Peter Roffey: We need to talk about population control

Many political issues tend to come and go. Matters which top one States’ agenda almost seem like an irrelevance a few years later. While issues which never used to be worthy of a mention suddenly become of pressing importance.

Examples of the former included residents' ‘rights’ to drive without wearing seatbelts, or to smoke in enclosed public places. Plus what people should be permitted to buy on Sundays, and in what size of shop, and the rights (or lack of them) of homosexual islanders.

I could go on. Opposition to building Beau Sejour, and the fight against compulsory contributions towards the States pension were both massive campaigns in their time.

On the other side of the coin, the current Assembly is understandably obsessed about tax reform and how to fund public services. This was such a given in the heady days pre zero-10, with an expanding finance industry, that it was hardly worthy of a mention in the Assembly.

As for getting rid of the Bailiff as presiding officer of the States? Well I can remember Deputy/Advocate John Langlois mentioning the idea back in the day. Then a bolshie young candidate put it in his 1982 manifesto, before gradually realising that the alternatives were probably all worse. Other than that, it’s never registered on the political Richter scale, until now, when quite a few of my colleagues suddenly seem to be very exercised by it.

Where is all this leading? Well, among this ever-changing agenda of ‘what matters’, there are a few issues which have been ever constant. Healthcare, housing, education and so on. But today I want to draw attention to a matter which ever since the Liberation has been a massive issue for the island, but which suddenly, and weirdly, few now seem to care two hoots about. Population control.

Certainly in the decades I’ve been involved in politics, it’s been rare for the need to limit Guernsey’s population growth not to be a massive talking point – until now.

What’s so odd about that is that the number of people living here is currently sky-rocketing. A growth of 645 people a year has a huge impact on our infrastructure, with the biggest single example being housing.

It means we probably need to build at least 250 extra homes a year just to stand still. This pressure on the local market is only exacerbated by the perverse decision in the last Assembly to remove all control over what type of housing those coming here on licence could occupy.

So to make real headway in dealing with the current housing shortage, we will need a massive housebuilding programme. Sadly one which may prove just too big for local resources to cope with. Of course we must try to ensure that we do step up our construction of new homes to meet that demand, but even if we succeed it will have big consequences.

This brings me to the reasons why population control was always such a hot issue over the decades – until suddenly it wasn’t.

I can’t deny that there might have always been a few rabid nationalists in the mix, but for the vast majority this was an issue pertaining to the number of people who could live comfortably in Guernsey, not where they came from.

We were a densely populated, and over-developed, little island. We had far too few open spaces and those we did have were constantly dwindling. So in part it was simply a quality of life issue. And one which impacted just as much on those we had welcomed to our island as those who were born here.

Then there was the infrastructure. We had significant traffic congestion and few opportunities to expand our road network. Plus both locals and incomers alike seemed to strongly resist other measures to mitigate congestion – but that’s another story for another column. We pretty much ran out of water supplies in both the 70s and 90s. The list of infrastructural challenges posed by rapid population growth went on and on.

They still do. And yet no one seems to care anymore. For the record I do. In fact I care very much. But at the same time I do understand the roots of this change in zeitgeist.

Basically it comes down to demographics. Even with an ever-increasing pension age, without attracting a lot more people of working age to Guernsey, our workforce would currently be shrinking rapidly. As it is, with large-scale net migration, it is increasing slightly.

This is very good news for States revenues. It bolsters income tax receipts and social security contributions. It is also good news for the economy, allowing more jobs to be filled and thus greater economic activity. But let’s not get carried away. Our workforce may be growing, driven by net migration, but unless we see ever-increasing population growth then in time it will start falling again as a % of our total population

I am not blaming older islanders – that would be to point the finger at my own generation – but it is an inconvenient truth. As the years go by, more and more of us will be here – but not working. And that requires more and more workers to be sourced from elsewhere. If they can be.

Of course, with a difficult societal change we could possibly reverse the relatively recent ‘culture of retirement’, which would ease the need to bring in ever more workers from elsewhere. But only to a point. Our ageing demographic doesn’t only take workers out of the economy but it also creates extra demand for workers. More and more of us will be living into our 80s and 90s and typically requiring far more healthcare and social care than younger cohorts.

Parking the challenges of an ever-increasing population for a moment – where on earth will this new workforce come from? Well, the world’s population is still growing, but that growth isn’t happening in Europe. Indeed they are in the same boat as us, and competing for the same limited labour resource. So we need to desperately hope we can attract the workers we need from further afield, like sub-Saharan Africa, and be very grateful if they choose Guernsey over all of their other choices.

Where will this all end? It might eventually find a sort of equilibrium but not until we have had decades of massive social change driven by demographics. Politically it is an incredibly difficult but really fascinating challenge.

Among the solutions are technical fixes such as robotics and AI. Then there is a possible cultural change with older people ‘supporting their tribe’, as much as they can, for as long as they can. This was true for 99% of human history. We may even have to say ‘not all jobs are needed’. If a factory making widgets in Guernsey disappeared, because it couldn’t attract labour, that would be sad, but not fatal.

One thing is for sure. The western world – together with China, Japan, Korea and many other countries – is facing the biggest transformation of the modern age. Guernsey is no exception.

I understand the desire to temper that transformation through inward, working age, migration. I just think it would be a mistake to allow the pendulum to swing so far from our traditional concern over population growth that we allow our island to be changed in a way most of us will deeply regret.

Balance is needed. But if truth be told, I have never really been convinced about how much control the States has over our population anyway. It is far more driven by the economy. But our government definitely will need to deal with the consequences.