IMMIGRANT BABY BOOM

A BABY boom among immigrant families has helped send Britain’s population soaring over 61 million for the first time in history.


Last year’s increase of 408,000 is the biggest for nearly half a century, Government figures revealed yesterday.

Immigrant mothers now give birth to one in every four babies born in the UK. In London, more than half of all births – 55 per cent – are to mothers born overseas.

Half a million newcomers came to live in Britain during 2008 while asylum claims increased by four per cent between April and June this year, the Office for National Statistics revealed.

Yet Immigration Minister Phil Woolas last night claimed: “The British people can be confident that immigration is under control.”

His astonishing remark provoked fresh outrage over Labour’s open-door border policy, with critics denouncing his words as “spin”.Immigrant mothers now give birth to one in every four babies born in the UK. In London, more than half of all births – 55 per cent – are to mothers born overseas.

Sir Andrew Green, of think tank Migrationwatch, said: “This is a ridiculous claim. The population is heading inexorably towards the

70 million mark within 25 years.” The official figures released yesterday showed that Britain’s population is now 61.4 million, two million more than in 2001.

Government statisticians said the rise was due to a baby boom resulting from the highest fertility rates in a generation. A relatively high birth rate among the growing number of immigrant families was a significant factor.

Of the 791,000 babies born in the UK last year, 24 per cent had immigrant mothers. Overwhelmingly, they were from Pakistan, India or Poland.

Immigration figures yesterday showed only a slight reduction in the number of people coming to live in the UK despite the economic downturn.

A total of 512,000 people arrived during 2008, compared with 527,000 in 2007.

Last year’s influx included 441,000 non-British citizens. The drop in the rate last year was largely the result of a fall in the number of new arrivals from eastern European countries such as Poland and Slovakia – down by 28 per cent from 109,000 to 79,000.

An estimated 66,000 citizens of the former eastern bloc went home over the same period.

Overall, 118,000 more people arrived in Britain than left, the lowest net immigration figure since the EU expanded in 2004.

Ministers said the reduction was a “success” for Labour’s border policies, but Migrationwatch denounced their claims as “spin”. Sir Andrew said: “It is the usual Government spin to claim these numbers as a success for immigration policy despite the fact that foreign immigration is virtually unchanged at about half a million a year.

“What has really happened is that EU citizens have voted with their feet. The number leaving has doubled in the face of the deep recession in Britain but EU migration is something over which the Government have no control whatever.”

Damian Green, Shadow Immigration Minister, said: “These figures expose the dishonesty of Gordon Brown’s promise to provide British jobs for British workers. At a time of rising unemployment the numbers of new people coming here to work are 34 per cent higher than at the height of the boom 10 years ago.

“This puts added pressure on housing and transport, and shows that there is still no proper control over immigration.”

Former Labour minister Frank Field and senior Tory backbencher Nicholas Soames, of the Cross Party Group on Balanced Migration, said: “The fall in net migration may well be temporary – as in previous recessions – but even at the present level of immigration we are still on target for the UK’s population to exceed 70 million within 25 years. There are no laurels to rest on. The need for firm measures on immigration is unchanged.”

The population is now growing by a rate of 0.7 per cent every year, more than double the rate in the 1990s and three times the level of the 1980s, the figures confirm. And the number of work permits handed out to immigrants also remained relatively high, despite Britain’s jobs crisis.

The total number of work permit holders admitted to the UK was 81,400 in 2008, compared with 53,600 in 1999, an increase of 34 per cent.

Border and Immigration Minister Mr Woolas said: “The fall in net migration is further proof that migrants come to the UK for short periods, work, contribute to the economy and then return home.

“Our new flexible points-based system gives us greater control on those coming to work or study from outside Europe. continues here

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