This might be a Mencken Violation but….

To remind: “For every complex problem, there's a solution that is simple, neat, and wrong.” OK, so when there’s a simple, neat, solution we must consider whether it’s wrong.

At which point:

The safety of tap water in the UK could be at risk because water companies are unable to use products to clean it, industry insiders have said, as all the laboratories that test and certify the chemicals have shut down.

People in the industry have called it a “Brexit problem” because EU countries will share laboratory capacity from 2026, meaning that if the UK was still in the EU, water companies would be able to use products that passed tests on the continent.

But UK rules mean products cannot be tested abroad; they have to be tested in the country in a certified lab, of which there are now none.

At which point the simple and neat solution is to just adopt the EU testing regime was being sufficient. Any remainer cannot complain at this - we’d have to accept that regime if we had remained or we in the future rejoin. Any leaver, well, why not accept this rule if it’s simple and neat to do so?

After all, the point is not that we must have a different regulatory regime on everything. Rather, that we get to pick and choose where we’ll have the same, or similar, or different regulations. We get to choose from that smorgasbord of options by which Brussels tries to suppress an economy.

To put it another way. Where Brussels are not being idiots - if such cases exist - why not just say that something tested to their standards is fine for us? Say, on raising chickens. Or testing metals. Or lightbulbs. Or chemicals for use in water systems? Where they are being idiots then we diverge.

Brexit means we get to choose. So, why not exercise that option of choosing? There is no need to recreate an entire parallel system, only to accept what works and not what doesn’t.

Now, to be a Mencken Violation that simple and neat solution has to be correct. So, is this a Mencken Violation? That is, why is just accepting EU testing on water chemicals - at the saving of being able to use them given that we have no relevant laboratories - wrong?

After all, it is simple and neat. The problem would be solved by a one line bill we could get done by Tuesday afternoon. “EU approved water chemicals are cool for use in the UK” might not be quite parliamentary language but it does the job.

So, why’s it wrong?

Tim Worstall

Assisted Suicide and Classical Liberalism

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.

Much has been made that the case for assisted suicide (to use the legally correct term, as the legislation creates an exception to the offence of assisting suicide) is not a conservative one but is a liberal one. This, however, concedes too much. It is by no means obvious that liberal principles require support for assisted suicide. An obvious practical liberal objection is that the safeguards are inadequate to protect against the risk of coercion. But even assuming that there are adequate safeguards, classical liberal principles do not commend a single answer on this debate.

The common law has long held that consent to the intentional infliction of harm or death is not, with very limited exceptions, a valid defence. Such doctrines existed at the time of J S Mill and it is noteworthy that he did not criticise them.

For classical liberals, Mill’s Harm Principle is foundational. According to it the sole purpose for which power may be exercised is “to prevent harm to others.” Mill adds that “His own good, either physical or moral, is not a sufficient warrant.” It follows on Mill’s Principle that suicide may not be prohibited. But what about assisted suicide and euthanasia?

If D assists P’s suicide or indeed kills him consensually, is he not harming another? Nowhere does Mill explicitly consider this issue but in he does have a discussion of a related matter:

“In cases of personal conduct supposed to be blamable, but which respect for liberty precludes society from preventing or punishing, because the evil directly resulting falls wholly on the agent; what the agent is free to do, ought other persons to be equally free to counsel or instigate? This question is not free from difficulty. The case of a person who solicits another to do an act, is not strictly a case of self-regarding conduct. To give advice or offer inducements to anyone, is a social act, and may therefore, like actions in general which affect others, be supposed amenable to social control. But a little reflection corrects the first impression, by showing that if the case is not strictly within the definition of individual liberty, yet the reasons on which the principle of individual liberty is grounded, are applicable to it. If people must be allowed, in whatever concerns only themselves, to act as seems best to themselves at their own peril, they must equally be free to consult with one another about what is fit to be so done; to exchange opinions, and give and receive suggestions.”

The key point is that Mill concedes that a principle against criminalising instigators does not strictly fall within the harm principle and the answer Mill gives acknowledges nuance and complexity: in cases where the instigator derives a benefit from it, he considers prohibition to be appropriate. The examples he gives are those who run gambling houses or brothels.

The point, though, is not to engage in exegesis of Mill but to note that there is a tension between two liberal principles. On the one hand, the person who assists suicide (or kills someone at their request) does “a social act, and may therefore, like actions in general which affect others, be supposed amenable to social control.” On the other hand, if someone wants to commit suicide they “must equally be free to consult with one another”.

To put it more generally, there is a tension between the harm principle and respect for autonomy. These are both important liberal principles and, in the case of assisted suicide, a classical liberal could very well reach the conclusion that the prevention of harm should win out over autonomy.

It is notable that the ASI a few years ago published a paper arguing that the common law rule that consent cannot be a defence to ABH and GBH should be overturned. But as the learned author noted “There must, of course, be limits” and it is notable that he did not think that rule should be overturned when death is concerned. Indeed, I understand that he opposes the legalisation of assisted suicide.

To conclude, classical liberal principles do not give a single answer to the question of whether assisted suicide should be legalised or not. But what I would hope that they can all agree on is that this should not be added to already long list of state functions as the Leadbeater Bill proposes to do. The Swiss model of decriminalisation as a matter of general criminal law (unless it is done for selfish motives) but with no state involvement in the provision appears to be more aligned to classical liberal principles than what is being proposed. However, as I argued, a good case can be made that the status quo is also consistent with classical liberal principles.

Britain’s planning system: I say we take off and nuke the entire site from orbit. It's the only way to be sure.

Apologies for coming over all Believe It Or Not but this is the correct solution to Britain’s planning problems. Rather than the Prime Minister’s suggestions of minor changes, we need to destroy the system as a whole:

Marks & Spencer has won a years-long battle to bulldoze and rebuild its Oxford Street department store after Angela Rayner approved the scheme on appeal.

The Housing Secretary on Thursday greenlit the renovation of M&S’s Marble Arch shop after “taking into account all of the evidence” in the case. It comes after the proposal was initially blocked by Michael Gove, the former housing secretary, provoking anger from the retailer.

Super and all that. The building belongs to Marks & Spencer and if they want a new one then that’s up to them. We think this a fairly simple suggestion.

But we also need to consider that wider world and environment, of course we do:

The decision comes almost five years after M&S first submitted plans to demolish the art deco building near Marble Arch and replace it with a new 10-storey complex.

The economy - or gross domestic product if you prefer - is the value added by activity. Economic growth is an increase in that value add. We can also describe economic growth as being the speed at which people do new things, old things in new ways or even - and least important - more of the same old things. That speed - and therefore economic growth - is constipated by the planning system, as we can see here.

A major reason that we Britons are poorer than we need to be is the planning system resulting from the Town and Country Planning Act 1947 and successors. So, blow it up, proper blow up - kablooie.

This isn’t just about houses on the Green Belt - and damn good idea if we’ve ever heard one. It’s about the economy as a whole. The TCPA makes us poorer and let’s not be that poor any longer, eh?

Tim Worstall

Guardian columnist stumbles close to an economic truth

Of course, having got, vaguely, in the right space on the field there’s still a fumble of the pass:

Or to put it another way: the “abundance” in any given transaction is not what’s on offer from the retailer, but a much more precious resource….

That’s true, yes. The fumble is the next bit:

….– that of the consumer’s time.

The value in a transaction is not what is being presented by the retailer, yes, but it’s the value perceived by the consumer. Whatever that value is - whether it be of time, use, fashion, social status or any of the other things which interest human beings.

This is an important observation of course. For it’s what underpins everything about a market economy. Things are worth what people are willing to pay for them. Because that is the measure of what the consumer values them at - at least. People will not pay more than that value they attach after all.

This then kills, stone dead, the labour theory of value. For we do not, we fellow members of the species, assign that value according to any calculation, at all, of the labour that went into the creation. Therefore the LTV might be useful as an intellectual exercise but not as a guide, rule or description of an economy which contains us.

Still, we do need to applaud a Guardian columnist at least beginning to stumble around in the right part of that economic playing pitch. We assume that this near success is a result of everyone being on strike - no doubt normal service will be resumed tomorrow.

Tim Worstall

MiliEd’s plans get a firm thwack on the logical botty

Professor Helm:

On top of all this, the UK’s net zero electricity target by 2030 is not going to be achieved. In failing to meet a very short-term target, it is going to maximise the costs of trying. If a target is set to do the practically impossible in around 60 months, then the logical consequences is that it will cost whatever it costs. The target is supreme. This is not pay-what-can-be-afforded, but rather pay-whatever-it-costs. The faster the required pathway, the more each part will cost. Want some transformers? Suppliers have full order books. What will it cost to pre-empt other customers in Europe and the US? The top price is the answer. Want the stuff produced at breakneck speed? Pay the overtime and additional labour and equipment to the manufacture.

There is much more there. We recommend reading all of it. But this particular part of it. It’s an essential part of the Nordhaus and Stern analyses of the problem. Given that the British government did pay Nick Stern - now M’Lud such for having written it - to write the 1200 page report it would, we think, behove British government planning if it understood, even contained, the major point made.

Beating climate change will produce benefits. Beating climate change will have costs. Humanity is best served when the benefits of the beaten are greater than the costs of the beating. Thus the target is not emissions by some date, a temperature by some other, it’s the costs and benefits of the beating or beaten.

It is price that matters. This carries with it the insistence that as the price rises we should do less of it. Also, that we should be efficient in our methods because that’s the way we’ll do more of that beating.

Which is why a simple carbon tax and leave be of course. Prices are the efficient way to change human behaviour. Prices also - obviously - contain all that information about what is worth doing and what is not.

As Helm notes here, and as both the govt’s own commissioned report and that Nobel-winning work insist, doing everything in a hubba-hubba-hurry is the wrong way to expensively increases costs over benefits.

Not that we expect this firm beating on the logical fundament to make any difference. There are those out there firmly insistent upon ignoring reality, sadly including our current Sec of State on the matter.

Tim Worstall

The Polly Toynbee problem explained

Even, the Polly Toynbee problem explained in her own words:

The mantra for a long time was that wealth taxes don’t work. But that can no longer be the answer. In a recent paper for the Institute for Public Policy Research, Tom Clark lays out the reasons why, showing how much faster the value of wealth has grown compared with the value of work.

It could be true, or not true, that wealth taxes work or do not work. Whether or not they do or not is a function of reality. But the claim here is that wealth taxes must work because Polly thinks that they should. This is not - not necessarily - coincident with reality. Which is indeed that Polly Toynbee problem writ large in her own words. Desires are to be imposed upon reality.

As to the Tom Clark report. Just roughly,. you understand, without being so tiresome as to actually look up the exact numbers. Household wealth is about £15 trillion. Some £2 trillion of that is financial assets. The sort of thing we think of as billionaires waving in our faces as they shout “Loadsamoney!” at us. The other £13 trillion is - v roughly - equally split between pensions and property.

Property - by which is meant here housing - is grossly expensive. It is so because we have the idiot Town and Country Planning Act 1947 and successors which - as so often with the nationalisation of something, here the use of land - has left us with a shortage of land that can be used to build upon and thus grossly extortionate pricing. It is - again, roughly - true that about half the value of Britain’s housing (let us not be so gauche as to actually look up the number) is the chitty that allows a house to be built on that piece of land. Destroy the TCPA - proper blow up, kablooie - and we solve that problem neatly. Yes, there will still be positional differences in price but that gargantuan mugging of the general householder will cease.

The other half, pensions. Which brings us to the bit that an actual economist really should have noted:

Over the 30-odd years from 1980, the ratio of private wealth to national income steadily doubled, from the typical post-war ratio of about 3:1 to roughly 6:1 by the time of the financial crisis….(and a very large elision here)…..Intellectually, Thomas Piketty’s unlikely but perfectly timed blockbuster, Capital in the 21st Century (2014), woke the world up not only to the vastly unequal facts, but also to certain dynamics which could – without action – propel us towards a new “patrimonial capitalism”

What also happened from the 1960s to today was that expected time in retirement moved from a mere handful of years after the gold watch presentation to a mere handful of decades. Those 20 and 30 years requiring financing. Which is why pensions savings are now a several times multiple of annual national income.

That ratio of wealth to GDP is down to just those two factors. The idiocy - no, too weak, gross and rampant stupidity - of our planning system and the very welcome expansion in lifespans and the associated saving so as to have a crust to nibble upon during retirement.

Once we take account of those vast majority parts of household wealth there is no problem with that remaining financial wealth. It’s still under annual national income after all.

Kill, kablooie, our planning system and we’re done.

And wealth taxes still don’t work whatever Polly’s desires.

Tim Worstall

An unfit economy

My local gym is to close. I have been using it, usually every day, for over three decades. It was badly hit during the lockdowns, as everyone was, but it survived. But the most recent budget has overwhelmed it.

 It is labour intensive, and an increase in the minimum and living wage, coupled with a rise in so-called employer National Insurance and a halving of the threshold at which it is paid, have combined to make it unviable.

I was very sorry for the staff who spent a distraught weekend after being told on Friday that they would lose their jobs four days before Christmas.

 Unfortunately, the recent budget forgets the core lesson of economics 101: if you raise the price of something, then all other things being equal, people will demand less of it. This applies to labour as well as to goods. Reeves has made labour too expensive for many businesses, leading them to cut back on hiring, and to shed labour if they can. The hospitality industry, much of which depends on low cost labour, will be particularly hard hit. Pubs, bars and restaurants will close, taking their jobs with them.

The budget was called a growth budget, but it was immediately obvious that this was an anti-growth budget. Jobs will disappear, are already disappearing, and with it the consumption their wages generated.

 The UK economy has been set on a slope to decline for some time, and the budget has hammered too many nails into its coffin. It seems to be too much to ask that the status quo economic thinking be replaced by something at least more sensible to market forces.

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.