Population soars by half a million in just one year

BRITAIN’S population shot up by more than half a million last year in its biggest leap for 70 years.

Nearly two-thirds of the 538,000 increase, the equivalent of adding a city the size of Bradford, was a result of immigration.

Most incomers headed for London and other increasingly crowded towns and cities in the southern half of the country, pushing the population of England alone above 55million for the first time.

The leap in population, unprecedented in peacetime conditions, was counted by the Office for National Statistics in the 12 months to the end of June last year – a period that coincided almost precisely with the long-running EU referendum campaign and the June 23 Brexit vote.

Immigration watchdogs warned that any failure to curb the rate of migration

THE share of older people in the country ticked up again last year, the ONS estimates say.

The proportion of over-65s in the population rose by 0.1 per cent in the year to June 2016 to reach 1 per cent. But the effects of immigration mean that pensioners are outnumbered by children after a brief period in the early 2000s when older people overtook the young.

from Europe in the Brexit talks will risk piling new pressure on housing, transport and public services, while keeping wages stagnant for the lower-paid.

The new estimates published yesterday said that the UK population reached 65,648,000 last summer, with the 538,000 jump amounting to an increase of 0.8 per cent. The only year in which a bigger upward leap has been recorded was 1947, when a post-war baby boom followed the return of servicemen from abroad and pushed up the population by 551,000.

Even over the past decade of mass immigration from Eastern Europe and the rest of the world, the annual average increase has been below half a million at 482,000.

Net migration – the effect of immigrants arriving into the country after numbers of emigrants have been taken into account – made up 62.4 per cent of the increase. The 335,700 net migra- tion figure was the highest on record, and is equivalent to the population of Nottingham.

The rest of the figure is made up by the difference between the numbers of births and deaths.

Neil Park of the ONS said: ‘The population of the UK continued to grow in the year to mid-2016 at a similar rate to that seen over recent years.

‘Net international migration continued to be the main driver, but there was also an increase in births and fewer deaths than the previous year. Population growth was not evenly distributed however, with London’s growth rate more than twice that in Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland, and the three northern English regions.’

There were 781,000 births, an increase of 0.7 per cent on 2015 estimates. More than a quarter – 27.5 per cent – of babies born in 2015 had mothers who were themselves born abroad and who are classed as immigrants.

Numbers of deaths continued to fall as life expectancy increases. Deaths in the year to the end of June 2016 fell by 2.6 per cent on the previous year to 588,000.

The fastest population increase was in England, where the strong economy and easy availability of jobs draws people from inside and outside the country. Numbers in England went up by 481,800 to 55,268,100. This is an increase of 8.4 per cent over ten years.

In 14 English boroughs, eight of them in London, the population went up by 2 per cent in a single 12-month period.

Evidence since the Brexit referendum has shown an easing off in the rate of immigration and signs that some Eastern European workers are choosing to go home. In the 12 months to the end of 2016, net migration reduced to 248,000. But political upheaval means the certainty of new curbs on immigration felt in the aftermath of the Brexit vote has disappeared, and Theresa May is facing pressure from business leaders demanding cheap labour to trade away British rights to restrict EU immigration in the Brexit talks.

Lord Green, chairman of the Migration Watch UK think tank, said: ‘This record rise in our population is very largely the result of massive levels of immigration.

‘We are now at a turning point. The Brexit negotiations must achieve a substantial reduction in EU migration.

‘Failing that we will have to build the equivalent of a city the size of Birmingham every two years for the indefinite future. Any such outcome will be deeply opposed by the public, especially since nearly three-quarters of us believe the country is already crowded.’

Dr Carlos Vargas- Silva of the rival Migration Observatory at the University of Oxford said: ‘There is still demand for migrant workers in the UK labour market, so unless there is a significant decline in the economic performance of the UK or major policy changes, net migration is likely to remain a major contributor to UK population growth.’

The ONS figures come a day after a United Nations report which predicts that the UK population will rise to 81million by the end of the century.