SHOCKING new stats show that fertility rates in England and Wales are at their lowest since records began.
This is despite the number of women of child-bearing age being at its highest ever.
3
3
Something has gone terribly wrong and it is high time the Government defused this ticking time bomb.
It’s hard to believe that just a few decades ago, families were bustling with children — families often had three kids or more.
By the Nineties, families were still lively — with sitcom 2point4 Children named after the then number of kids in the traditional nuclear family.
Now women have an average of 1.44 children — well shy of the 2.1 figure countries need to maintain populations.
Despite mums of today arguably never having had it so good, with more economic power and protections, the state of childbearing has never been more dire.
The smug childless
Not only are women having fewer children, the average age for mothers giving birth has recently climbed to around 31.
And 50 per cent of women remain childless at 30, compared with 42 per cent in their mother’s generation.
Too many naive people have been too quick to shrug off this worrying trend.
There are smug childless people still parroting the moronic argument that the fewer kids in society, the better.
“Why should my taxes pay for other people’s kids?” is one such idiotic exclamation I often hear.
And don’t get me started on the climate change arguments for not having kids, which surely only the brain-dead can take seriously.
But I’m not on some crusade to push for procreation for some weird ideological reasons.
This is about pure, simple maths.
With more retirees and fewer workers in the future, we are left with two choices — accept astronomical levels of immigration to plug the gaping population hole or force future generations to pay unprecedented levels of tax just to keep the country going.
It is estimated that one in four people will be over 65 by 2050 — and the number of people older than 85 will double.
Put simply, this means the Government will have to fork out far more than they already do — or rather, the taxpayer will.
Already, in 2024-25, the Government expects to spend £168billion on benefits for pensioners.
And that does not include healthcare, which is already the largest single area of government spending.
3
How do we expect to fund things, build stuff and keep Britain moving if the pool of future workers is drying up so quickly?
Which brings me to my second point.
The only way we can cope with a shrinking number of taxpayers and an ageing population if we do not have enough kids is by importing the workforce from elsewhere.
Cue an even bigger disaster than we are already facing.
Net migration hit a peak of 764,000 in 2022, with the figure being 685,000 in 2023.
That is a total net migration figure larger than the population of Birmingham in just two years.
We have already seen the levels of social tension and political turmoil this has caused.
Do we honestly think Brits will accept doubling, or even tripling, those numbers just to plug the gap left by an absence of homegrown talent?
We also need tax breaks for first-time parents to give them a financial boost when starting families
Mercy
So, what’s the answer?
I say it is time to roll out the red carpet for families.
Quite frankly, the Government should be paying ME for having children.
How about completely free childcare for the first two kids?
Childcare costs remain through the roof and government has only tinkered around the edges in terms of helping families on this front.
Or you could sort out our statutory maternity pay, which is some of the worst in Europe.
After the first six weeks of maternity leave, mums in the UK are only entitled to a measly £184 a week, whereas other countries, such as Bulgaria and Sweden, virtually guarantee full pay for a year.
We also need tax breaks for first-time parents to give them a financial boost when starting families.
The tax burden is already at record highs, and families feel the pinch even more acutely.
Social Armageddon
Why is the Government not doing everything it can to make sure that it makes financial sense to start a family?
I can already hear the distant cries from those who will be sceptical at throwing money at this problem — “Where is the magic money tree?”
The simple answer is that the amount of spending needed to tackle this problem is nothing but pennies compared to the economic and social Armageddon we will face in the future if we let the population fall off a cliff edge.
The Government will be laying out its spending priorities today in its first Budget.
In a few days, we will also have a new leader of the Opposition.
Now is the perfect time for both parties to show they are serious about getting Britain birthing again.
Our entire future quite literally depends on it.
