One million people will migrate to the UK every year this decade. The result: the UK population will grow by nearly five million. Population projections, released by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) this morning, show Britain’s population rising from an estimated 67.6 million now to 72.5 million in the middle of 2032 – driven almost entirely by migration.
Whilst the number of births and deaths will be roughly the same (6.8 million) in the next seven years, ONS statisticians estimate 10 million people will migrate to the UK with only five million due to leave. That will put net migration at 340,000 every year from the middle of 2028.
The figures pour petrol on the immigration debate that has come to the forefront since the start of the year. With a failing NHS, housing crisis and schools bulging at the seams, many will ask if Britain has the infrastructure – or the desire – to handle such an increase. It will add to growing pressure on the welfare state and the labour market. The number of people at state pension age is also projected to increase by nearly 2 million – up 14 per cent.
However, ONS projections looking further ahead show that for the quarter of a century between the middle of 2022 and 2047, the population is forecast to grow 13 per cent – lower than the preceding 25 years when it rose nearly 16 per cent.
The baffling thing about all this is how it’s entirely in the gift of the government of the day. Whilst small boats remain a problem – we’re on course for the worst January for crossings ever – the vast majority of inwards migration is by people granted visas by the Home Office. Now, politicians can make arguments in favour of high immigration. Take Rachel Reeves who this week talked about visas for AI and life science workers as something that could drive growth. But the point is this is a choice. If a government wants to bring it down, they can.
It's worth questioning how much we can trust these figures though. ONS net migration measures are notoriously revised up – often by hundreds of thousands – and an (equally error prone) study by Thames Water suggests there could be a million more people living here illegally. So just as we can’t confidently say there are 68 odd million here already, who knows if the next seven years will see an increase of 5, 10 or 20 million more.
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