Population set to soar past 70 million
THE population of the UK is set to rocket past 70 million in less than a decade, according to official government figures released yesterday.
Rising immigration coupled with a high birth rate and older people living longer will see more Britons alive than at any other time.
Population experts expect the landmark figure to be reached by 2026 as the number of people increases “steadily”.
Natural growth – more births than deaths – and net migration helped push the estimated population to a record 65.1 million in 2015, a rise of more than half a million on the previous year.
Experts say the growth of the population is partly because it is ageing – with one in five expected to be 65 or over by the middle of the next decade. The Office for National Statistics said yesterday growth slowed during the 1970s after the “baby boom” of the previous decade, before picking up again in the late 1980s.
The report added that recent uplifts have “generally coincided with an increase in the number of countries holding EU membership”.
It is forecast that a fifth of the population will be 65 and over in 2025, rising to a quarter in 2045.
Since 1955, the number of births has been higher than the number of deaths in every year except 1976.
The rise in the population since the 1990s has also been attributed to the growth of net migration – the number of people arriving to live in the UK minus the number leaving.
Statisticians said the direct effect of net migration increased the population by more than 250,000 per year on average from 2004 to 2015.
The report said rises in immigration “have tended to coincide with the expansion of the EU, allowing more people to freely migrate to the UK”.
Britain’s population is expected to reach 77 million by 2050, exceeding Germany and France.
Alp Mehmet, of MigrationWatch UK, said: “Our population is now growing at its fastest rate for almost 100 years.
“This means huge pressures on housing, schools and the NHS. We strongly believe migration has to be brought under control.”