The UK’s Demographic Future

Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent Excerpts

Thursday 11th December 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness in Waiting/Government Whip (Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent) (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts, for securing this debate. The report Don’t Stop Thinking About Tomorrow is a timely contribution to our national discussion on population, prosperity and the future of our United Kingdom. Many noble Lords have already highlighted the noble Lord’s distinguished career. I add my thanks for his public service, and for his notable contributions to my county of Staffordshire in his business dealings.

The report highlights the demographic shifts our nation is currently experiencing, but, before I touch on his report, I feel I should also reassure the noble Lord, Lord Hodgson, that I will respond to its key points. I will reflect on some of the questions in Hansard, answer some specific ones that have been raised and will, as ever, write. However, noble Lords will appreciate that this has been a wide-ranging discussion and debate. I should also highlight to the noble Lord that, before the general election, my boss was Sir Trevor Phillips, whom he cited; so I could end up getting myself in a great deal of trouble by the end of this response.

This Government recognise the points articulated in the document: the pressure on housing supply, the strain on our NHS, the impact on wages in certain sectors and the importance of maintaining social cohesion amid rapid change. We are not alone in facing these challenges. As the report notes through its international case studies, many countries across the world are also grappling with similar issues. Before I move on to the substance of the debate, I would like to make a couple of points.

In response to the noble Lord, Lord Horam, who raised the issue of Stoke-on-Trent and Staffordshire, and where this debate can lead, I am well versed, having helped to lead the campaign against the BNP in my great city. Only this week, the now former leader of my county council of Staffordshire had to resign over his support of white supremacist social media sites. I am aware of what is at stake, and so are my Government. As the Prime Minister has stated, this is a battle for the values which govern our country and it is incredibly important that we are part of the fight.

In response to the noble Baroness, Lady Verma, who made a very powerful speech, I say that, like her mother, my mother is also a force. I would suggest that is why both the noble Baroness and I are in your Lordships’ House. My mother ensured that I understood my responsibilities to fight back against racism, and those who hated me because of who I was and not what I did. However, I think my mother beat the noble Baroness’s, because I went on my first demo when I was a toddler.

I will now address some of the specific issues in the report before us, and the points noble Lords raised in the debate. On migration, this Government have been clear that we want a system that works in the national interest, attracting the brightest and best while being fair and firm. The modern challenges that migration can present do not overwrite the millions of individual stories of people who have come to this country over the centuries, built our nation in partnership with those already here, and today are our colleagues, our neighbours, our families and our friends.

I am here because my family fled persecution and found sanctuary in our great country. It was a brave decision to flee the country from which they came, to flee the Pale of Settlement, but the scale of pogroms gave them little choice, and I am very grateful that our country let them in.

Since taking office, this Government have taken fair action to reduce the number of people coming to the UK, particularly in some of the areas identified by the report. Our recent tightening of the rules around dependants for students and the review of the graduate visa route are evidence of the Government’s commitment to responsible migration management. However, fair management of migration is only one side of the coin. We must also address the consequences of population change already in the system, as outlined by the report’s expert contributors.

Given the request for better data, however—which I will come to later in my speech—it would be helpful to remind your Lordships’ House that the latest ONS figures estimate net migration of 204,000 in the year to June, a fall from 649,000 the year before. If we are going to talk about data, we should be absolutely clear on the accuracies of that data.

Turning to some of the points raised about migration, in response to the noble Lord, Lord Faulks, who raised the issue of asylum seekers, the Government have published a new asylum policy statement setting out significant reforms to the UK’s asylum and illegal migration system. The statement outlines the current challenges, the Government’s objectives and a comprehensive package of measures to restore order, control, fairness and public confidence in the system. Elements of this include that refugee status will be temporary, granted for 30 months and renewable as necessary. Settlement will no longer be automatic; instead, there will be a 20-year route to permanent residency, ensuring long-term commitment and integration. Refugees will be able to switch into a new bespoke work and study route to access family reunion and resettlement rights, with new fees and conditions in accordance with the rules of that route. This will enable them to earn down their length of time before they can settle in the UK to 20 years.

Both the noble Lord, Lord Faulks, and the noble Lord, Lord Stoneham—from slightly different positions, I suggest—touched on the ECHR and our current plans. Noble Lords will be aware that only yesterday, the Deputy Prime Minister, accompanied by my noble and learned friend the Attorney-General, addressed the Council of Europe’s informal Conference of Ministers of Justice in Strasbourg to talk about reform of the system, in order to make sure that the ECHR can be fairly applied with regard to illegal migration, and to secure the convention’s future.

With regard to immigration and the effect on GDP, raised by the noble Lord, Lord Empey, and the noble Baroness, Lady Finn, the UK’s immigration system is geared towards supporting businesses and accessing highly skilled overseas workers, who boost the supply of skills and talent in the UK labour market. These individuals are the most likely to contribute to growth. That is why the Government have recently announced plans to improve access to our highly talented visa routes and tilt the immigration system back towards attracting higher skilled workers to the UK. The Government are clear that overall net migration must fall from the very high levels over recent years. We plan to achieve this by reducing lower skilled migration and groups with lower participation in the labour market, who contribute less to growth.

The noble Baroness, Lady Finn, also raised the issues of skills and productivity. Increasing skills is responsible for a third of productivity growth and provides the opportunity for people to boost their incomes and improve their quality of life. Through short courses, funded by the growth and skills levy, and partnership with colleges and universities, Skills England will work in partnership with employers to support clearer navigation of the skills landscape and training products for the outcomes they need. The Department for Work and Pensions will work with employers to fill their vacancies—to get the right people with the right skills, or set them on the right path to grow their necessary skills.

The introduction of work visas was raised by the noble Lord, Lord Empey. Since the introduction of the skilled worker route, the salary requirements dictate that a migrant must be paid whatever is higher out of the general threshold for the route or the going rate for that occupation, with an absolute minimum salary requirement that an overseas worker has to be paid. This is designed to place a premium on recruiting overseas and maintaining access to international talent for firms, while also ensuring that UK resident workers are not undercut—something the noble Lord would expect from the Labour Party.

The Government are clear that international recruitment cannot be a cheap alternative to fair pay, and this must be reflected in future changes to the immigration system. On that point, I turn to the noble Lord, Lord Sarfraz, who raised a series of interesting points about new technologies. I will reflect on his comments, especially that robots are nice. Given the subject of the report, he really is thinking about tomorrow. I have all the lyrics of “Don’t Stop” in front of me, and I am very disappointed that other noble Lords have not used them in their speeches.

I turn to the point raised by the noble Lord, Lord Stoneham, about international students converting from study visas to work visas. The Government’s approach is to link migration policy and visa controls to skills and labour market policies, so that immigration is not used as an alternative to training or tackling workforce problems in the UK. This approach will be important to enabling delivery of the Government’s broader agenda.

Moving from migration to social cohesion: the UK has experienced a sustained period of rapid demographic, economic and technological change, which, alongside 14 years of Tory austerity, has put increased pressure on public services and local communities. We have seen tension, frustration and, in some cases, division manifested in the places most affected. At this point, I put on record my former roles at HOPE not hate and the CST, where my core responsibilities involved work on social cohesion and counterextremism.

I reassure your Lordships’ House that these issues are being taken extremely seriously, and I especially reassure the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Leicester that this is key to what we seek to do. The Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government is co-ordinating cross-government efforts to consider a longer-term, more strategic approach to social cohesion, working in partnership with local government, communities and stakeholders comprehensively to address complex, deep-seated issues in our places. As the right reverend Prelate asked for, this is a whole-society approach.

As part of our pride in place strategy, we are providing up to £5 billion over 10 years to support more than 330 of our most deprived communities across the country, helping to build strong, resilient and integrated communities. My great city of Stoke-on-Trent is a participant in that, including in my husband’s constituency—I set that out for the record. Bentilee, Ubberley and Meir North are areas that will each receive up to £20 million over the next 10 years.

Our long-term investment is designed not only to address deprivation but to rebuild social capital and strengthen community ties in areas, with a portion of funding expected to support cohesion-related projects. Importantly, we are empowering communities to make decisions that shape their places. We will continue to seek ways to bolster social cohesion, working in partnership with local government and civil society.

I turn to one of today’s consistent themes: the pressure on public services and housing. The 10-year health plan, published in July 2025, set out a vision for how the Government will make an NHS fit for the future. The plan set a clear direction for the service, its stakeholders and the public on the future shape of care through three radical shifts: hospital to community, analogue to digital, and sickness to prevention. I turn to a specific point raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Stuart—I want to call her “my noble friend” even though she is a Cross-Bencher. An engaged workforce is central to delivering the Government’s objectives for the NHS. The 10-year health plan set out the vision for how the Government will make the NHS fit for the future.

A new workforce plan will be published next year to detail how the workforce will be equipped to deliver the 10-year health plan, the roles it should carry out, where they should be deployed and the skills it should have. That includes staff being better treated and having better training and more exciting roles. The new workforce plan will be based on multi-professional teams, with the skills needed to enable the delivery of the three shifts.

Building on that point—and in response to the noble Baroness, Lady Finn—NHS England will shortly commence the second phase of the medical education and training review, working with partners to design a package of reforms that will provide doctors with the skills they need to meet the evolving needs of our patients in a modern NHS. That includes work focused on procedure-heavy specialities, to ensure a rapid acquisition of skills and to develop a curriculum that delivers the skills needed for a community-based, digitally enabled healthcare system.

On housing, we are committed—as noble Lords have recognised—to delivering 1.5 million safe and decent homes this Parliament, as set out in our plan for change. We have already taken urgent action through bold planning reforms and a record £39 billion investment to kick-start social and affordable housebuilding at scale across the country.

Houses are homes which anchor communities. It is vital that the homes delivered are high-quality, well designed and in places where people can work and thrive. We will ensure that what we build is supported by the necessary infrastructure and well-designed place-making, working in partnership with councils, housing associations and the wider sector.

Employment support was highlighted by the noble Baroness, Lady Neville-Rolfe. Professor Harper’s analysis in the report of an ageing UK workforce is particularly pertinent. People in the UK are living longer, and the proportion of workers over 50 in the workforce is growing. Noble Lords need only look at your Lordships’ House.

Good work and careers have a positive impact on health, well-being and financial resilience. Work gives people purpose, a focus for learning and the important means to engage with society. This is particularly important for people who experience loneliness in later life, as the right reverend Prelate highlighted. Our focus is on lifelong learning, upskilling and incentivising longer, healthier working lives to maximise the potential of our domestic workforce.

The DWP currently offers employment support for all ages through its network of jobcentres across the UK and through contracted employment programmes. In addition, work coaches and employers are supported by 50PLUS Champions working across all 37 jobcentre districts. Champions provide a critical layer of support through jobcentres to ensure that the needs of workers over 50 are met.

I have many points on the environment, but there were not many points made on it. So I will write to the noble Baroness, Lady Finn, who was the main person to raise it.

I move on to security, on which there were several points. Professor Clarke, who I worked with when he acted as an adviser to the House of Commons Defence Select Committee and is a great analyst, addresses two areas of national security: protecting the state from external threats, and internal stability. He focuses in particular on military recruitment and on threats to national cohesion from state-directed sub-threshold warfare.

At this point, I refer the House to my register of interests. Like my friend, the noble Baroness, Lady Stuart, I am an honorary captain in the Royal Navy. While we are talking about matters relating to the senior service, I will just quickly respond to the noble Lord, Lord Empey. I reassure him that both the Type 26 and the Type 31 frigates are currently being built in the UK as we speak. When I questioned myself, I did go and check with the former First Sea Lord, who usually sits in front of him.

As the noble Lord, Lord Stoneham, emphasised, the issues of security are key, and some of the issues we are addressing are outside our immediate scope. These are both important aspects of the challenges we face. Our national security strategy, published in June, sets out the Government’s intent to harden their approach. Its objectives include strengthening our borders and making the UK a harder target for adversaries and for gangs engaged in people trafficking.

Beyond our borders, we must consider the effects of the very significant demographic changes which will take place in other countries over the next 50 years. The strategy is clear that we are entering a period of significant global instability. Demographic change will contribute to a number of issues, with challenging implications for the UK.

As set out in the strategy, our statecraft will need to adapt to this environment, ensuring that we can defend our territory and overseas supply chains from increased competition, improving our resilience to transnational risks and strengthening our key alliances so that we are better placed to tackle together the challenges that we all face. The noble Baroness, Lady Stuart, is aware of exactly what is in the national security strategy, so I will not read out the details.

I am trying to make sure that I come in under 20 minutes.

In terms of how we legislate, which was raised by the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, and Henry VIII and delegated powers, following on from previous reports laid by the noble Lord, I reassure your Lordships’ House that the Parliamentary Business and Legislation Committee will review every single Henry VIII power that comes forward. There are circumstances where it is appropriate for Bills to contain substantial delegated powers, but departments with Bills containing any delegated powers must produce a delegated powers memorandum detailing each power and the justification for it, which is published on introduction. Noble Lords are aware that we are seeking to move away from the sheer volume of SIs that there has been previously.

The lack of data to understand trade-offs and what is happening on migration was raised specifically by the noble Baronesses, Lady Neville-Rolfe and Lady Finn. Forecasting net migration is an uncertain business. The impact of external events as well as uncertain behavioural responses to policy measures on migration trends make future migration hard to predict. Not all impacts of migration are quantifiable, as set out by the Migration Advisory Committee in its report, EEA Migration in the UK.

Although there is a significant body of evidence to suggest that highly skilled immigrants make a positive contribution, there remains a lack of evidence and significant uncertainty about wider impacts on productivity, investment and social cohesion. The ONS is making more use of administrative data in its estimates for net migration. It keeps published estimates under review and revises accordingly, with estimates in the last 12 months marked as provisional. The revisions published recently by the ONS are primarily due to changes in the data sources, which have led to improvements in the ONS’s methodology. Although the numbers have changed, the overall trend for net migration has remained the same.

The Home Office continues to develop its data linking. In May 2025 the Home Office published a research report linking sponsored work and family visa data with HMRC PAYE data, providing crucial data on the earnings and tax contributions of visa holders, but I appreciate that not all points raised by noble Lords are covered there so I will come back—I am going to go slightly over time, so apologies.

The key recommendations of the report are

“the creation of a new body that would provide a commentary on the government’s stated policy objectives, to undertake research into demographic issues, and to provide an open transparent forum to reassure the public that these challenges were not being overlooked”.

The Government have a manifesto commitment to strengthen the Migration Advisory Committee to deliver several key reviews and to fill a new remit with a new Labour Market Evidence Group to support a more joined-up approach to skills, migration and labour market policy. The Labour Market Evidence Group consists of the Migration Advisory Committee, the Industrial Strategy Advisory Council, the Department for Work and Pensions, Skills England and equivalent skills and training experts from the devolved Governments.

As set out in the immigration White Paper, the Labour Market Evidence Group has an ongoing standard function to work together to gather and share evidence about the state of the workforce, training levels and participation by the domestic labour force, including at devolved and regional levels. It will focus on sectors and occupations that are central to industrial strategy, currently have high levels of reliance on migration for their workforce or are anticipated to in future, and it will make recommendations about sectors or occupations where workforce strategies are needed or where the labour market is currently failing.

This report is a timely challenge to all of us in this House, and across all parties, to think beyond the immediate term. The people of this country have a right to expect a Government who plan for tomorrow. We are committed to taking action now to tackle these pressing issues, providing the clear leadership and long-term strategic planning that the British people deserve. I again thank the noble Lord, Lord Hodgson, for his report and for the opportunity to debate it in your Lordships’ House. In the words of Fleetwood Mac, who I assume he is very fond of: “Don’t you look back”. I wish him well in his retirement.