Good time to debate population

One recent move which falls well outside the scope of that warning, however, is the proposal by St Mary Deputy Daniel Wimberley to first suspend the current States immigration policy of allowing in 150 new families a year and then to require the Council of Ministers to explain why they have failed to stick even to that liberal allowance of newcomers to an already overcrowded community.

Election year or not, Deputy Wimberley is to be congratulated for bringing back to the political agenda an issue of central importance which successive administrations have succeeded in downplaying, sidestepping and misrepresenting for at least the past 15 years. His proposition calls for a full debate on basic immigration and population policy (something which has been skilfully avoided by substituting in its place endless hours of discussion on the mechanics of housing and work regulations) and for zero growth to be the aim meanwhile.

Timed, according to Deputy Wimberley, to coincide with the current Island Plan debate and also preceding by some months the results of the 2011 Census, it is a proposition which should be seized upon gratefully by the States as offering a breathing space in which to reconsider what kind of future is being stored up by the combined impact of their current strategies.

In bringing it, Deputy Wimberley will no doubt face the usual ripostes from those both inside and outside the States who remain wedded to the doctrine that economic growth is paramount, potentially limitless and achievable only through constantly increasing the number of people living (and producing and consuming) in the Island.

He will probably, but should not, be accused of both xenophobia and economic naivety. Neither jibe will be justified. In Jersey terms, the population debate is more to do with simple mathematics and the constraints of 45 square miles of granite surrounded by water than with where its residents originate.

And to challenge the doctrine of limitless growth in support of a quest for more imaginative solutions is no more economically naïve than the Peter Pan policy of the current Council of Minsters, which requires an ageing population to be supported by a growing immigrant workforce whose members, presumably, will not themselves grow old in due course.

In response to Deputy Wimberley’s timely challenge, the lazy old cry that Jersey’s taking charge of its own population levels will somehow send out the message that the Island is ‘closed for business’ will no longer suffice in this age of changing pension expectations and revolution in information technology.

Nor – and especially so in an election year – can the States continue to ignore legitimate public concerns over unchecked immigration by focusing on simplistic commercial considerations and blithely continuing to ignore its impact on the Island’s environment, infrastructure and quality of life.