Wales and immigration: We need to talk

Huw Williams

“Several of my predecessors in this House have pointed to the tragic irony that Ceredigion bestows upon its youth an unrivalled education, but offers them a paucity of job opportunities and affordable housing.

“For decades, our county has lost the potential and the vitality of her youth. Around half her young people leave the county by the time they reach 25 years of age.

“Many of the young who have left are Welsh speakers, which has meant that in my lifetime—which, I am sure hon. and right hon. Members will agree, is not particularly long—the percentage of people living in Ceredigion that can speak the language has declined from around 60% to just 47%.

“This steady, silent haemorrhage saps the life of nearly every town and village the length and breadth of the county.”

These words, if you have not guessed it, come from the maiden speech of Ben Lake, the Plaid Cymru MP for Ceredigion; a brave young man.

These words demand attention, because they address in no uncertain terms an issue that is barely spoken of by MPs and AMs in Wales, despite its immediacy and prevalence.

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Reticent

Welsh politicians have been reticent to discuss this problem, which is understandable given what happened the last time someone had the bravery to mention it.

In 2001, the then Chairman of Gwynedd’s housing committee, Seimon Glyn, caused controversy with a series of comments on a BBC Wales phone-in about the effects of English immigration on housing, resources, and the Welsh language.

His comments were branded ‘racist’ and hateful, at a time when opponents of Welsh nationalists were particularly motivated to try and present them as narrow-minded and prejudiced.

However, even in the less febrile atmosphere of the post-Labour-Plaid coalition era, there are very few politicians who seem willing to address the issue of migration openly.

We need to have a grown up and badly needed discussion about this issue. That we are unable to do so is much to our detriment, and frankly very sad.

This is particularly so, not only because depopulation continues to be such a dire problem for some parts of the country, but because it connects with so many other key political problems.

And of course it left us bereft of the discourse, facts and understanding that was required to counteract the appalling debate around immigration that emerged with UKIP and the EU referendum.

The plain truth is that we need the sort of young, motivated and hard-working people that typify the majority of immigrants from the EU and further afield.

That the people of Wales should have been drawn into believing that this immigration is the cause of our ills is, in some senses, beyond parody.

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Right wing media

However, as well as reflecting the power of the right-wing media and our current inability to undermine its worst effects, it also reflects how few politicians were heard to be countering the arguments forcefully.

Ticking time bomb

Leanne Wood, in fairness, has and continues to be one of those who emphasizes time and again that we need to change the terms of the debate rather than accepting that people view immigration as a problem.

Back in December 2016 she spoke not only of the issue with respect to the fact that only 2.6% of our population are from the EU, and that they are more likely to be employed. She also made reference to the larger imbalances across Wales.

And this is where the debate on ‘foreign’ immigration, depopulation and immigration from within the UK intersect.

For the figures demonstrate that demographic change, partly driven by young people leaving and older people moving in, is creating a ticking time bomb.

In the west of Wales, in particular, there has been a significant increase in over 60s in the last 25 years, whilst overall there has also been a steady decline in the younger age groups.

The pattern is similar in the east of Wales with the older age cohorts expanding whilst the younger cohorts are just about holding steady, with the development of Cardiff no doubt influential.

Over 60s

If we look at the wider picture for Wales from 1992 to the present we can conclude in general terms that a population increase of around 200,000 correlates with a broadly similar increase in the over 60s in Wales.

Meanwhile, the increase of over 100,000 in the 45-59 cohorts is mirrored by a similar decrease in the combined age groups of the under 15 and 25-44 cohort.

These are not promising figures in terms of the strain on public services and our potential for economic productivity.

They need to be interpreted and discussed carefully, of course, and they cannot be accounted for simply in terms of migration patterns, as ageing populations and smaller families are a symptom of many western societies.

Analyst Steve Lawrence, who plotted the graphs, comments that “the data shows that the cohort posing the greatest risk is the 25-49 group - it's falling and it's the cohort whose revenue will most contribute to tax revenue in the coming decades - it's also a very adaptable age group with families.”

Creating the conditions where this group expands is a challenge, and one that will be far harder if we impose limits on immigration ffrom outside the UK into Wales.

Welsh language

Lawrence’s response on the issue of the Welsh language for immigrants is also instructive.

As a pro-European, and relative stranger to Wales, his view is that an expectation with respect to learning the language are entirely reasonable in certain areas. “a Slovak who has just learned English is probably up for learning Welsh - and from the point of view of the elderly in the nursing homes surely what's important is being treated with kindness & dignity?”

As he says “a Slovak who has just learned English is probably up for learning Welsh - and from the point of view of the elderly in the nursing homes surely what's important is being treated with kindness and dignity?”

Public policy now

This is a problem that should be much further up the national agenda, not least because it is intimately connected with issues are never far from the concern of residents at a local level.

One need only think about the debate on the Cardiff Local Development Plan to see this is not only an issue for those areas that are depopulating.

This week has seen remonstrations in Gwynedd about the nature of their LDP and the proposals for housing.

In particular, there is a concern that far too few of the properties will be the type of social housing that is required for the younger generation – and these concerns are no doubt replicated elsewhere.

It is difficult not to conclude that these LDPs represent deeper ills with respect to our economy, and that the desperation for housing developments is motivated in part by an attempt to encourage the sector to flourish (even if it will be counter-productive for the broader economy in the medium to long term).

And of course, once we begin to ask these questions, we are faced with the underlying, structural problems that are driving these issues and that cannot be ignored.

The main issue, to use a very general term, is development: how we hope to build a sustainable economy here in Wales that doesn’t reflect all the weaknesses of peripheral, post-colonial economies the world over – and which does not replicate the unbalanced economies of other so-called developed countries.

This, in turn, necessitates a more meaningful conversation about what such an economy would look like in Wales, what the values are that underpin it, and ultimately what it is we actually want for our communities and our people.

There are smart people such as Mark Hooper and Calvin Jones who have been talking about this for a while, and we must listen to them and try to expand the conversation.

Viewing the migration issue within its broader structural context should, one would hope, allow for a less charged debate and can allow us to connect up the problems that face us all across Wales – and encourage us to view each other as partaking of the same struggle.

For ultimately the depopulation that Ben Lake describes in my home county is a symptom of the same cause that bedevils communities such as those where my mother was brought up in Blaenau Gwent – namely neoliberal late capitalism.

A New Dialogue

This speaks to a deeper sadness in Wales that is perpetuated by what should have become - in our modern, mobile Wales - quasi-mythical splits between North & South, East & West, Welsh speaking & English speaking Wales.

We seem unable at times to relate to each others’ problems or have sympathy for each other, and much of that came to the surface with the response by those in other parts of Wales to the EU referendum vote in the Valleys.

A failure to empathise with the rejection of the EU in places like Blaenau Gwent was singularly depressing; even if you disagree with the act, you should attempt to understand the reasons why it came about – the frustrations, anger and despair.

Likewise, perhaps if you are unfamiliar with Ceredigion, and visit having been acquainted with the post-industrial south, you think it looks well off.

You don’t see the signs of decay, the poverty, the glossy and ultimately superficial attempts at regeneration that we are familiar with down here.

But you also don’t see the invidious drip-drip of the younger people leaving; the hollowing out of communities; the closing of village schools.

These are processes that are arguably centuries old, and certainly held sway just over 50 years ago when Elystan Morgan, then MP for Ceredigion, gave his own maiden speech:

“There are no lengthy dole queues, no gloomy unemployment registers. Yet the steady, silent cancer of depopulation saps the life of nearly every town and village the length and breadth of the county.”

Wherever you are in Wales it is the same underlying system and its values that are chipping away at those aspects of our communal life that are the most important.

In Rousseau’s terms, it is the conditions that can sustain our amour propre– our self-respect – that are continually under threat.

So when you hear Ben Lake bemoaning depopulation, or Jan Morris protesting about the impact of an LDP in Gwynedd on Welsh language communities, you should also hear echoing in the background the words of Michael Sheen decrying the desolation of post-industrial Wales.

And indeed the voices of all those communities across Wales who want to reverse our decline.

So come on, let’s talk