Related story, DT, “Population to surge by four million due to mass immigration that will ‘change the face of England forever.” Credit: SPL/Barcroft Media

The population of the UK is projected to shoot up by 3.6 million or 5 and a half percent over the next ten years, with more than half of the growth due to mass migration. According to new data from The Office of National Statistics, or ONS, the population will pass 70 million by mid 2029 and be 72.9 million in mid 2041. The population boom is equivalent of more than three new cities the size of Birmingham appearing on the UK over a decade.

Separate ONS statistics reported two months ago suggest that over a third of babies born in England and Wales had at least one foreign born parent. In London it was two thirds.

DM, “Britain’s population will hit 70 million before 2030 and more than HALF the increase in the next decade will be from immigration”, 26 Oct 2017:

Britain’s population will surge past 70 million before the end of the next decade, new forecasts reveal today with more than half the increase caused by immigration.

The number of people living in Britain will rise by 3.6 million - 5.5 per cent - in a decade and the country will be home to 70 million by mid 2029.

The new forecast from the Office for National Statistics considers immigration, fertility and life expectancy.

It concluded that over the next ten years, 46 per cent of UK population growth is projected to result from more births than deaths, with 54 per cent attributed to net international migration.

Taking into account babies born to foreign parents in Britain, immigration will indirectly account for 77 per cent of the population growth.

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Lord Green of Deddington, Chairman of Migration Watch UK, warned the projections were ‘extraordinarily low’ based on historical migration

Over the decade from mid-2016, the projections suggest that 7.7 million people will be born and 6.1 million will die, while 5.2 million people will immigrate on a long-term basis to the UK with 3.2 million emigrating from the country.

He said: ‘This is serious because it will lead to inadequate planning for housing, schools, hospitals and infrastructure – as, indeed, we have seen in recent years. Yet again the ONS have been much too cautious.

‘It is also of note that, on the principal projection, immigration, including the effect on births, will account for 77 per cent of population growth over the next 25 years.

‘If immigration continues at the ONS high migration assumption, which is roughly present levels, the population will grow by almost ten million, of which 82 per cent will be due to immigration – that is an additional eight million people.

‘This underlines the need for a successful Brexit which could substantially reduce recent levels of net EU migration, perhaps by 100,000 a year.’

Andrew Nash, of the ONS Population Projections Unit, said: ‘Over the period between mid-2016 and mid-2026 the population of the UK is projected to grow from 65.6 million to 69.2 million, reaching 70 million by mid-2029.

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Over the decade from mid-2016 projected growth varies substantially between the four nations of the UK.

England’s population is projected to grow 5.9 per cent over this period. For Northern Ireland the figure is 4.2 per cent while for Scotland and Wales the figures are 3.2 per cent and 3.1 per cent respectively.

As well as the direct impact, international migration has an indirect effect on the population, statisticians said.

For example, women coming to the UK who subsequently have children will increase the numbers of births.

Conversely, women emigrating before they have children will decrease the number of births.

Once the indirect effect is taken into account, international migration accounts for more than three quarters (77 per cent) of the projected UK population growth over the 25 years from 2016, according to the ONS report.