked) him. Everybody who got the opportunity liked working for him, and he gave his team members the latitude to choose their own topics and contribute how, where and on what they thought would make the biggest difference to promoting the principle of personal and economic freedom that underpinned everything CEI did. He will be missed by so many who were touched by his life and his work. 

Photo: Fred Smith with his equally irrepressible wife Fran, who survives him.