Population (3)

What is Britain doing?

Francis Wintle

They always say that in tackling the problem of man and the limits of his resources, we shall have to accept some limitation of our freedom. And that will not be easy. Even a most prominent conservationist in this country is on record as saying of his two cars: 'If I renounced them as an individual decision the imperceptible decrease in congestion and pollu tion I would gain would in no way balance the inconvenience I would suffer." If inconvenience is better than eventual self-extermination, there is still a lot of persuading to do.

It may be that too many people with too much polluting technology and a wasteful use • of resources are putting a strain on their own environment that cannot last. But the doomsday approach, when it comes to population, seems to be modi fied these days. The popular argument at the moment usually sounds a more hopeful note.

We are' within sight of adequate population control in this country at least.

It is often said now that the proportion of children that can be designated as ' unwanted ' is roughly the same as the proportion of births in excess of the replacement level. If we can eliminate these births with better family planning and education, then we should at least be well on the way to a satisfactory birth rate.

Indeed, many will remember the excellent PEP booklet that came out last February, The Costs and Benefits of Family Planning, which proudly claimed that "unwanted children use up more resources than average: prevention could save public authorities up to £100 for every El spent."

Admittedly I have slightly oversimplified the argument.

For a start, it has to be recognised that some of the ' unwanted ' children are born to young mothers who would probably have had and wanted these children a few years later. And even then, as the Conservation Society point out in their 1972 document, A Population Policy for Britain (a great improvement on their 1969 document for anyone who was put off by that), by the time we have achieved zero growth rate in this country we should still have a population of not less than 65 million, which many people think is far too high. It has, incidentally, been suggested that a desirable figure of 40 million might take us 200 years to reach!

And notwithstanding this talk of removing the unwanted child, it is becoming increasingly popular to press the government to state some more explicit and embracing population policy.

At this moment the Lord Chancellor has before him the recommendations (though not yet the full report) of that Population Panel we heard about so many months ago. The Government, the Lord Chancellor that is, is pledged to look at the Panel's findings very carefully, though not actually pledged to do anything.

The usual range of choices is obviously there: more and free family planning; limitations on family allowances; more encouragement to women to work by equal pay measures — though I suggest that they would have to be backed up by anti-discrimination legislation.

To the lobby who persistently call for financial disincentives to having more children, and who usually then single out the family allowance, I should like to make two points. Either the extra child in a poor family is penalised, or, if you try to penalise only the better off, the disincentive is small and the complications of means testing are with you all over again. Admittedly it might be possible to make some more general provision through the tax system, but my guess is that this would have to reach drastic proportions before it had much effect.

And what is the Government actually likely to do? Whitehall is remaining rather tight lipped for the moment, but the Panel is unlikely to do other than endorse the existing trend towards free family planning. And after that it will perhaps want to perpetuate its species by at least recommending some further panel, think tank or what you will, to keep an eye on the problem and see that HMG is not embarrassed.

Public opinion seems to favour that some sort of policy should be expressed. The Liberal Party took the trouble recently to hold a survey on the subject, and found that a majority of the sample thought that Britain was overpopulated and that the Government should do something about it. But what still remains quite another matter.

It can only work where people want it to. And our psychology on the matter may need a lot more investigation. For instance, a recent project, the Hull Family Survey, disclosed that in married couples who have for years practised family planning, there is still a small but signficant proportion of deliberate risk taking.' Not important in itself, but a reminder I suggest that even the general accepting of family planning in a highly developed country tike ours is not, by itself, the only answer. There are people's motivations to consider.

Material congestion and pollution are one thing, population control is quite another. Even radical pamphlets are still churning out the familiar themes of population and pollu tion, and even the most enlightened usually finish up by recommending penal taxes to teach people to know better. Scientists in particular seem to be prone to suggesting these efficient and totalitarian solutions, even these days.

Yet if we are to have a population policy in this count ry, it should concern itself with not only the number of people, but with how they live, and where. It will have to tackle the subtle question of how to make people want smaller families, not just how to force them, or even enable them, to do so. Perhaps we shall even see a population decline. If so we shall need to make sure that our technology, non-polluting of course, is sufficiently advanced to enable a smaller working population to support a larger retired population for the next couple of generations.

And we must remember in all this that the conservationist with his two cars was making a profound point. If the government wants to change people's life pattern it must know that compensation and convenience are needed as well as inconventience and taxation.