Green Party Manifesto 2015 A Vision for Blyth Valley

and tackling the imminent climate crisis.
We completely agree we need to look after our own! That’s why Greens are
the ONLY UK party against austerity and will stop the unfair Bedroom Tax!
Q: What exactly is Fracking and why should I care?
Fracking is the process of drilling down into the earth before a high-pressure water
mixture is directed at the rock to release the gas inside. Water, sand and chemicals
are injected into the rock at high pressure which allows the gas to flow out to the
head of the well. As of 12 Feb 2015 with the ascension of the Infrastructure Bill, the
government no longer needs your permission to conduct ‘Fracking’ under your own
home. In fact Fracking under national parks was only just raised as an issue and
even then the government has not said it will prevent it in these areas.
Q: What about all those people coming over here and taking our jobs -
doesn’t immigration cause unemployment?
It’s an accusation consistently made by those pushing for tighter controls
on immigration – that ‘they’ (immigrants) are taking ‘our’ (indigenous/British/white
people’s) jobs. However, the evidence suggests there is no link between immigration
and unemployment. Nowhere is this better demonstrated than in the North East.
According to data from 2013 the North East as a region has the second lowest
share of ‘foreign-born’ UK residents (1.8%). Only Northern Ireland (1.5%) ranks
lower, and the North East provides a stark contrast to London (36.2%) and the
South East (13.73%) at the top of the list. If immigration results in unemployment
then surely the North East’s lack of foreign-born residents means that it has low
levels of unemployment?
Again from 2013, the Office of National Statistics (ONS) lists the North East
as having the lowest employment rate (66.6%) of any region as well as the highest
unemployment rate (10.1%). The North East has both an extremely low immigrant
population and an extremely high unemployment rate. Importantly the South
East (the region with the second largest immigrant population) has the highest
employment rate, the lowest economic inactivity rate and the lowest benefit claimant
count.
Evidently, there is no connection between immigration and unemployment
(London School of Economics (LSE) data also shows no connection between
unemployment and wage deflation). Unemployment in the North East – aka
the ‘desolate’ North East if you’re a Tory peer – can be attributed to a long term
industrial decline, unequal government spending allocations and cuts to public
services that have consequently had a disproportionate impact on northern regions.
Figure 1: No relationship between changes in immigration and unemployment, 2004-2012. Source: http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/
politicsandpolicy/fears-about-adverse-consequences-of-rising-immigration-have-not-materialised/
As the 2015 General Election looms - with its growing cross-party antiimmigration
rhetoric - it’s worth remembering that the evidence does not support
spurious claims of immigration as a cause of unemployment or wage deflation.
This might run contrary to Ukipper notions of ‘common sense’, but it points to
a single, undeniable truth: unemployment in the North East has not been caused
by immigration.
Source: http://stanneal.blogspot.co.uk/2015/04/the-north-east-proves-immigration-does.html
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