UK likely to rejoin EU's Horizon science research scheme as full member.

[papasmurf]

Last week it was people with second homes, what's it going to be next week, Martians?

Nick people with second homes, holiday lets and AirBandB's are also factors. (Can't you take ANY subject seriously for once.)

[Nick]

The sheer number of refugees and legal and illegal immigrants is making the housing shortage far worse.

Last week it was people with second homes, what's it going to be next week, Martians?

[BeElBeeBub]

Your post beelbud is an advertisment for pensioners to be responsible for their own retirement . We cant just go on increasing the population to pay for the old folk because of course an increased population means more old folk in the future and the need for even more immigration ,more housing ,more everything .

In short the system doesn't work ,it was OK when most people died at around 70 but  now not only is the ratio of worker to pensioner  got tighter  we  have to pay the bill for double even trebble the number of years .

Raising the state  pension age is one solution as are enforced pension contributions and maybe means testing . But one things for sure , the population of theses Isles cant keep rising .

It's not just the state pension that's the issue, at the core the problem is simply the ratio of workers to non workers.

Imagine an island with 1000 people, all fit and healthy and skilled. Everyone works to do the things that need doing (farming, digging wells, weaving cloth, fishing, brewing, building etc) 

Then imagine same island but with the same 1000 workers but an additional 200 non-workers. Each worker needs to do more work for everyone to have the dame standard of living, or everyone has to make do with tgr same output shared amongst more people.

Now imagine there were 400 non-workers. It doesn't matter if those 400 each have a sack of diamonds, it doesn't increace the output from the 1000 workers. You can't eat, drink or sleep in a diamond.

This is the dilemma all the countries with aging populations face. Some before others. Japan is an example. Italy another. Russian is going to have this problem magnified. China is in for a hell of a situation in about 30 years thanks to the one child policy. 

Automation and productivity gains offer a potential solution. This is japan's approach. The UK has been very bad at this in recent history (though once led the world - the industrial revolution)

So yes, people should try and plan for their retirement, although pension contributions and home ownership are a distant dream for many young people today. But the core issue of fewer worked per dependent needs solving. 

[Streetwalker]

I think you are misguided.

Over the last 2 decades the population has risen by about 8m and we should have built 6m homes

Instead we built just over 3m

But we also have to ask why people are coming to the UK. The overwhelming majority of immigration is via legal visas, which means the government chose to let them in. Even now, where the government gets to chose 90% of immigration we are letting in more than we ever did. We are choosing to do that.

Why?

Because our labour force to elderly dependent ratio is getting worse. It the 60's it was more than 5 workers for every pensioner. It was better than 4 to 1 up until about 10 years ago. Now it is nearly 3 to 1  and by mid 2030's it will be more than one pensioner for every 2.5 workers.

We are desperate for workers, ironically sectors that directly cate for pensioners are especially short (care and health care).

Thatvs why we keep importing people, because if we didn't we'd be compekatly screwed. We need extra labour to look after all the baby boomers as the drift into their dotatage and start to cost more and more.

To avoid a housing issue we need to build enough homes, which we have consistently failed to do and now the people who have failed to do that are appealing to the prejudice of the boomer generation to blame the people they are importing to help look after the boomer generation.


(to be fair the worst offenders at exploiting this anger aren't the ones in givermnrt but the chancers who sniff an opportunity for advancement)


.

Your post beelbud is an advertisment for pensioners to be responsible for their own retirement . We cant just go on increasing the population to pay for the old folk because of course an increased population means more old folk in the future and the need for even more immigration ,more housing ,more everything .

In short the system doesn't work ,it was OK when most people died at around 70 but  now not only is the ratio of worker to pensioner  got tighter  we  have to pay the bill for double even trebble the number of years . 

Raising the state  pension age is one solution as are enforced pension contributions and maybe means testing . But one things for sure , the population of theses Isles cant keep rising .

[BeElBeeBub]

They make up more that 1/2 increase in the population per year.  You really are blinkered.

I think you are misguided. 

Over the last 2 decades the population has risen by about 8m and we should have built 6m homes

Instead we built just over 3m

But we also have to ask why people are coming to the UK. The overwhelming majority of immigration is via legal visas, which means the government chose to let them in. Even now, where the government gets to chose 90% of immigration we are letting in more than we ever did. We are choosing to do that. 

Why? 

Because our labour force to elderly dependent ratio is getting worse. It the 60's it was more than 5 workers for every pensioner. It was better than 4 to 1 up until about 10 years ago. Now it is nearly 3 to 1  and by mid 2030's it will be more than one pensioner for every 2.5 workers. 

We are desperate for workers, ironically sectors that directly cate for pensioners are especially short (care and health care). 

Thatvs why we keep importing people, because if we didn't we'd be compekatly screwed. We need extra labour to look after all the baby boomers as the drift into their dotatage and start to cost more and more. 

To avoid a housing issue we need to build enough homes, which we have consistently failed to do and now the people who have failed to do that are appealing to the prejudice of the boomer generation to blame the people they are importing to help look after the boomer generation. 


(to be fair the worst offenders at exploiting this anger aren't the ones in givermnrt but the chancers who sniff an opportunity for advancement) 


. 

[papasmurf]

You can't fit a quart into a point pot and if immigrants made up the majority of the pint, you'd have a point (no pun intended)

But they don't. They make up a fraction of the pint. 

They make up more that 1/2 increase in the population per year.  You really are blinkered.

[BeElBeeBub]

The shortage of housing has mass immigration as a factor. You cannot deny that.

It is not possible to get a quart into a pint pot.

You can't fit a quart into a point pot and if immigrants made up the majority of the pint, you'd have a point (no pun intended) 

But they don't. They make up a fraction of the pint.  

The problem isn't that there is a pint or a pint + a tiny bit. 

The problem is the pot is too small because the people I charge of ensuring the pot is the right size have been consistently not doing their job. 
 
The government (and to be fair this applies to labour as well) has consistently underbuilt over the last 2 decades (and earlier) 

If we'd have hit our housing targets we'd have an extra 2.5m new homes on top of the 3m ish built. 

Given there are around 25m households in the UK, that'd an extra 10% more.

There are also a bunch of other factors like monetary policy, rising inequality, aging population not downsizing etc that make housing more and more fraught.

Again, I'm not minimising the housing problems. But the idea that reducing immigration will do anything significant to help is wrong and will lead to worse outcomes

FFS, cutting immigration has led to a shortage of the skills and labour we need to increase and upgrade our housing.

Grifters like Farage etc prey on this frustration and seemingly easy fix (kick the forrins and it'll all be better) for their own agenda and it assuredly isn't for the benefit of you or your relatives. 

[papasmurf]

Again, the shortage of council homes is not because of immigrants.

The shortage of housing has mass immigration as a factor. You cannot deny that.

It is not possible to get a quart into a pint pot.

[BeElBeeBub]

over 600000 in one year is making the problem far worse.

Yeah but not all (in fact very few of those) 600,000 a year net will be on the council house waiting list. 

Of that 600,000 only about 121, 000 are actually eligible for council housing (115k of who are Ukrainians, the rest Afghans) 

Of the Ukrainians only 3,000 households have gone on the waiting lists, say 15,000 people to be generous. And let's say all of the 6, 00 Afghans. So about 20,000 immigrants (who weren't British citizens) went on the housing list of 1,200,000.

Let's say we kicked them all off. 

The queue is now 1,180,000.

Every year just short of 490,000 people get council houses. 

Again, assuming every single eligible immigrant got a council house last year they made up at most 5% of council house allocations.

Again, the shortage of council homes is not because of immigrants. 

[papasmurf]

Not "far" worse.

over 600000 in one year is making the problem far worse.

[BeElBeeBub]

The sheer number of refugees and legal and illegal immigrants is making the housing shortage far worse.

Not "far" worse.

Any more than leaving the tap on when the local river bursts it's banks makes the flooding in your house worse.


Illegal immigrants do not get council housing. Neither do people on work visas or student visas or family visas. 

People with indefinate leave to remain (by definition legal immigrants) can be on the list 

There are 1.2m people on the council housing lists.

Even if every single refugee in the country was on that list, and they aren't, it would still be about 1m people long.

The reason people are struggling to get council housing is because of a chronic lack investment by the government.

But blaming the immigrants is an easier sell. 

[papasmurf]

The chronic shortage is the problem. Not the refugees

The sheer number of refugees and legal and illegal immigrants is making the housing shortage far worse. 

[BeElBeeBub]

Nick that was just a sample, there are loads of others, if you bothered to keep up with news and current affairs you would know.
There is chronic shortage of homes in Britain for British citizens, immigrants being put at the head of the queue is causing a lot of anger, and it will be an election issue.

The chronic shortage is the problem. Not the refugees 

The number of refuges housed in houses that might otherwise be used to house British citizens (ie nit an airbase, barge, tent etc) is miniscule. 

As I pointed out even if every single refugee in the UK was housed, it would only reduce the waiting list from 1.2m to 1.0m

Farage and his press buddies are taking you (and your relative's) understandable and justifiable anger at struggling to find a council house and redirecting it against a small sector of the population who aren't responsible for the shortage. 

[BeElBeeBub]

The house they were going to move into was given to an immigrant family instead. If you followed news and current affairs at all you would know that immigrants taking housing away from the British population is well publicised and increasing issue. (I wonder is some people on this forum follow news and current affair at all.)

So they never moved in? 

Did they actually win the house allocation? Or was it just they didn't get the house they apliied for? 

As I said before, the council housing system is under I mesne strain because councils don't have enough houses. 

They used to have loads, but they sold them all. 

The only class of non britiah/Irish citizen who is eligible for council housing are those with leave to remain (or settled status in the case of EU citizens) 

Those here on work visas, study visas or applying for asylum are not eligible for council housing.

Would your relatives be less annoyed if they lost out their bid to a very obviously British family in the same circumstances as the family who eventually got the house? How do they know the family that did get the house weren't British? 

[papasmurf]

They are being provided to refugees, whose countries are being attacked. Big difference, and it's a measly 600. You do get your knickers in a twist over nothing.

Nick that was just a sample, there are loads of others, if you bothered to keep up with news and current affairs you would know.
There is chronic shortage of homes in Britain for British citizens, immigrants being put at the head of the queue is causing a lot of anger, and it will be an election issue.