WHAT is far more important than the population figure is the spread of age ranges and how the country is organised socially and economically.

In a country as rich as Britain there is absolutely no need to reduce the population. In fact, to do so is likely to cause damage to the nation’s wellbeing.

Imagine what Britain would be like in 30 years’ time if we halted immigration and the population rise. We would have an extremely old population and few young people. I doubt if that would be a happy place to live in.

Britain is perhaps the world’s richest island nation. There is nothing intrinsically wrong with having densely populated countries. Singapore and Hong Kong are among the most densely populated places in the world and still cope.

What is important is how a country is organised. You can have an incredibly civilised country that is very densely populated. Equally, you can have incredibly uncivilised societies with very low density.

Britain is in many ways a transit country. I call it the Archers’ effect. People all over the world have listened to The Archers and get the idea that we have stability, safety and prosperity. But many of those who come here find that it’s not as good as that. A lot of them are disappointed and move on. We may have thousands of immigrants, but we also have many emigrants.

It will be interesting to see what the younger ministers do about immigration figures. Cabinet members in their forties have not said much. Perhaps they realise that we need newcomers to make up for our low birthrate.

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