250,000 children in Britain have East European parents

MORE than a quarter of a million children with Eastern European parents are now living in Britain, a breakdown of the population revealed yesterday.

Office for National Statistics figures show that there were 254,600 children living with parents from countries such as Poland and Hungary between the years of 2013 and 2015.

Of the quarter of a million children with Eastern European parents, around 165,000 of those were born to Polish families.

The majority of the children stayed in Britain, with just 33,000 moving to their parents’ native country, estimates suggest.

Analysis based on large-scale population surveys put the number of those from Eastern Europe living in this country from 2013 at 1.3million.

The figure for those from the countries that joined the EU in 2004 – Poland, Latvia, Estonia, Lithuania, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Slovenia – rose to 1.4million by 2015, it said.

The majority were Polish nationals, whose numbers between 2013 and 2015 were estimated to be approximately 813,700.

More than 600,000 people from the eight countries, known as EU8 countries, were between the ages of 15 and 49. Many moved to Britain to take advantage of a booming jobs market and higher rate of pay compared to that which was available to them in the country they were born.

Eight out of ten Eastern Europeans in Britain, or 823,000 people, were in work, and they made up three per cent of the entire workforce.

Around 225,000 work in hotels, restaurants or distribution trades. Approximately 186,000 work in the manufacturing industry.

A spokesman for the statistics agency said: ‘There are more than 33,000 under-15s living in the Eastern European countries, particularly Poland, Hungary, Slovenia, Latvia and Lithuania, who were born in the UK.

‘In comparison, there are about 1,000 under-15 British citizens living in EU8 countries.’

In contrast to the million-plus Eastern European population in Britain, only around 14,000 UK citizens of all ages are currently residents in Eastern Europe, the ONS said.

Comparatively few older people have travelled from Poland and other Eastern European countries to the UK, the ONS said.

It counted the number of Eastern European immigrants over the age of 50 at just 33,700.

This means that there are eight children for every person from an EU8 country who is middleaged or older.

Meanwhile, the statistics agency calculated that there are nearly 88 Eastern European workers in Britain for every fellow national over the age of 65.