The television on horse racing for 40 years. Hes negotiated with the ira , believe it or not, with the ira, believe it or not, and hes going to have some top tips for us for the national in a couple of weeks time. Derek thompson joins me on talking pints before all of that, pints but before all of that, lets get news with polly lets get the news with polly middlehurst. Nigel, thank you and good evening to you. Well the bank of england has held the Interest Rate at 5. 25 for the fifth time in a row today. The bank of england governor, andrew bailey, saying the economy is not yet at the point where rates can be lowered. But he said things are moving in the right direction. Inflation is expected to fall below 2 by the summer, but the bank of england said the conflict in the middle east and disruption to commercial shipping in the red sea risked further price surging. The work further price surging. The work and pensions secretary is warning that britains acceptance of a Mental Health culture has now gone too far. Speaking as he unveiled plans to get 150,000 people back to work, mel stride said that the benefits bill was being pushed up benefits bill was being pushed p by benefits bill was being pushed up by a sharp increase in the number of people who are on long term sickness benefit. In an term sickness benefit. In an interview with the telegraph, he suggested an increased public focus on talking about Mental Health issues had led people to self diagnose. It comes as the welfare bill is set to hit £100 billion. This year. Within the last half hour, weve learned that Irish Government minister simon harris has thrown his hat into the ring to become irelands next taoiseach , irelands next taoiseach, announcing hell put his name forward to become the next leader of fine gael first. It comes a day after Leo Varadkars announcement that he was standing down and would step aside taoiseach, once his aside as taoiseach, once his successor was appointed. If he is appointed fine gael leader, mr harris would be expected to formally be elected in april and would be the countrys youngest premier at the age of 37. Thousands of women born in the 19505 thousands of women born in the 1950s may be eligible for compensation , after a report compensation, after a report found that the department for work and pensions failed to adequately inform them that state pension age was changing, the parliamentary and Health Service ombudsman looked at potential injustices resulting from the decision to raise womens retirement age, to bring it in line with mens back in 2010, the women against state pension inequality campaign, thats the Waspi Campaign is suggesting there should be £10,000 in compensation per individual, claiming that the women werent properly warned about the changes and they couldnt plan for their financial futures. Number 10 is financial futures. Number 10 is said today. Its dealing with a migration emergency after a Record Number of Asylum Seekers crossed the English Channel yesterday , 514 Illegal Migrants yesterday, 514 Illegal Migrants were picked up by border force officials. Thats the highest daily number so far this year. And today we learned at least another 300 migrants were crossing the English Channel in six small boats. The government says it hopes to get its rwanda bill into law by april the 18th, and the home secretary, james cleverly, has said today hes determined to deliver on the governments pledge to stop the boats, meaning a south sudanese man has been jailed for piloting a dangerously overcrowded small boat as it made its way across the channel last august. 31 year old cool pharmaca was caught steering the vessel with 52 migrants balanced on board, many of whom were forced to perch dangerously on both sides. Thats the news for the latest stories, do sign up for gp news alerts. Scan the qr code on your screen or go to gb news. Common alerts. The medical journal the lancet talks about falling birth rates. It talks about them falling across the western world. But of course it talks also about the really quite steep decline here in this country. And it says that the only way we can deal with this is through open immigration. Otherwise, the magazine says we wont be able to sustain Economic Growth, but they do concede that it will lead to staggering social change. Yet an ever increasing number of people are not working. Theyre being are not working. Theyre being registered as disabled , and most registered as disabled, and most of them are for reasons of Mental Health. And its extraordinary. They can get an extraordinary. They can get an extra £390 a month if they register with mental illness, and they dont even have to go out and look for a job. This is 14 times the number anticipated by the government when it put in this category, called substantial risk of Mental Health problems in 2011 and into all of this , the pensions all of this, the pensions minister and obviously, i have to say mel stride full marks to you, has said we should not let normal life anxieties be classified as Mental Health problems and that the whole thing has gone too far. And he believes we need to get a chunk of those who are claiming these benefits back into the workplace. I have to say, its not always that i sit here and agree 100 with ministers, but i do on this one. Id love to get your thoughts. Should we get more people back into the workplace who are registered right now as having Mental Health issues, is that, health issues, or is that, frankly just too tough and unpleasant in 2020 for farage at gbnews. Com . Please give me your thoughts now im joined by paul morland, demographer. Paul, give us the facts. Give us. Lets talk the uk to begin with. Yes. Give us the facts. The facts are that weve had 50 years of whats known as below replacement fertility rate. That means a couple doesnt have two. Slightly more than two kids. Technically, its slightly more than two, but effectively you can think of it as two. In a world where almost all kids make it to adulthood, and thats been going on since the and thats been the early 70s, and thats been accumulating problem. Meant accumulating a problem. It meant that when we joined the workforce the 80s, there were workforce in the 80s, there were lots baby boomers lots of us late baby boomers coming through. There werent that older people retiring that many older people retiring because had because that cohort had been small. Had population small. There had been population growth. But eventually it catches up you. And that catches up with you. And that means even though weve got means that even though weve got sluggish economic and sluggish Economic Growth and Mass Immigration, we are short of workers in almost every sector and its only going to get worse. But isnt this a fallacy . You but isnt this a fallacy . You know, when the lancet talk about open immigration being the only way to sustain Economic Growth, surely figures weve seen, surely the figures weve seen, the economic figures weve seen over the course of the last 12 to 18 months actually point out the Mass Immigration has led to a decrease in productivity and that whilst gdp, the total sum of the economy has grown, gdp per capita , i. E. The per capita, i. E. The individuals real wealth during this period of open immigration, big immigration is declining. I think there are two elements. First of all, in terms of immigration, if we focused immigration on where we actually needed the labour, that would not mean the sort of Mass Immigration weve seen. We are immigration weve seen. We are getting lots and lots of immigrants, but they are coming for sorts of reasons. Many for all sorts of reasons. Many of them are dependants, many of them supposedly students. So them are supposedly students. So part one is, if you want to fix this problem with immigration, focus immigration in focus on your immigration in that but theres that respect. But theres another it, which is another angle to it, which is there are two ways of fixing this problem. Is, yes, this problem. One is, yes, immigration. Other is fixing immigration. The other is fixing the fertility rate. Now, we have never had a government in all these years of below these 50 years of below replacement fertility, which has had on this, a comment on had a view on this, a comment on it. You may think, oh, its it. And you may think, oh, its only people like viktor orban and putin and the weird and Vladimir Putin and the weird and Vladimir Putin and the weird and wonderful dictator, not very wonderful dictators of the left and right of the 30s who worried about these things. Actually, macron sees it as a major issue, and you couldnt be much more centrist think centrist than him. So i think urgently and too late. We urgently and much too late. We need bring the debate back to need to bring the debate back to what actually encouraging what about actually encouraging people in this country not to just say were too busy, were too important . Well skim off the qualified labour of other countries, but well actually do our own bit. Well raise our own children , well educate them and children, well educate them and well bring them into the labour force and a large force as you and i and a large cohort brought in back cohort were brought in back between the 60s and the 80s, and maybe encourage some who are off work on disability benefits because theyre suffering from depression, encourage depression, maybe encourage a few to get back to work. Few of them to get back to work. Think that would obviously i think that would obviously be wonderful. Do think we have i do think that we have a relatively high Participation Rate in the labour back rate in the labour force. Back in lot of women in the 60s, a lot of women didnt who work. Now back didnt work who work. Now back in the 80s, unemployment, in the 80s, mass unemployment, thats thats no thats gone, but thats no reason say so. Now weve got reason to say so. Now weve got all these people with these various Health Problems, various Mental Health problems, a my scope, a bit beyond my scope, but clearly where youve got a pool of labour that could go of local labour that could go into workforce , everything into the workforce, everything you to encourage it to go you can do to encourage it to go in very important. In is very important. Its a very strong point. No, its a very strong point. And joined down the line by and im joined down the line by sharon gaffka, campaigner and ambassador against ambassador for violence against women girls. You know, women and girls. And you know, weve this pattern havent weve seen this pattern havent we, that, you know, 1964, the post war baby boom ends , but post war baby boom ends, but then women become more liberated. Women go to work , liberated. Women go to work, women choose careers. You know, paul was making the point just a moment ago that it wouldnt be a bad thing to encourage women to have more children. Whats your take on that . Take on that . I mean, you only have to spend five minutes looking at the news in the morning to understand why women arent having more children. You know, im im in my late 20s, coming closer to 30. And my parents, my grandparents would have had children and been married by my age. But i the older i get, the less interest i have in having a family. And thats because we are seeing things like the motherhood where there motherhood penalty where there is a disparity between the salaries of women who have children before theyre 42, and women who are of a similar education that dont have children. I think its a 15 difference, and 80 of the gender wage gap is actually contributed to down the fact that women have children, and i dont want to have to forego my career and im penalised if i do, and im penalised if i dont. And then were looking at a childcare crisis. Many providers saying that they cant keep up with the demand, many people saying that it costs more to send their child to nursery people saying that it costs more to seiti their child to nursery people saying that it costs more to se it does child to nursery people saying that it costs more to se it does torild to nursery people saying that it costs more to se it does to payto nursery people saying that it costs more to se it does to pay the ursery people saying that it costs more to se it does to pay the mortgage than it does to pay the mortgage on their home. Yeah so i actually think we want to actually think if we want to have having children like have women having children like myself, then we need give myself, then we need to give proper policy in place for those women to be able to maintain their careers and a family life. Okay, so if government was to say, right, this really is a priority, you know, and paul has given us reasons why, perhaps it should be a priority. And i should be a priority. And i absolutely get your point about childcare. You know, its so childcare. You know, its so expensive, its almost not worth going out to work in many cases. If the government did find a way, somehow of making life easier for those that wanted to have children in terms of the cost, do you think it would encourage more women to have children . Children . I mean, it may encourage more women to have children. I wouldnt encourage me to have a child, i think that there is a big a wider societal issue as to the reason why i dont want to have children. I mean, i very recently was in the dating pool, and a lot of the times theres a phrase now online that we call single married mothers, where women are expected to maintain all of the unpaid labour in their home and in their families, and in their work in the workplace. And then youre penalised by society if you cant maintain both, or either. So i think for me, it wouldnt encourage me at all. And im sharon for somebody in their 20s. You know what mel stride said at the despatch box today . The minister, you know, overseeing pensions and work, he said that what would be just normal life crises that happen to all of us are now being categorised as being Mental Health issues. And there are health issues. And there are financial incentives in some ways for people to go on to that disability register to get an extra £390 a month, and its mostly young people. This is happening to is there some way, should there be some way that we say to young people, look, you know, youre suffering from short tum . Im upset. Trauma, loss, depression, it happens to every one of us in our life at some point. And actually, what you need to do is pick yourself up and get back to work and be fulfilled rather than going on benefits. Or am i saying something that sounds to you that its completely outdated . I mean, in some aspects i consider it to be outdated. I can understand that. Well, we have to look at what the what we have to look at what the what we consider the normal anxieties of life. You know, when my dad was my age , it was a lot easier was my age, it was a lot easier to buy a home if you went to university. It pretty much guaranteed graduate job. Guaranteed you a graduate job. Not so much now for young people. And then when youre looking at wanting to start a family, its too expensive. If you want to look at going on holiday, too expensive. Holiday, its too expensive. The cost its too cost of living, its too expensive. I empathise and expensive. I can empathise and understand why a lot of young people are are suffering from mental problems. And when Mental Health problems. And when you want to access Mental Health facilities, funding isnt facilities, the funding isnt there. A lot of people are there. So a lot of people are now to self diagnosis. Now turning to self diagnosis. I mean, this is like , your other mean, this is like, your other guest this is very much guest said, this is very much out scope because im not out of my scope because im not a Mental Health practitioner. But, seen lots of but, you know, ive seen lots of young people who are working in the example , on the the nhs, for example, on the front line during covid, who had to of Mental Health to sign off of Mental Health illnesses werent illnesses because we werent looking they looking after them when they were workforce. And then were in the workforce. And then theyre affordability theyre available. Affordability to like an adult to be able to live like an adult the way our parents did is the same way our parents did is drastically different. Unless drastically different. So unless theres massive change in the drastically different. So unless ther her point about the cost of child care. And i guess she does have a very good point that in the 50s and 60s, most houses had one income and could live perfectly reasonably. Not you know, in the lap of luxury, but perfectly reasonably. And now its quite tough, isnt it . If youve got children to run a household without both of you working well, it is tough. On the other hand, why is it the when have never the case that when we have never been off economically as been better off economically as a indeed, all rich a society, indeed, all rich societies having societies are having this problem. We say were now richer problem. We say were now richer than have been, but we cant than we have been, but we cant afford children. I do think its about priorities , and about peoples priorities, and its about what people want to do with their lives. I totally support idea of helping support the idea of helping women work with women combine work with childbearing. In fact, thats absolutely critical. Thats the only way well solve this problem. I do believe in helping young with housing and young families with housing and childcare, but we need be childcare, but we need to be careful. Thats a good in itself. Of scotland have got. Parts of scotland have got quite cheap housing. Has quite cheap housing. Germany has very cheap childcare. Both places low places have got really low fertility