I don’t know where you are getting your statistics on costs from. Mine come from the The Migration Observatory at the University of Oxford so they are not nonsense.
However many verifiable facts from government and other reliable sources are given to show that inroads are being made, the same people (who I suspect really can’t bear to admit that Labour are tackling the backlog and mess that the Tories left), will come back with the same tropes. Too many people, not enough room, not enough resources, too much money spent, when in fact the population will decline unless we have migration; only a tiny percentage of the UK is built on; a million empty homes; a critical shortage of workers in key sectors.
Instead of Reform whipping up division by describing migrants as “men of fighting age” why not describe them as “men of working age”, men who could be trained or may already have the skills to work in construction. The Skilled Worker Visa list shows the UK has shortages in most of the construction skills and many other sectors.
www.gov.uk/government/publications/skilled-worker-visa-temporary-shortage-list/skilled-worker-visa-temporary-shortage-list
As a country we cannot keep moaning about a situation and hope it will go away. The global movement of people isn’t going to go away. War, famine and drought isn’t going to go away. The UK must take some of those people looking for a better life.
In terms of population growth, the UK birth rate is declining and the death rate is predicted to rise as more “boomers” die. Up until now the two have been around the same - 600,000 births and deaths a year. The increase in population has been as a result of migration. But if migration falls and fewer children are born how does the country achieve economic growth? We are repeated told that young people don’t want to work, that around 11 million people of working age are not working. Who will work if we don’t have migrants?
If we can’t engage in meaningful discussion about practical ways to integrate migrants into UK society, however they reach these shores, then there is little point in the discussion.