So let me understand this. We encourage immigration into the UK because the country is either unwilling or unable to educate its young people and provide them with useful skills (and perhaps a decent work ethic). Presumably the carrot is they will have a "better life" than in their own countries.
Mods note - Some post have been moved here from the Conservative Party thread.
No, more to do with having a falling birthrate, meaning that without immigration the working aged population would be falling.
At the same time, because we are unwilling or unable to care for our older folk, we then encourage them (who have probably received a decent education and had a decent work ethic) to up sticks in their dotage to occupy the spaces which the youngsters arriving in the UK have left vacant. They should be encouraged to "go [or insert any other word of your choice] off and live somewhere else" rather than spend their retirement years in the country most of them have lived all their lives and to which they have contributed both financially and by their labours.
No one is suggesting that they have to, however (as an example) my grandparents used to go to the Med during the winter as they said that it was cheaper than running their home here (I doubt that, but food and heating costs would have been cut significantly, so there was at least some noticeable reduction in costs - so if you're going away anyway staying for add long at possible probably did make sense).
A few questions arise from that strategy:
1. What happens to the young UK citizens who have not been blessed with a decent enough education to make them employable?
They get jobs, maybe not the best jobs, maybe they have to get an entry level job and do college or training to get where they want to get to, etc. A few may end up on benefits (however chances are they would do so anyway), it's just with a larger working population there's more paying taxes to cover those costs.
2. What is in it for the older UK citizens who are encouraged to leave the UK to settle in a country which young people are leaving to seek a better life?
I'm not aware of older UK citizens being encouraged to leave, as I said above some think that living elsewhere is as good idea (look at the number who retired to Spain).
3. What happens in the donor countries which have seen their population denuded of young people, whose education they have funded, to see them replaced with older people who will be unable to contribute greatly to their economy?
Let's take Poland as an example (unless you wish to pick another, feel free to suggest one), a lot of young Polish people came here to work, they would save hard and some (when they returned) would be able to afford to buy a house and so had a boost.
If they stay here longer term, then they would end up going home to visit and spend some of their money there.
Overall Poland had been doing very well since joining the EU and doesn't have an issue with not having the staff they need.
4. (The Eternal Question, never answered satisfactorily) What happens in the UK when the young people who have settled here for a better life, eventually get old (as, incredible as it may seem, they will)?
Native population is 20% over 65, EU population in the UK over 65 is 10%. Whilst the 50-64 populations follow a similar (20% UK, 14% EU) pattern, so this is unlikely to be a significant issue for at least 15 years, especially given that the EU natives make up 6% of the population.
The suggestion that such a population exchange should be encouraged is ludicrous and mildly offensive.
It depends very much who you ask.
If you visit most cities or large towns you will find that many people (I would suspect "most" - including many immigrants) very certainly do care. In many of these places "beds in sheds" are very much the norm. If you look at the local planning applications, you will find a multitude of entries to build "offices", "gymnasiums", "art studios" in back gardens. These are euphemisms for additional living accommodation as the applicants have no intention of using them for the stated purpose. You will also see some more genuine applicants wishing to build "granny annexe" type developments. Basically, back gardens are disappearing under concrete. Large family homes are being converted to "Houses of Multiple Occupation". Far more serious is the problem of people living in tents and other makeshift accommodation. These are not only apparent on the streets; areas of common land are now seeing "communities" develop with a number of people living a nomadic life.
All this is being done to provide accommodation for population numbers which are expanding unsustainably. But of course housing is just one aspect. Pressure on essential services - particularly health and education - is enormous. Speak to people in those areas and ask those trying to secure a doctor's appointment or a place for their child at school and see whether only a few of them care that the population is increasing by many hundreds of thousands every year.
The entire strategy is utter lunacy on so many levels.
Generally people want more space than they did in the past. However a lot of the issue with housing is not building enough for the shift in population.
This all rather points back to the real problem, we've not been building enough housing for the last 40 years, and therefore prices hae risen at unsustainble rates and priced many people out of the markets that they would historically choose.
Whist not building enough is part of the issue, this has been made worse by the fact that households sizes have been getting smaller. In part due to fewer children per couple, but also sure to much more of the population being over 65 and therefore less likely to have kids at home and with a fairly high number of single person households.
And even with immigration out of the picture, native-born population growth has outpaced housebuilding.
Native population growth isn't really the issue, it's not native population household sizes.
In 1996 the average size was 2.42 people, it's now 2.36. That didn't sound a lot, however to house 66.6 million people that's the difference between 28.2 million homes and 27.4 million homes, so just to keep pace with that shift we would have needed to build 50,000 extra houses a year.
If you go further back, even if that's to "just" 1971, household sizes were larger still. In 1971 it was 2.91, to house that same 66.6 million you'd have needed 22.9 million homes. That's an average of an extra 100,000 per year just to stand still in terms of numbers of homes due to the shrinking household size.
Obviously the population has also grown in that time, but the impact of that could have been a lot smaller if household sizes didn't fall as fast (although with a lower childhood death rate - even between 1979 and 2012 it's noticeable, as the infant mortality rate fell by a third - each couple were likely to reduce the number of children that they have).
In short, it's more complex than just not building enough homes. However that is something which would have helped.
