Priti Patel’s vague pledge to lower immigration would be devastating for the UK economy

It is a great pity that Priti Patel’s “resting face” is the appearance of a smirk. For a home secretary, dealing often with some of the most sensitive of issues, it is particularly unfortunate. It makes anything she says on immigration, for example, even harder to take seriously.

On the other hand, it has been difficult to take the Tories’ meandering stance on net migration seriously for many years. Even the most magisterial of figures might find it difficult to defend it with a straight face. Ms Patel declares that under the Conservatives, “overall immigration” will be “lower”. It has a certain superficial appeal, but it has the structural integrity of a cardboard box in a flood. Wary of specifying any numbers, because that is a proven route to failure and embarrassment, the Tories just parrot on about a points-based system. It is not an answer to anything.

Here, then, are the questions so far left unanswered by Ms Patel and her junior minister Brandon Lewis – which may, or may not, be settled in the Conservative manifesto.

When will “overall immigration” come down, and to what level? Is there such a thing as “too much” immigration? Why? Does “overall immigration” equate to the “net migration” cap of 100,000 that was previously the benchmark for policy (net being the number of those arriving minus the number leaving)? Or is it, in fact, only gross migration into the UK that will be targeted as a policy measure in the future?

What, if anything, does the government then do about migration out of Britain, about which there is less concern and which has traditionally been something that governments can influence only in the most tangential of ways (for example, by driving economic growth, wages and living standards; or failing to do so).

If the UK does leave the EU and free movement of labour is ended, what will replace it?

The “points system” that is talked up as some sort of panacea means everything and nothing. It is sometimes linked with a promise to attract the “brightest and best” to the UK. The impression is given that just a tiny niche of high-level skills – those of “scientists and doctors” according to Ms Patel – will allow the lucky entrant and their family to qualify for entry (again, the scale and extent of generosity to dependents is unknown).

Yet the UK economy also needs a great many unskilled workers and semi-skilled workers for sectors such as building, hospitality, catering, taxi driving, social care, agriculture and many others. If no points can be gained for experience in those areas, and no allowance made for willingness to work, then the farms, care homes and hotels of Britain are going to find themselves very short of staff very rapidly, their costs rising and the prices and fees they charge to their customers and clients rising correspondingly. Economic growth will be lower than it otherwise would be; and tax revenues will be reduced in the same way. The economic consequences of radically reducing immigration are rarely acknowledged by the parties most hostile to migration – the Conservatives and the Brexit Party.

Nigel Farage, the man who pioneered the use of the phrase “Australian-style points system” as a catch-all phrase to avoid concrete commitments, now attacks the idea when the Conservatives have the same proposal. He points out that a points-based system doesn’t necessarily mean lower immigration. It could quite conceivably be higher than it has been. Theoretically. A points-based system could mean 840,000 immigrants entering the UK every year, as the Tories say Labour want, a ludicrous claim.

Which leaves one more question for Ms Patel and her colleagues. When they say immigration will be “lower” – what will it be lower than? De facto, it implies lower than the current net inflow. According to the Office for National Statistics, an estimated 273,000 more people moved to the UK with an intention to stay for at least a year than left in the year ending June 2018. Is that the figure that will replace the old “tens of thousands” or 100,000 target, or cap or aspiration (depending on which Tory minister was talking about it)? Or will some other figure be used – an average over a period of years, say, or only a figure for gross immigration, or one counting only those with an intention to settle permanently?

What will the government propose on the treatment of students in the figures? Taking them out would reduce the migration numbers at a stroke, but with nothing changing in reality.

Nor is the Labour Party much clearer about its intentions, whether Brexit happens or not. Labour specialises in saying what it is not in favour of – victimising minorities, abandoning refugees to their fate, racism – but Labour cannot say whether they would prefer net migration or immigration to be higher or lower than it is now.

In 2017, they merely stated: “Working together, we will institute a new system which is based on our economic needs, balancing controls and existing entitlements.” The Liberal Democrats are not much more transparent. At the last election, they promised to “hold an annual debate in parliament on skill and labour market shortfalls and surpluses to identify the migration necessary to meet the UK’s needs”. Only the SNP, reflecting Scotland’s long term trend of rural population decline, seems to explicitly want more people for fundamental reasons of demographics.

Immigration is an issue that has rarely been the subject of a frank conversation between politicians and voters, on either side. There have been plenty of populists willing to provoke fear and hatred; but also many liberal-minded leaders who have failed to make the positive case for immigration, which is a strong one on economic, social and cultural grounds. For example, it is an excellent way to prevent an ageing population from putting an unsupportable strain on a diminishing cohort of young workers, because immigration invariably makes a population younger and fitter. Directly and indirectly, then, migration can help to defuse the social care crisis, as well as provide the labour needed to make the NHS better for everyone.

Britain is immeasurably richer, materially and otherwise, for the immigration it has enjoyed over the decades. Ms Patel is, in her own way, an example of the opportunities and benefits that migration can bestow. She could do a better job of making the case for immigration.