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Migrants push population over 60m(Daily Mail Via Thomson Dialog NewsEdge) BRITAIN'S population has passed 60million for the first time, pushed up by record levels of immigration. There are at least a million more men, women and children living in the country than five years ago, according to official figures issued yesterday. In 2004-05 alone the total grew by 375,000 - two-thirds of which was migration, experts say, and the remainder due to natural factors such as birth and death rates. The rate of expansion is faster than at any time since the early 1960s, when the post-Second World War baby boom was at its height. At at least 60.2million, the population is double what it was at the height of the Victorian era and 50 per cent greater than in Edwardian times. Estimates from the Office for National Statistics show more than half a million foreign citizens came to live in this country in 2004-05. A high proportion are settling in London while, at the same time, many families appear to be leaving the capital. The evidence of the scale of immigration comes at a time of deepening concern over the tension between ethnic and cultural groups and the impact of migrant workers on wages and unemployment. Earlier this week, Home Office ministers admitted around 600,000 migrants from new Eastern European EU countries have arrived since the spring of 2004. Another wave is likely soon. The Romanian government estimates 350,000 will emigrate if the doors are opened to them when their country joins the EU next year. The latest figures provoked fresh calls for curbs yesterday. Sir Andrew Green of the Migrationwatch think-tank said: 'We simply cannot continue with a rate of foreign immigration which is now running at over a third of a million per year.' Yesterday's figures show how the wave of migration since Labour took power in 1997 has swelled the population. They cover the 12 months to June 2005, the first year in which Britain was fully open to Eastern European workers. Net migration in the period was 235,000, an increase of 40 per cent on the previous year. This is the total who came to the UK to live - around 500,000 foreign nationals and some 80,000 Britons returning home - minus the 353,000 who left to live abroad. ONS population estimates chief Jonathan Swan said ' natural' factors also played a part in the overall increase. 'There have been more births and fewer deaths,' he said. ' Natural change makes up about a third of the increase, with international migration making up about two-thirds.' It appears, however, that the rising birth rate is also a result of immigration. ONS official Peter Goldblatt said: 'Had there been no migration, the numbers of births would have dropped.' He added: 'There is some evidence that migrants postpone having children until they are settled in their new country, and then they have families.' The figures are shrouded in uncertainty, however. Many analysts believe the 2001 Census, which said there were 58,789,194 in the country was wrong by around a million. Yesterday's figures also show London's population increased by 176,000 in the period - two-thirds because of immigration and a third because of additional births. But around 89,000 left the city, believed to be families in search of safer areas, better schools and transport. Although this is the phenomenon known as 'white flight', it also includes families from ethnic minorities. In 2003, the number of people who did not count themselves as white British - mainly migrants and children of migrants of the past five decades - was just over seven million, or around 14 per cent of England's population. FRANCE has the most immigrants in Europe - and Britain supplies some 45,000 of them each year. Around five million foreigners live in the country - or 8 per cent of its population of 60million, official figures show. The biggest influx is from EU countries (35 per cent) while 31 per cent come from North Africa, principally Algeria and Morocco. Most of the remainder hail from Asia and sub-Saharan Africa. Copyright 2006 Daily Mail. Source: Financial Times Information Limited - Europe Intelligence Wire. |