The Welsh Can Control Migration

A raft of policy tools exist for Cardiff to challenge Westminster

Photo by Peyton Wells on Unsplash

Westminster has certainly not handed over the powers of immigration control to the devolved administrations. Cardiff, Holyrood, and Belfast cannot issue visas, deport foreign nationals, or restrict the number of people who come to Wales through direct legislation, but this does not mean that the devolved administrations are powerless to affect the demographic composition of their populations.

The Welsh government, which has been dominated by the Labour party since it came into existence, could do much more to protect the Welsh population from society-altering demographic change. Westminster is not the only centre of power in the United Kingdom and British/Welsh nationalists are very much right to target the administration in Cardiff.

In this piece, much as we did in our earlier piece on Scotland, We are going to outline a series of policy options which a nationalist government in Wales could take without fundamentally altering the current constitutional order in the United Kingdom. Wales does not need to secede or abrogate the British system of government in order to protect itself from the demographic change.

Policy Areas - Tax:

The first significant change of policy which the Welsh parliament could enact would be to curtail the legal migrant population by changing the tax structure of Wales. The Welsh government has control over a limited but powerful set of taxes ranging from the ability to vary the income tax rate to powers over local taxation and taxation payed on the purchase and disposal of land. Taxes such as the non-domestic (business) rate of taxation could be separated into bands which increase the tax on any business which employs non-UK citizens, perhaps increasing the rate of tax on a business by 1-3% for each foreigner on the payroll of a business subject to non-domestic property rates.

There is also the land transaction tax, which replaced the stamp duty in Wales in 2018. The Welsh government could create additional tax-bands which add percentage points to foreign buyers seeking to acquire land in Wales, thus ensuring that the native Welsh are given preferential treatment in the acquisition of homes and property.

Property:

Property, homes, renting and housing are another policy arena where a nationalist government in Cardiff could curtail immigration. Aside from simple taxation on the exchange of land and property, the Welsh government has control over Housing and Rental properties in Wales. In 2022 the Welsh government passed legislation allowing councils to apply taxes up to 300% on second-home buyers in the country, and this could be expanded to apply a heavy tax on foreign property buyers and renters.

Another alternative would be to more steeply tax those landlords who wish to rent to foreigners instead of British citizens. The Welsh government might also try directly prohibiting the sale of homes to foreign citizens, though this is constitutionally ambiguous at the moment.

Social Housing:

Of course many immigrants to Wales do not buy property, but instead rent privately or in many cases seek out social housing. Currently some 17% of immigrants in the United Kingdom occupy social housing places, displacing native Britons (and therefore the Welsh) from social services which they have paid for for generations. The Welsh government has control over social housing, social welfare, and town planning related matters. These powers mean that a pro-Welsh administration in Cardiff could, through the passage of new legislation in these areas, restrict social housing availability so that only citizens of the United Kingdom, or even only those with a Welsh PAYE code, also known as a C-code.

The Welsh government could also speed up the process by inserting provisions into legislation which mandate that non-citizens currently resident in Wales will be unable to move to a new social housing unit once they leave their current unit. With no land to buy, and limited opportunities to access social housing, many immigrants, settled and new alike, would elect to look outside of Wales for a place to settle.

The Welsh NHS:

Every immigrant and refugee who takes up a bed in a Welsh hospital, or utilizes a Welsh ambulance, is depriving a native of Wales of those services, services which he pays tax for over the duration of his entire life. The Welsh NHS, like so many other public services, is incredibly overburdened, causing the Welsh to avoid their own health service for fear it will be unable to serve them.

The Welsh government enjoys a full set of devolved powers as regards health policy in the country and could make a litany of changes which both reduce incentives for migrants to come ot the country and delivers better services to the native Welsh.

In order to reduce pressure on the NHS and ensure that migrants and refugees are not using a vital public service, a nationalist government in Cardiff should heed the suggestion made by Dr Jean Turner, former MP and head of the Scottish Patients’ Association, and ban non-UK citizens from using the nation’s NHS free at the point of delivery. A pro-Welsh government could subject foreigners, refugees and other migrant groups to a series of charges and bills to utilizing Welsh NHS’ services. This would both curtail widespread abuse of the system and increase the money available to such a critical public service.

Conclusion:

We could have listed a great deal more policy areas where the Welsh government could limit the ability of foreigners to enter and live in the country, such as through certain social security benefits or in limiting educational participation of non-UK citizens. But, the areas listed above: taxation, property rights, social housing, and the health service are the areas where the non-Welsh most frequently interact with the Welsh state.

The Welsh parliament may not be able to prevent the issuance of visas or close its airports and ferry terminals to the millions of migrants admitted to the United Kingdom by Westminster, but the Welsh government could, if under the influence of Welsh nationalists, make it near-impossible for any foreigner to take advantage of the native Welsh and the wonderful land they call home.

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