But let us say that immigration is needed simply in order to keep the population levels static, if that were the case. If it is agreed that a particular country wishes to maintain a stable or slowly growing population, then before importing people from other states it would surely be more sensible to determine whether there are reasons why people in your own country are not at present having enough children. Is it because they do not want them, or because they do want them but cannot have them? If it is the latter then the question should be whether there is anything that government can do to create a situation in which people can have the children they want.

The evidence from most countries, including the United Kingdom, is that although the native population is below replacement levels, this is not because people do not want to have children. Indeed the figures show the opposite. For instance in 2002, at a central point of the Labour government’s immigration explosion, a population study from the ONS showed that only 8 per cent of British women did not want to have babies. And only 4 per cent wanted one baby. The most popular desire of British women – the aim of a clear 55 per cent – was to have two children. A further 14 per cent wanted three children, another 14 per cent wanted four, and 5 per cent wanted five or more children, which if you were seeking a stable or slowly growing population would more than cover for the 8 per cent of women who wanted no children at all.9