Number of EU migrants living here doubles in just a decade

‘Continued rapid increase’

THE number of immigrants from the EU living in Britain more than doubled in a decade, a report said yesterday.

There were just over 1.6million EU citizens in the country in 2007, but by last year the total was just over 3.8million.

and the total number of immigrants – from inside and outside the EU – rose by around three million in ten years as the UK’s population hit record levels.

Last year there were just under 9.4million people in Britain who were born abroad among a population of just over 66milllion.

a decade earlier, in 2007, there were 6.4million foreign-born people out of a total population of 61.3million.

The analysis by the Office for National Statistics showed that the expansion in the immigrant population between 2007 and 2017 accounted for around two thirds of the overall increase in numbers in the country. Last year 14 per cent of the population were immigrants.

The report also said that the UK’s population is projected to continue growing. It is forecast to surpass 70million in 2029 and to reach 72.9million by 2041 – increases of 6.1 per cent and 10.4 per cent, respectively, from 2017.

The count of those who were born abroad is the closest available figure to an official record of individuals who are immigrants into Britain.

The figures for EU nationals are based on citizenship counts, which are regarded as accurate because until Brexit any EU citizen can live and work freely in this country without having to switch to British nationality

The decade after 2007 saw waves of immigration from eastern europe, after people from Poland and other countries that joined the EU in 2004 were given the right to work in the UK. This was extended to workers from romania and Bulgaria in 2014.

The most common country of birth of anyone living in Britain who was not born here is now Poland, the ONS said.

The ONS breakdown provides a powerful indicator of the population and subsequent economic pressures that led to the referendum vote in favour of Brexit in 2016.

Sarah Coates, of the ONS, said: ‘The UK population has doubled over the last 140 years, reaching a new high of 66million people in 2017. We project there to be almost 73million people in the UK by 2041.

‘This growth is due to there being more births than deaths and more people moving to the UK than leaving.’

The Migration Watch UK think-tank said that if children born to immigrants are counted, immigration has been responsible for four fifths of population growth since 2001. It said the ONS projections of future numbers may be over-cautious.

Its chairman, Lord Green, said: ‘The ONS projections show continued rapid increase in the population even on the cautious assumption they have taken for immigration. They assume net migration of 165,000 which is nearly 100,000 less than current levels.’

High population growth threatens to overstretch housing, transport, schools, medical facilities and energy supplies.