Population control policy is no more than pretence

THERE are some issues which most politicians just won't speak about frankly in public. Things they know to be true but won't admit to knowing because they are too inherently unpopular.

So spending cuts become 'efficiency savings', illegal drugs are wrongly classified because it's more popular to just talk tough and grand plans are revealed for future capital spending with little regard to the dwindling cash available. It's a sort of parallel universe where events are governed by popular acclaim rather than by the laws of nature. But perhaps the biggest dishonesty by Guernsey deputies, past and present, has been their unwillingness to come clean over population control.

There's a stark fact about population policy that is constantly hedged around with prevaricating statements. That fact is that the States will never take effective action to stabilise the number of people living in Guernsey for fear of undermining the economy.

It's a truth which was learned painfully by successive presidents of the old Population and Migration Committee and which has been wilfully obscured by two successive Policy Council sub-committees.

I'm not blaming those deputies who aren't willing to take the economic risks involved in aiming for a static population. The historic links between economic growth and population growth are clear for all to see.

At one end of the spectrum you have boom towns, at the other end depopulated Scottish islands.

The historic results from Guernsey's census reveal a relentless rise in the island's population that has only really faltered during wars and significant recessions. Economic success has always brought population growth like night follows day.

So aiming for a stable population definitely involves risks for the local economy. Relying on productivity alone to drive growth is the economic equivalent of trying to stand still while riding a bicycle. Without considerable skill, you are likely to fall off.

That's why - while I strongly disagree - I don't blame those who see population growth as essential for a buoyant economy. What does anger me is the duplicity of claiming they support the aim of a stable population while knowing they'll never take the sort of measures needed to achieve it. For goodness' sake, why not just be straight?

This exercise in pure cant reached its high water mark with the report from the previous Policy Council Working Party on Population, headed by Deputy Mary Lowe. It concluded that our population needed to grow considerably to counter the demographic time-bomb and the resultant falling number of younger workers. Of course this is nonsensical. If we are all going to live longer we have to adapt to that new demographic reality - not think we can avoid it by rapid breeding or immigration.

Nevertheless, that was the conclusion they came to. Their problem was selling that message to the Guernsey public, who already felt the island was quite densely populated enough. Saying we need to constantly increase the number of people living here is one of those political no-go areas. Their solution? To suggest we could allow the population to go up considerably over the next couple of decades, then bring it down again to current levels.

This was total pie in the sky. It was a deceitful policy which couldn't be delivered.

And even if it had been possible, where was the sense in growing the island's infrastructure or building lots of extra houses, only for them to become redundant when the population shrank again?

So it was a silly suggestion, but with one enormous advantage. It prevented the need for politicians who genuinely believed that Guernsey's population needed to grow indefinitely having to come out honestly and say so. And they would be long gone from politics when the truth became apparent.

I amended that proposition because if the States really wanted the island to have a similar population in 50 years' time - as the report advocated - the best way to achieve it was by keeping it stable throughout that period. I didn't really expect the States to honour that resolution. I can even see the counter-argument that obsessing about over-population and quality of life is a luxury that only communities with very low unemployment can afford to indulge in.

I still feel strongly that we are becoming very over-populated but I respect and understand the economic arguments against robust measures to address the problem. What I don't respect is the cowardice of paying lip-service to population control while knowing you'll never really do anything about it.