[jonbxx]

There is a huge demographic elephant in the room when we discuss migration and that is pensions. Contrary to popular belief, there isn’t a box some where in the treasury with our name on filled with our National Insurance contributions waiting for when we retire. State pensions are paid by the taxes of working people.

In the past, we saw around four taxpayers per pensioner. Now, we are closer to three and dropping all the time. This is due to us living longer (more pensioners) and having fewer children (less tax payers) The skewing to an older population increases costs in pensions (currently 10% of government expenditure) and healthcare (nearly 20% of government expenditure)

There are a few ways to solve this problem which are toxic, including raising tax, raising the pension age, reducing pensions, and Logan’s Run or we need to have more taxpayers. We can either incentivise a higher birth rate or import tax payers. The first will have an 18 year lag, the second is fast.