Pressure on Healthcare, Schools, Roads and Trains - Main Points
The below summary was last updated July 2019
The NHS
- There was an average of 2,000 GP registrations per day by those from overseas in 2016/17 (NHS statistics for England, Wales & Northern Ireland).
- The UK recently saw the first sustained drop in the number of GPs per head of population since the 1960s. Rapid, immigration-driven population growth is a key (yet often ignored) factor in this trend.
- Despite health tourism costing taxpayers hundreds of millions (if not billions) of pounds per year, the British Medical Association has voted to abandon charging overseas patients for treatment.
Education
- Immigration-driven population growth adds to pressure on school places and on funding.
- Thousands of schools England are already full or over-capacity.
- The Department for Education has forecast a further bulge in pupil numbers. An additional 370,000 school places will needed by 2024.
- Immigration creates additional pressures connected with pupils whose first language is not English.
- One expert warned of increasing cultural segregation in schools, ‘increasing the likelihood of children growing up without meeting or better understanding people from different backgrounds’.
Social housing
- Claims that migrants are less likely to occupy social housing than the UK-born population are highly misleading. ‘Immigration may reduce access to social housing for the UK-born’ (MAC, Sept. 2018).
- Pressure on social housing is further increased by the selling-off of housing stock by local authorities.
Transport / Environment
- We are losing more and more of our countryside due to the construction of roads, housing and other facilities needed to accommodate rapid population growth, 80% of which is being driven by immigration.
- The UK is one of the world’s 10 most gridlocked countries (Inrix)
- Road congestion in London is worse than in Paris, Rome, Berlin and Madrid, with traffic moving at 3.7mph during evening rush hour.
View of the public
- 60% of voters believe the high level of immigration is piling too much pressure on public services – Ipsos MORI, 2016.
- They are right. Immigration to the UK has resulted in a considerable cost to the taxpayer of about £18m a day in 1995-2011. Research by Migration Watch UK found that immigration represented a net fiscal cost of £13 billion in 2014/15.
Pressure on Healthcare, Schools, Roads and Trains Research
How can the UK stop relying on overseas doctors?
7 April, 2023 - Briefing Paper: MW 513
Pressure on Healthcare, Schools, Roads and Trains
18 July, 2019 - Briefing Paper: MW 433
The Impact of Immigration on England’s school places shortage
11 June, 2015 - Briefing Paper: MW 365
Access to the NHS - Who Should Be Entitled?
27 November, 2012 - Briefing Paper: MW 282
The Impact of Immigration on Maternity Services in England
25 June, 2012 - Briefing Paper: MW 266
The NHS and Migrant Labour
10 March, 2012 - Briefing Paper: MW 256
Immigration and the Demand for Water in England
9 March, 2012 - Briefing Paper: MW 255
Environmental impact of immigration
27 December, 2010 - Briefing Paper: MW 215
Changing Primary Schools in England: 1998 - 2010
22 November, 2010 - Briefing Paper: MW 210
Library
Over the 24 years that Migration Watch UK has been working in this field we have produced many papers.
View Pressure on Healthcare, Schools, Roads and Trains Library