Treasury and Work and Pensions

I am not arguing against migration; I am trying to stimulate debate about the role of the state in helping communities to adjust, especially those that take disproportionate strain because they have the longest legacies of poverty and inequality. The issues are difficult, especially given the velocity of change over the past couple of years, but it cannot be beyond the collective wit of the state to provide remedies—if we acknowledge the issues in the first place. That returns us to questions about the statistical material on which public policy responses are built and the use of contemporary census data to develop a picture that allows us to build appropriate policy remedies for the modern cities and communities that we represent. I do not know whether that is feasible or possible, especially given the sheer speed of change in areas such as mine in global cities such as London, where population movement is extraordinary. I simply raise the issues to inform debate when we discuss the remit of the statistical machinery—the issues it is trying to confront and the solutions it is trying to provide. That is not necessarily beyond the capacity of the state, even though I do not underestimate the significance of the problems. We have to be prepared to deal with the problems and confront some of the material conditions, such as the concerns in my community that demographic changes are occurring in a zero-sum game in terms of resource allocation. Unless we can create a more positive-sum environment and remove material concerns about resource allocation, we shall not be able materially to deal with the far right causes that are so profound in communities such as mine. I wanted to raise those issues so that we can return to them at a later date.