Migration Watch has just reported that the vast bulk of net immigration into this country has come from outside the EU, so why the huge emphasis on leaving the EU as a cure for the immigration problem in UKIP’s latest video on the subject?

Angela Simmonds

I feel it is doubly unfortunate that the voice-over in UKIP’s latest video on immigration was scripted to say in the closing remarks that the first thing to do is to leave the EU. Nobody in the country believes this is an imminent possibility and so the DVD is only helping to spread a mood of helpless resignation to the swamping of the British people by foreigners.

As it is, the coalition is claiming the credit for restricting the flow of some classes of non-EU immigrant, which will help a little, but won’t touch the flow from Africa and the Indian subcontinent (containing together about 2.5 billion people) due to marriages, other “family reasons”, and the continued flow of asylum cases let in by the judges.

UKIP has a policy on which many of us fought the last General Election and this is for a complete halt to all immigration for settlement for 5 years while the country has the chance to formulate a population policy and deal with the huge backlog of illegals. We aways made it clear that pending our leaving the EU, this halt would apply where we could apply it, i.e. to non EU immigrants, which are now revealed to be 80% of all immigrants to the UK.

It is key to UKIP getting acceptance as a major force in British politics that it pushes in the direction of policies it believes in, even if, because of EU membership, it can’t get the whole loaf.

Another current example is this:

Removing the UK from the European Convention is entirely do-able without leaving the EU, despite the myth being propagated in some legal circles that the Lisbon Treaty forbids it. (In fact the Treaty does not touch any aspects of the UK’s administration of justice under the protocol 30 opt-outs.) UKIP should put its weight behind leaving the ECHR, which would be hugely popular in the country. Even if in the short term Cameron bodges some fudge to keep us in, UKIP will get the credit and exposure for advocating the move, and create a reputation for standing up for the British people, which will help even in council elections.

How did the Government bail out the banks – did they take shares in them or was it by some other means?

David Staff

1          In the case of Northern Rock, the Government just nationalised the Bank’s assets (buildings mainly and some value in its “toxic assets) and assumed its liabilities (to retail depositors repaid or guaranteed in full, and probably most wholesale creditors).  The shareholders were wiped out – no compensation so far as I know since liabilities exceeded assets by a large margin.

2          In the case of HBOS/Lloyds, the exact details are not totally clear (to me) because the rescues of both banks were complicated by the fact that Lloyds was taking over HBOS in the critical week from 1^st October 2008.

3          Under pressure from its shareholders Lloyds revised its offer for HBOS during the takeover from 0.75:1 to 0.61 Lloyds share : 1 HBOS share .  The exact terms of the Government’s cash injection are therefore difficult to determine since the shares of both banks were zooming down in the days leading up to the announcement of the Government action on 8/9 October 2008.  Nobody outside the special unit in the Treasury seems to know the exact prices on which the Government acquired HBOS and Lloyds shares.

4          My best estimate is that HBOS issued about 17 billion new shares to the Government at around 65 pence each (making an injection of £11.5 billion) and injected into Lloyds about £5.5 billion at a price of around 1.05 per share, meaning Lloyds issued about 5 billion new shares to the Government.  After converting HBOS to Lloyds at 1 to 0.61, this left the Government with about 15 billion of Lloyds shares.  Former HBOS shareholders (of whom I was one) held about 12 billion Lloyds shares after conversion.  Original Lloyds shareholders seem to have held about 6 billion so that total Lloyds shares in issue after the Government bailout and after the HBOS/Lloyds merger were thus 33 billion, of which the Government’s share was 15/33 or 45%.

5          As a result of two rights issues in 2009 of 0.6:1 and 1.34:1 at 38 and 37 pence respectively, the Lloyds shares in issue now total about 68 billion.  This indicates that the Government did not take up its rights (this may have been part of the original deal) so that it now holds around a quarter of the Lloyds current market value (£49 billion) but is still showing a loss of about £5 billion on its original cash injections.  If and when Lloyds share price reaches about 110 pence (now 72 pence) the Government will reach breakeven on its original 8^th October 2008 injections to Lloyds and HBOS.

6          The RBS story is similar I suspect, without the complexity of two banks merging at the time of the crisis.  The Government’s share of the RBS stock was about 83%, even higher than it was in HBOS above and it will still be this proportion if there have been no RBS rights issues since.

Your leaflets describe a 50% expansion in manufacturing. How do you intend to achieve this?

Jack Harris

Can you publish the detailed estimates of the way to eliminate the £170 Billion deficit according to UKIP’s policies?

James May

How has this deficit come about?

In 2009/10 the government estimates it will receive from taxes £490 billions.

It estimates it will have spent around £660 billions (of which £330 billion on wage and agency costs).                  

Therefore the Deficit 2009/10 is £170 billions.

National Debt

At 30 April 2009 this was around £600 billions.

For 2009/10 add £170 billions

Therefore the Estimate of National Debt at 30 April 2010 is £770 billions                                    

Starting point for deficit elimination

1          Public sector wage costs (i.e. wages themselves, employers’ pension contributions, employers’ national insurance) are around £330 billion.

2          Public sector wages are around 5% higher than the private sector on average.

3          Public sector employer pension contributions are typically 14-18% of salaries.  Private sector employer pension contributions are typically 4-6% of salary, say an average of 5%.

4          Number of employees in the public sector:

            in 2001 7 million

            in 2007 8 million.

5          Unemployment in April 2010      2.5 million

            Unemployment in April 2007      1.6 million

Over 3 years the increase is around 900,000 (entirely in the private sector where employment among British workers has fallen over 10 years by 200,000).

Many private sector workers have opted for wage cuts and/or 4 or even 3 day working weeks to keep their jobs and firms going.

UKIP’s View

6          The public sector is just too heavy a burden for the private sector to bear.

7          This burden must be reduced in the interest of both economic necessity and equity between the public and private sectors.  Nothing else will match the scale of the problem.

8          UKIP therefore proposes no tax rises but expenditure reductions by the public sector (which is paid for by taxes on the private sector and on individuals as taxpayers):

Annual Expenditure Reductions by 2015

(These do not affect services delivered to the public, but merely restore productivity to where it was in 2007.)  Figures are constant £s per year.

(i)         Reduce top public sector salaries by 2% per annum for 5 years and medium salaries by 1% p.a. for 5 years. Low salaries will not be reduced. This will save £16 billion per annum by 2015. 

(ii)        Reduce public sector employers’ annual contributions to employees’ pensions to the average in the private sector over 5 years.  This will save £33 billion.  No changes will be made to pensions already being paid.

(iii)       Reduce public sector employee numbers to 2001 levels by natural wastage (2.5% per annum).  This will save £33 billion.

(iv)       Capital cost savings of 2% give £6 billion per year by 2015.

Total annual labour & capital cost savings by 2015 £88 bn

(iv)       Benefits to be paid only to UK citizens over 21 and residents who have paid rates and taxes for 5 years.  This will save £5 bn.

(v)        Consolidate housing and other benefits into a single cash benefit, saving £10 bn p.a.  No pensioners’ benefits to change.

(vi)       Stop the UK’s annual subscription to the EU.  This will save £10 billion a year by 2015.

(vii)      Abolish most Quangos and all Regional Assemblies, reduce admin overheads due to simpler tax and benefits system (£5 bn).

Total repeat annual savings by 2015 will be £118 billion.

(viii)      One off savings: ID cards £10 billion, NHS database £5 billion.

Total annual savings by 2015                    £118 billion (A)

Plus one-off savings 2010-12                       £15 billion

B       Increasing Income by 2015

(i)         UKIP’s Manufacturing expansion programme (see Jobs & Economy leaflet) will add around £80 billion of output on which taxes paid will give £27 billion.  The increased private sector (about half a million) will absorb employees released from the public sector of around the same number.

(ii)        There will be some general expansion in the economy of about 10% over 5 years (some generated indirectly by (i) above) giving around £140 billion on which taxes paid will give £49 billion

Increased real terms income p.a. to government £76 bn (B)

(C) Cost of UKIP’s long-term programmes p.a. £20 bn

(These are defence equipment, energy, flood and coastal protection, transport, manufacturing expansion.) 

Net reduction in annual deficit by 2015: A+B-C = £174 bn

Surplus by 2015 is £174 bn less £170 bn = £4 billion

Estimated Total National Debt by 2015

At April 2010 it is £770 billions

Increase 2010 to 2015 is £420 billions

Therefore total National Debt by 2015 is £1190 billion

(This is much lower than any of LibLabCon’s projections (£1,400-1,600 bn) just for halving the deficit!) 

Question 1
What will you be able to do to help:
a) the maintenance of the sea defences of the area;
b) the number of oil tankers sitting just off shore;
c) the viability of Southwold as a community – the preservation of its character, the issues of affordable housing, transport, policing and medical care?

Question 2
What do you feel is the solution to the concern that there is a lack of control over, or proper consultation about, the big decisions being made that affect the town directly?

Question 3
Are you in favour of the reintroduction of sea eagles – yes or no?

Question 4
What is the unique selling point of your party for this area?

Question 5
How do you intend to fill the shoes of John Gummer?

Dominic Knight of the “Southwold Organ”

Prof says . . .

Question 1

a) Sea Defences

East Coast Erosion

UKIP is committed to five long-term infra-structure programmes, one of which is our £30 billion, 20 year, programme for comprehensive river flood prevention and coastal defences for the south and east coasts of England.  This will of course include the provision of permanent sea defences in the Southwold area (see UKIP Manifesto section 2: Jobs, Enterprise and the Economy, and section 11 on Energy and the Environment).

b) Oil Tankers

The very large number of tankers anchored off the Southwold coast are there because the Labour government has specifically designated this as the one place in UK waters where ship to ship oil transfers can take place.  As an example, out of 54 tankers anchored off the British coast, 30 were anchored off Southwold on 18th February this year.

A junior Labour minister has announced that legislation would be “laid before Parliament as early as May”, but that is now impossible.

There is both a pollution threat to our beaches from oil spillages and worse, a combined terrorist-pollution threat.

As your MP I would not be content with the slow process of UK legislation, but require tankers to move on, using our influence in the International Maritime Organisation, which is headquartered in London and which has within its ambit two agencies: the Marine Environmental Protection Centre and the International Sea Safety Management Organisation.  Both of these organisations are actively aware of the pollution and terrorism threats and have great influence on sea users and governments.  They should be lobbied hard.

c) Viability of Southwold

The future of Southwold and neighbouring Reydon will be strongly affected by (i) its age structure (14% under 19; 44% over 60 and 14% over 80 – 2007 mid year estimates from the National Statistical Office) and (ii) the relatively high proportion of second homes which are not occupied full-time.

It is doubtful if any community with this age structure is viable long-term because the small number of children (234 or 6% under 9) will lead inevitably to a sharp decrease in the locally born population in 20 years or so ahead.

The high proportion of second homes, combined with the decrease in the locally-born popuation makes it unlikely that the essential character of Southwold will be maintained beyond this 20 year period without a specific remedy.

The remedy lies in the establishment of new business in keeping with the town’s history.  This can only come from re-introduction of the fishing industry and the repair and maintenance which goes with that.  Such a change would attrace a new, younger element to the town on a considerable scale, which would be under the control of local people.

To re-establish the fishing industry along the Suffolk coast – and indeed all along Britain’s coast, Britain will have to withdraw from the EU Common Fisheries Policy, reassert its sovereignty over our part of the Continental Shelf (broadly the median lines between Britain, Norway and the Continental EU), decide its own fishing policy in the light of sensible fish stocks conservation and the needs of our fishermen.

UKIP’s policy, as is well-known, is to withdraw from the European Union, with all that will mean to our former fishing communities along our coasts.

UKIP espouses two other policies with direct bearing on Southwold and indeed on Suffolk Coastal generally:

(i)     UKIP favours final planning decisions to be made at the level of those directly affected, unless there is a clear-cut national interest involved.  This would mean parishes would have the final word on housing for instance – and this would apply to the extend and nature of affordable housing.

Coastal protection

(ii)     As mentioned in 1(a) UKIP has a 20 year £30 billion programme for coastal protection and river flood defences (see UKIP Manifesto section 2).  Responsibility for coastal protection and river defences would be removed from Natural England and the Environment Agency and vested in a National Rivers and Coasts Protection Agency (NRCPA) responsible to the people of the affected areas.  With the stated resources, it would be able to design and finance sound schemes of protection along our coasts, including those at Blyth estuary.  The NRCPA would also have the resources and remit for sensitive developments for recreation areas such as lagoons, wildlife reserves, as well as farming, should the local people favour these.  This would have the potential to increase the long-term viability of Southwold and Reydon.

With major new income streams and a younger tax-paying population, Southwold would be well-placed to afford the transport, policing and medical care which its people will need.

Question 2

Lack of Control over Big Decisions

Our policy of putting the final decision on local planning in the hands of the parishes, and if necessary to local referendums, will replace entirely the unsatisfactory and undemocratic “consultation” processes we now have – as described in Question 1(c) for example.

Question 3

Sea Eagles

No, I am not in favour of their introduction into Suffolk Coastal.

I regard the proposal by Natural England as a costly gimmick to, in their own words “lead a high-profile flagship species project that will highlight the organisation”.

Question 4

Unique selling point of UKIP

UKIP’s unique selling point is its policy of withdrawing Britain from the European Union.  The benefits for Southwold and surroundings are:

(i)     re-establishment of our off-shore fishing industry

(ii)    recovery of £12,000 million in annual gross payments to the EU, a substantial portion of which will go into the fishing industry and the coastal protection programme as described in answer 1(c).

Question 5

Shoes of John Gummer

As an MP I will:

(i)     Help any individual constituent that I usefully can;

(ii)    Oppose mass housing schemes in Felixstowe and Martlesham, derived as they are from assumptions about continued mass immigration, which UKIP is adamantly opposed to.

(iii)  Press for local people to have the final word on planning in their parishes.

(iv)  Focus on promoting new job-bringing enterprises to the constituency as described for Southwold above, and by the use of new Production Enterprise Centres foster the expansion and development of existing small businesses.

(v)  I will be a constant, articulate advocate of Britain’s withdrawal from the EU which will enable the recovery of our fishing and our release from the EU’s Labour rules.  Among other things these (a) have stopped our applying the same tests of capability to E doctors that we apply to doctors from the rest of the world and (b) by the inflexible 48 hour working time directive caused real problems in the staffing of our hospitals.  In addition the landfill directive is having the effect of spreading industrial waste on to productive agricultural land.

(vi)  Press for the responsiblity for the out-of-hours service to be returned directly to the GPs.

(vii) Press for a post-bus type service on the Swiss model, combining mail collection and delivery services, transport of people and domestic pets, which will also help maintain post offices in rural areas.

My wife and I are concerned about the disposal of nuclear waste. In the event of more nuclear power stations in the UK, are we going to leave our descendants with a mountain of waste? What are the French doing about this problem?

Alfred Farnell

Will you sign the Asylum Pledge being promoted by Liberty?

Dr G S Mead

Question 1
How will UKIP support production and sustainable farming that delivers a countryside rich in wildlife?
Question 2
How will UKIP put nature at the heart of the way we use and manage our land?
Question 3
What is UKIP’s policy towards the marine environment, including the designation of Marine Protected Areas (MPAs)?

Suffolk Wildlife Trust

Can the British Government after the election work within the EU to change it for the better?

Martin Stephenson

Do you think the proposals of the Labour government, the LibDems and the Conservatives will be effective in eliminating the huge deficit in our national finances?  What would UKIP do?

Frederick May

Prof says . . .

The short answer is No. You only have to look at the numbers to see this. The deficit for 2009/10 is around £170 Billion, i.e. 170 thousand million pounds sterling, or over 30% more than the government’s income. This giant sum has been borrowed by selling government bonds (called gilts) mainly to foreigners, and will take our total national debt to around £900 Bn.

The process will be repeated in the financial year just starting, and will take the national debt past £1,000 Bn (or a trillion pounds sterling) for the first time in our history. The fear among the people – mainly middle Eastern and Asian funds – who are currently prepared to buy our gilts (i.e. lend us the money) is that only small measures to reduce this enormous deficit are currently being taken or contemplated by the contenders for office after May 6.

These measures are all only one or two billion pounds at best (so-called back office savings) which are insignificant compared with £170 Bn.

UKIP’s policy briefly

In the vast total of government expenditure (£670 Bn) wage costs are overwhelmingly the predominant (70+%) part.  Only in Defence is the wage cost a significantly lower proportion (50%) because of its spending on military equipment and ammunition.  This means a significant reduction in the deficit must cut labour costs.

UKIP Expenditure Reduction Measures

1. There are a range of government functions we can get rid of altogether – including most quangos, which would yield around £20 Bn per year over a five year period.  This would create unemployment among well-paid senior staff, many of whom already have pensions, but more junior staff would redeploy into our new manufacturing economy.
2. Our withdrawal from the European Union would save around £10 Bn per year gross from day one, some of which would continue to be spent on industrial and agricultural support – say £30 Bn over 5 years.
3. The tax and benefits system would be changed so that housing benefit (currently costing £18 Bn per year) would disappear as a separate benefit.  Besides the direct saving (around £10 Bn per year net – say £50 Bn over 5 years), it would also have the beneficial effect of lowering rents in the private sector, particularly in the big cities.  The only losers would be landlords who would be given a two year transition period to adapt.
4. On withdrawal from the EU we would impose a five year qualification period before those with residence or new citizen status could draw benefits of any kind.  This could save £10 Bn over 5 years.
5. Job seeker’s allowance would only be paid in return for community work (i.e. workfare).  Idleness will not be an option.  All able-bodied single people will be expected to take a job anywhere in the United Kingdom with a living allowance paid for 6 months by the state (savings around £10 Bn over 5 years).
6. As a private view, I would advocate transferring the government’s International Aid programme (currently about £6 Bn but planned to go to £10 Bn by 2012) to the aid charities on a matched fund basis, provided the charities did not transfer cash to poor countries, but only supplied British made equipment and housing provision supported by British-trained personnel to install and maintain it until locals are genuinely ready to take it over.  (At present two thirds of our aid – about £4 Bn a year – is spent by the EU, over which we have no real control.  This would cease when we withdrew from the EU.)  Total savings from government over 5 years would be around £25 Bn made up by a comparable sum from private sources.
7. UKIP would envisage reductions in the 3 year departmental expenditure limits (around £400 billion) of 5% in year 1 rising to 10% in year 5, to be achieved by natural wastage and some salary reductions.  This will yield (net of investment in our Long-Term Programmes [LTPs]) £20 billion per annum in year 1 rising to £40 billion per annum at the end of year 5.

Government Income under UKIP’s policies

Point 1

UKIP’s manufacturing expansion programme of 5% per annum over 10 years and its Long-Term Programmes (LTPs) [see the Jobs and Enterprise paper "Produce and Prosper" under "Policies" on ukip.org] would add around 1% to growth, making in all about 1.5-2% in the economy’s GDP in year 1 (2010/11) to about 4% in year 5.  Government revenues (at about 40% of GDP) would grow on these figures by around £10 billion in year 1 to about £105 billion per annum in year 5 (2015/16).

Point 2

On these figures, the 2009/10 deficit of £173 billion (my figure) would fall to £120 billion at the end of year 1 (2010/11) and to zero at the end of year 5.  The accumulated national debt would rise from about £900 billion at year zero (2009/10) to around £1330 billion (about 83% of GDP).  After that the national debt would be reduced if no additional government spending was allowed.

The Labour government’s target reduction to one half of the present £170 billion over 4 years from now would add about £580 billion by the end of 2015/16, bringing the total national debt to £1,480 billion (about 92% of GDP) and continuing to rise at a rate of £70-80 billion after that (on present declared plans).

Comment

Public sector average pay is now higher than in the private sector, much higher if you add in the public sector’s final-salary pensions which now have a funding deficit of over £1,000 Bn.

As a personal view I favour salary reductions for senior staff in the public sector, particularly in local government and the police, pegging their salaries to those of the appropriate grade in the civil service.  Middle and lower salaries would be frozen for a three year period to bring them into line with the private sector.  Together with “natural” turnovers of staff (currently 8% in the NHS) some net reductions of about 5% in the public sector wage bill would yield around £30 Bn per year, effectively closing the gap.