There were 408,000 more people living in the UK last year than in 2007, according to the Office for National Statistics. It was the biggest increase in a single year since 1962, taking the total population to 61.4 million. There are now 2 million more people living in Britain than there were eight years ago.
The primary factor in this increase was not immigration but instead the nation's fertility rate, which reached its highest level for 15 years. Women in their thirties and forties had more babies, there was a significant rise in births among first-generation immigrants and the popularity of IVF treatment also contributed, academics said.
It is the first time in around a decade that natural changes because of births and deaths have been a bigger factor in population change than immigration. Little emigration and fewer deaths (30,000 less, leaving total deaths at 570,000) were also cited as reasons for the overall population increase.
The number of immigrants coming to Britain from countries such as Poland, the Czech Republic and the Baltic states, which joined the EU in 2004, fell. Registered overall immigration to Britain dropped by more than two-fifths, to levels seen before the addition of the EU accession countries.
The extra 19,000 births – taking the total to 791,000 babies – surprised experts. Danny Dorling, the professor of human geography at Sheffield University, said the boost to fertility rates was incredible. "Relatively high immigration is a minor factor, but delayed pregnancy is more important. Many women are having babies in their thirties and forties. In the past, those women would have given birth in their twenties. Increased IVF births are also significant, as there has been a huge increase in that area. We now have a wide span of fertility age, which is new."
Professor Dorling said the record population could be attributed in part to the crash of the housing bubble, which helped to minimise emigration – and the rude health of the elderly. "What is also interesting here is that lots of people have not died," he said. "That is because we had a mild winter and because there are a large number of 'younger elderly' people, who are relatively healthy."
Births to immigrant mothers made up 56 per cent of the extra 19,000 births in the UK last year, a result of a much higher fertility rate among migrant groups. The era of the "Polish plumber" seems to be over. The number of people moving to Britain from Eastern Europe slowed as job opportunities dried up and the pound hit record lows against the euro. The amount of people coming here from EU accession nations, known as the A8, had fallen by 28 per cent to 79,000 by the end of last year, down from 109,000 in December 2007. The number heading in the other direction shot up by more than half to 66,000 last year.
Karen Dunnell, the Government's outgoing chief statistician, said that the recession was central to the changing face of immigration to Britain: "Unemployment and the economic situation – given that quite a lot of people from the A8 countries are coming to work – is probably having an impact."
The Institute for Public Policy Research, a left-leaning think tank, said the large fall in immigration from more than 200,000 in past years to 118,000 last year was a sign that previously high numbers heading to the UK from Eastern Europe had only been a short-term phenomenon. "Most of the migrants who came to the UK after 2004 always planned to go home," it said.
Phil Woolas, the Immigration minister, said the lower immigration was "further proof" that the Government's new points-based immigration system was beginning to take effect. "The British people can be confident that immigration is under control," he said.
However, Damian Green, the shadow immigration minister, said it proved that the Home Secretary, Alan Johnson, did not have population growth under control. "Alan Johnson says he doesn't lose sleep over Britain's population growth. Perhaps he should..." he said. "These figures show our population is still rising fast, even when the recession is driving hundreds of thousands of people to leave."
Case study: 'We found the NHS a good system for us'
Valerie Lehmann lives in London with her husband Martin and their two children, Laetitia, who was born in Germany, and Sophie, born in the UK. She moved to Britain when her husband was transferred by his employer.
"We were quite settled in Germany so at first I didn't want to move," she said. "I was worried about having to start all over again.
"But I didn't find it difficult to settle in London at all, because there was a network of mothers in a similar position to myself. There are also a lot of things for children to do here. People here are also more used to dealing with foreigners than they are in the small village in Germany where we lived.
"What I did find difficult was working out things like finding a school and the way the healthcare system works. The NHS has a bad reputation among some foreign families – a lot of people moved back home to have their children – but I found it was perfectly good.
"When I was pregnant there was a health visitor who helped a lot and we were lucky to find a good Church of England school. We are not planning to go home in the near future. The children are settled and we don't want to take them out of the school.
"It surprises me that the number of children born to foreign families is so high, but that may be because the people that I know are from Western European countries where the fertility rate is roughly similar to here anyway."
19,000
The number of extra births in the UK attributed to migrant families last year.
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