Migrants set to fuel huge rise in UK’s population
‘The numbers are frightening’
MIGRANTS will add 5.6million to Britain’s soaring population over the next 25 years, official forecasts show.
Immigration and high birth rates among foreign arrivals will account for 77 per of the projected 7.3million growth in population.
By 2041 the country will be home to 72.9million people. Within 100 years, the numbers are forecast to have reached a staggering 86million.
According to the Office for National Statistics (ONS), the UK’s population will exceed 70million before the end of the next decade. The population was 65.6million in 2016.
Scotland’s population is expected to rise from 5.4million last year to 5.58million in 2026.
Campaigners claimed the UK-wide projections may be an underestimate because they are based on net migration – the difference between those arriving in and leaving the UK – being an ‘extraordinarily low’ 165,000 a year. Over the past decade it averaged 250,000 annually.
It raised fresh questions about how the country would cope with such a dramatic population expansion when housing, schools and hospitals were already overstretched.
The projections were published as fresh evidence emerged of how Britain has lost control of its borders.
Police who stopped a lorry in Kent discovered 15 illegal immigrants who had stowed away and made it across the Channel.
And 11 people were arrested in overnight raids across the UK as part of an international investigation into a suspected people smuggling ring.
This month, a former Home Office chief admitted Britain was home to more than a million illegal immigrants.
David Wood, head of immigration enforcement until 2015, acknowledged that huge numbers of foreigners are living here ‘under the radar’.
Lord Green, chairman of the Migrationwatch think-tank, said: ‘Given that net migration has averaged about 250,000 a year over the past ten years, the immigration assumption of 165,000 underlying the principal projection is extraordinarily low.
‘This is serious because it will lead to inadequate planning for housing, schools, hospitals and infrastructure.’
Campaign group Population Matters said: ‘The population of the UK is unsustainable today. These figures show that our environment, our infrastructure and our public service face unbearable pressure over coming decades.
‘The absolute numbers are frightening enough but the underlying trend is even more alarming.
‘It beggars belief that in the face of such an astronomical increase, there is simply no planning or policy response from the Government.
‘We must not accept that endless population growth is inevitable. It is time to stop being squeamish about population.’
The population will grow by 11 per cent by 2041, compared with the 4 per cent EU average, 10 per cent for France and 4 per cent for Germany.
The projections are for a 3.6million – or 5.5 per cent – rise over the ten years to 2026. More than half – 54 per cent – will be attributed to the arrival of migrants after 2016.
The rest is accounted for by the gap between births and deaths.