92 million: The population of crowded Britain after a century of mass migration



Britain's population will rise to 92.5million over the next century, according to official forecasts yesterday.

The country will have to find room for another 30million people by 2108, half as many as already live here.

According to the forecasts, almost all of the growth in numbers will come in England, where the strong economy in the South and the East is expected to continue to pull in immigrants.

Packed in: Most of the growth is expected in the South and East of England

The projections were published by the Office for National Statistics, which warned that estimates of the population so far in the future ‘should be treated with great caution’.



But they raised fears of intolerable overcrowding in future if high immigration – expected to provide most of the increase – goes on unchecked.

An additional 30million people is equivalent to three new cities bigger than London, or 30 the size of Birmingham.



The increases envisaged in the ONS projections would mean that the same growth in numbers Britain has experienced in the past 140 years will be squeezed into the next 100. Since 1871 the population has risen from 32million to the current 62million.

The figures, which stem from estimates made on the basis of 2008 population figures, were given to MPs in response to requests for the ONS to release its most distant projections.

Until now, only forecasts for the next three decades have been made public.

Tory MP James Clappison said: ‘These numbers are absolutely staggering. They are a reflection of the wave of immigration we have seen in recent years. Past population projections have turned out to be accurate. There needs to be redoubled action from the Coalition to avoid nightmarish difficulties in the future.’

Staggered: James Clappison, MP for Hertsmere

England has become the most crowded country in Europe in recent years, almost entirely because of the growth brought about by high net migration.

The ONS projections assume that future net migration – the number by which the population grows after emigrants are subtracted from immigrants – will be 180,000 a year.

However, last year net migration was 196,000, and figures were higher still in four other years in the last decade.

On the other hand, Coalition ministers have promised to reduce net migration to the levels of the 1990s – in other words to below 100,000 a year.



They plan to bring in a cap on immigration from outside Europe, but some ministers oppose the idea because they think it would damage industry and research.

The official projections say the population will reach 70million by 2029. This is the level that former Labour immigration minister Phil Woolas promised would never be reached, and at which some analysts believe housing, transport, education, water and energy supplies would become overstretched.

Yesterday’s projections say the UK population will be 76.8million in 2050 and 92.5million in 2108. For England, they put numbers at 65.7million in 2050 and 81.1million in 2108, around 29million more than the English population this year.

But Scotland’s numbers will remain virtually unchanged over the next 100 years, with the population reaching 5.5million, an increase of only 100,000.

Northern Ireland’s population will rise by the same amount to two million. But the number in Wales will increase by 700,000, to 3.9million.

The pressure group Migrationwatch has called for net migration to be cut to below 50,000 a year to achieve a stable population.