BRITAIN’S public services are not in danger of being overwhelmed by the rising population, according to the Liberal think-tank Centre Forum.

The Conservative leader, David Cameron, called last year for a population policy to be adopted to combat the increasing strain on services caused by increasing levels of immigration. Local authorities, teachers and police have voiced similar concerns.

But in Does Britain Need a Population Policy? Alasdair Murray argues that the strain on public services is because central Government is slow to respond to the challenges of rising immigration, fertility rates and greater longevity.

“These problems are fundamentally the result of an overly centralised state and would – and did – exist without large-scale immigration,” he says.

Immigration levels, he says, could fall in 2011 when France and Germany remove restrictions on workers from new EU countries. “This means the UK will no longer be the only sizeable economy providing opportunities for Eastern European migrants,” Murray says, concluding: “Reforms that decentralise control of public services and give greater fiscal freedom to local authorities will help the public sector to respond more effectively to population movement.” www.centreforum.org

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