UK population growing 'so fast' Britain will have '18 new Birminghams' by 2050

The UK population jumped by its highest proportion since the early 1970s in June compared with a year earlier, new data has indicated.

And an immigration watchdog has said the figures amount to an “appalling” indictment of the Government’s “seeming indifference and reluctance” to face up to what amounts to an escalating crisis.

Net international migration was the main factor behind the rise, while deaths exceeded births for the first time – outside of the Covid-19 pandemic – in nearly five decades.

The population is estimated to have grown by 1.0% in the year to June 2023, according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS).

This is the largest annual percentage increase since comparable data began in 1971, following a 0.9% rise in the year to mid-2022.

"The government’s seeming indifference and reluctance to face up to the issue of greatest concern to the public is appalling.”

Reform UK MP Rupert Lowe said: "The 14 years of failure by the Tories and now Labour is finally being exposed.

Net international migration - the difference between the number of people arriving in the UK and those leaving - is currently estimated at 677,300 for the year to mid-2023, and was the "main contributor to population increase across all four countries of the UK", the ONS said.

An estimated 16,300 more deaths than births occurred in the UK in the year to mid-2023.

With the exception of the Covid-19 pandemic year of 2020, this is the first time since the mid-1970s that there has been a negative natural change in the population, with more deaths than births.

Natural change was last negative in 1976 - though this was based on year-end data, rather than the mid-year data used for population estimates, the ONS added.

Professor Sarah Harper, director of the Oxford Institute of Population Ageing, said the negative natural change is "not unexpected".

She said: "Given the current low birth rate in the UK, and the large post-war birth cohorts who have enjoyed longer lives now entering old age, the number of deaths we expect will increase each year over time as this generation of older adults ages and passes away."

The UK population estimate for mid-2023 of nearly 68.3 million is up by almost two million compared to mid-2018, when the figure was just under 66.3 million.

It is also more than four million higher than the figure of 64.1 million a decade earlier in mid-2013.

All estimates are expected to be revised within the next year as new data becomes available and improvements to estimates of international migration continue, the ONS added.

Sir Keir Starmer is determined to bring down net migration, Downing Street said.

The Prime Minister's official spokesman said: "The PM and the Home Secretary have been clear that overall net migration does need to come down, and we should end the situation where legal migration is used as an alternative to tackling skill shortages in the UK.

"And indeed, we've made announcements recently to achieve this, including the Migration Advisory Committee conducting annual assessments to highlight key sectors where labour market failures have led to rocketing overseas recruitment and the fact that rules around migrant sponsorship will be toughened to ensure employers guilty of flouting employment laws are banned from hiring from abroad."