By Sir Mark Boleat,Voices

Copyright jerseyeveningpost

By Sir Mark Boleat

“OPEN the door or pull up the drawbridge” is the title for tomorrow’s debate on population policy at which Economic Development Minister Kirsten Morel and a panel of experts will be giving their views.

It is always helpful if discussion on policy issues is based on evidence. So, in this article I set out some of the key data and other facts relevant to any debate on population.

The published statistics show that the population has barely changed in recent years. The 2018 figure was 103,290 while the 2023 figure was 103,660.

The 2024 figure will be published next week. We already know that deaths exceeded births by 161 and it remains to be seen what the net migration figure was. The fact that the number of jobs increased by 1% in 2024 but that, according to the Fiscal Policy Panel, real gross value added fell, at least suggests that there has been no substantial net immigration for employment reasons.

Anecdotal reports of young people leaving the Island partly because of high housing costs are just anecdotal and even if there are some genuine cases this does not necessarily mean that numbers are large. So, when the statistics are published it will be just as important to look at the detail as at the headline number.

We already know that there has been a significant decline in the number of births which is not easily explainable. Births in 2024 were 10% fewer than in 2023 at a time when the number of births in England actually increased. There is worldwide reduction in the general fertility rate, the number of live births per woman of childbearing age (typically 15-44,) but the number of births also depends on the age structure of the population. It may possibly be that the decline in the number of births is largely explained by a reduced number of families in the 20 to 40 age bracket.

Much of the policy debate on population in Jersey has rather worked on the assumption that the government can determine the size of the population. A number of policies have had that specific aim. Generally, when the number was exceeded, a new higher number was selected as the policy objective. Then the government moved on to seeking to identify the ideal amount of net immigration there should be each year, with equal lack of success.

Such policies have ignored a fundamental point. The change in the population depends on five variables: births, deaths, emigration, immigration by residentially qualified people and other immigration. The government has no ability to control any of the first four variables. Immigration by residentially qualified people has particularly been ignored. There are some 20,000 people living outside the Island who are entitled to come back at any time, and for many it is attractive to do so on retirement, for personal, family and financial reasons.

Other immigration also cannot be precisely controlled because the Island needs teachers, nurses, people to work in care homes and nurseries and a host of other areas. Such immigration is regulated by the Control of Housing and Work Law but even the influence of such controls is limited.

Public policy tends to lag developments in the real world. The big population debate globally has changed dramatically in recent years, an issue well covered in the current issue of the Economist. Older readers can recall the concerns about the population explosion and how the world could possibly cope with the projected number of people on the planet. Now, the global debate is the opposite, that is the size of the global population will begin to fall and is already falling in many countries and how can the world cope with this.

So it is with Jersey. There still seems to be an assumption that people are clamouring to come to the Island and therefore strict controls are needed to keep them out. The problem is now different. Businesses complain about the difficulty of employing the staff that they need. Pay levels in Jersey are generally above those in the UK and this means a high standard of living for many residents, in particular homeowners who bought their homes a long time ago. But most people coming to the Island for the first time have to buy or rent in the open market and the cost of doing so can more than overcome pay differentials.

Added to this, Jersey is simply not seen as an attractive option for young people. The size of the Island inevitably means that there are not the attractions that are available in large cities. Also, moving from the UK or other countries to Jersey involves upheaval, which might be relatively easy to cope with for a young single person but not for a family with children.

Jersey is well established as an international financial centre and is seeking to become established as a centre for digital businesses. But to do so it needs to understand that it is competing with many other jurisdictions to attract talent, and those jurisdictions often do not have a hang-up about letting people into them. Indeed, they are actively seeking to attract talented people whereas a point made at a recent Policy Centre discussion meeting was that Jersey seems actively trying to keep people out who want to come here.

So having an intellectual discussion about opening the doors or pulling up the drawbridge may be fascinating but it is not the discussion that Jersey needs to have. Rather, any debate needs to recognise three fundamental points:

The number of births has fallen sharply, by 30% in the last ten years, and there is no reason to expect a significant increase in the number in the near future.

People are living longer and the ageing population brings its own issues, particularly in respect of funding pensions and long-term care.

The people of Jersey enjoy in, comparative terms, a high standard of living and no doubt wish this to continue. This can happen only if Jersey has an education system suited to the new world of work and is welcoming to talented people from outside the Island.

The first two points require policy responses. The declining number of births needs a response in respect of early years provision and the structure of the Island’s schools. That response could take the form of smaller class sizes. Alternatively, the response could be maintaining teacher/pupil ratios and reducing public expenditure on education. In respect of older people, Jersey is in a comparatively comfortable position as the state pension is properly funded, and also has provision for long-term care which few states have managed to replicate, although this has come at a significant cost to the taxpayer.

The more difficult issue is to reform the education system so that it produces attainment levels and skills suitable for a different world of work, one that is changing faster than ever. The better the education system performs the greater will be the career opportunities and life chances of the Island’s young people as well as the prosperity of the Island.

However, no jurisdiction, however big it is, can rely wholly on home-grown talent. Jersey has for many years had substantial two-way migration and only about 50% of the population have been born in the Island. This two-way migration has made Jersey the success it is today and has enabled Jersey people to thrive outside of the Island. But there still seems to be a mentality that we are doing people a favour by letting them live in the Island, and the treatment of recent immigrants in respect of social security benefits and housing is shameful. And if a business wishes to bring in someone from outside the Island, then there should be a presumption that it knows what is best for its business and that that should be allowed.

No doubt the debate will cover these sorts of issues and many more, but at the least it should be debate not about policy appropriate for the past but about what is needed for the future.

Sir Mark Boleat has held a number of leadership positions in companies, public bodies and charities in Jersey and in the UK. He is senior adviser to the Policy Centre Jersey.