Report of the Population Panel.

  • Great Britain. Population Panel.
Date:
1973
Catalogue details

Licence: Open Government Licence

Credit: Report of the Population Panel. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    119/152 (page 105)
    the Select Committee,! that the concept of optimum population is impossible to define in terms which provide any useful basis for policy making. There is NO presumption, even if such an ‘optimum’ or ‘target’ population size could be estimated, that acceptable means could be found of reaching it. An attitude to population 386. This does not mean that it is not reasonable to formulate an attitude to population size and growth. In chapter 3 we have tried to assess the implications of future population growth in Britain for a wide range of economic, social and environmental problems. Our analysis suggested that few of these problems can be attributed wholly or mainly to population growth. In some cases the links with population seem tenuous. In others, such as pollution, congestion and the demands for water and public services, by far the largest determinants are rising hving standards and increasing industrial production. And our analysis suggests that the resources should be available to provide for the population in prospect at the end of the century, at material living standards a good deal higher than those which we enjoy at Present: 387. The implication is that, whether or not one thinks that a population of 55 million in the first decade of the next century would be better than the 64 million at present in prospect, there is no reason to suppose that 64 million would be in any way intolerable or disastrous. Scenarios which suggest that we shall only be able to survive as a nation, or sustain an acceptable quality of life, with a much smaller population by the beginning of the next century, cannot be dismissed as logically impossible. They can, however, be rejected as a basis for policy because— (a) they assume the inevitability of the collapse of the present structure of world trade and international relations—an assumption which is at least doubtful; (6b) there is no conceivably acceptable policy action which would bring about the kind of population changes which such extreme assumptions would require. 388. On the other hand, all our analysis suggests that most of the economic, social and environmental problems which confront us as a nation are likely to be more difficult to deal with the faster the population increases. Almost all the advantages seem to lie in slower rather than faster population growth. 389. We have considered the arguments in favour of a larger, rather than a smaller population. It can be argued that a country’s power and influence in the world depend at least in part on its numbers, and that a larger population means a larger market and greater opportunities to enjoy the economies of scale. Furthermore, a stationary or declining population will include a higher proportion of the middle-aged and elderly, and a population with an 1 Paragraph 24 First Report from the Select Committee on Science and Technology 1970-71 on Population of the United Kingdom House of Commons Paper 379.