Storbritannia befolkningsvekst på 400.000 er over dobbelt så høy som gjennomsnittet i EU, og utgjør 30 prosent av EUs totale befolkningsvekst. Iht til Eurostats prognoser vil Storbritannia passere Tyskland og Frankrike og bli Europas største befolkning i løpet av de neste 40 årene.
Bare Belgia, Sverige, Malta og Luxembourg har høyere vekst enn Storbritannia.
Befolkningsveksten er hovedsakelig drevet av høy innvandring og innvandreres fødselsrater:
The figures from Eurostat, the statistical arm of the EU, are further evidence that England is becoming the most crowded country in Europe.
Projections show that Britain will have the highest population on the continent within 40 years, overtaking both Germany and France.
Eurostat said the UK’s population growth of 409,000 in 2010 amounted to 30 per cent of the 1.4million added to numbers across the whole EU.
The only other country to experience a population increase of more than 300,000 was France.
Storbritannias befolkning øker med en rate på 6.6 nye personer for hver 1.000 som allerede i er landet; over det dobbelte av EUs gjennomsnitt på 2.8 nye personer for hver 1.000.
Tallene fra Eurostat har ført til ytterligere bekymring om boliger og offentlige tjenester i folketette områder.
Transport, schools, water and energy supplies are all in increasing demand as the UK population heads toward the landmark figure of 70million, which is expected to be reached in 25 years time.
The EU analysis reflects the findings of Whitehall officials in attributing two fifths of the population increase to immigration and three fifths to ‘natural change’ – the difference between numbers of babies born and the national death toll.
However a substantial share of the baby boom, which is producing birthrates which match the historic highs in the two decades after the Second World War, is largely a result of high migration.
Around one in four babies is born to a mother who was born outside UK.
Sir Andrew Green of the MigrationWatch think tank, said: ‘This is a result of Labour’s immigration policies which brought in three million migrants, raising our population both directly and indirectly.
‘Many of the additional births over the past ten years have been to mothers born outside the UK.’
A report yesterday revealed that UK migrants from one East African country are much more heavily dependent on the state to provide them with homes than people from any other minority group.
Eight out of ten Somalis were found to live in homes provided by the taxpayer. Yet among every other immigrant nationality, more than half pay for their own housing either by renting it on the private market or through buying their homes.
The findings come from the Institute for Public Policy Research and were revealed yesterday in a report by MigrationWatch.
If the IPPR figures – calculated from official statistics – are correct, then the provision of homes for Somalis is likely have cost taxpayers more than £2billion.
