Poland has surpassed India as the most common non-UK origin
of birth for people living in the UK, Office for National Statistics figures
show.
The news comes as net migration (difference between the
number of people coming to the UK for at least a year and those leaving) has
fallen to 327,000 for the year to March. The ONS figures -
for the period before Britain voted to leave the EU - are down slightly on the
previous year.
Despite rumours that Poles were all going back to a booming Poland a few years ago, it is now estimated that there are 831,000 Polish-born
residents in 2015 - a jump of almost 750,000 since Poland joined the EU along
with other seven Eastern European countries (the ‘Accession 8’) in 2004. India
and the Republic of Ireland have traditionally been the sources of the UK's
largest foreign-born migrants. Irish citizens enjoyed free access to the UK, or
the Common Travel Area, long before the EU.
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Figures show a slight decline in the numbers settling in the
UK from Poland, but the EU migration figures were offset by a massive increase
in net migration from Bulgaria and Romania, which reached record levels of
60,000.
Nicola White, ONS Head of International Migration
Statistics, said: "Net migration remains at record levels although the
recent trend is broadly flat.
"The influx of Romanians and Bulgarians has also
reached a new high, although that's off-set by falls in non-EU immigration and
from other central and eastern European countries.
"Work remains the main reason for migration, followed
by study which has seen a significant fall in the number of people coming to
the UK for education.
"It's important to remember that these figures only go
up to the end of March and do not cover the period following the UK's vote to
leave the European Union."
She added the UK's population continued to increase between
2014 and 2015, driven by "significant increases in both the non-UK born
and non-British national population of the UK".
ONS
estimates show that 13.3% - around 1 in 7 - of the usually resident
population of the UK were born abroad, compared with 8.9% in 2004.
London
is the region with the highest proportion of non-UK born residents.
A quarter – 1 in 4 - of births in England and Wales in 2015
were to foreign women born outside the UK, the highest level on record, according
to separate figures.
ONS statistician Elizabeth McLaren said: "The rising
percentage of births to women born outside the UK is largely due to foreign
born women making up an increasing share of the female population of
childbearing age in England and Wales.
"Part of the reason for this is that migrants are more
likely to be working-age adults rather than children or older people. Alongside
their increasing share of the population, higher fertility among women born
outside the UK has also had an impact."
Figures show that EU Immigration has not yet peaked and
following the Brexit vote, work permits could be introduced for European
migrants.
Some data from recent national insurance number (NI) registrations
indicate that EU immigration may have levelled off, although it will take six months to a year to see the
effect of the referendum.
The then Labour government, famously predicted in 2004 that
immigration from the new EU countries, who could only freely move to the UK,
Sweden and Ireland, would peak at 13,000.
In reality, it is impossible to know how many foreign born
people are living in the UK for a number of reasons.
Firstly, there is no counting-in/counting-out system
covering all migrants and visitors. The Labour government spent billions on IT systems
which were scrapped at the cost to the taxpayer.
Secondly, EU migrants can come and go without registering
and many do not apply for an NI number, for instance, the self employed. Croatiannationals, whilst part of the EU, cannot work here or obtain an NI numberwithout permission. Like Romanians and Bulgarians before them, many survive
here working in ‘cash in hand’ jobs on the black market.
Migrants can find work here without permits as child minders (as in the case of Baroness Scotland, the Minister who help draft immigration Rules), waiters, builders and in some areas as mini cab drivers.
Finally, there is an estimated 600,000 – 1,000,000 people
here illegally or overstaying their visas. Many have now had children who will eventually acquire British citizenship and will form the basis of an application to regularise the parents stay in the UK on human rights grounds. Even though the government will abolish the Human Rights Act, it is extremely unlikely that the UK will be able to find deport a million overstayers. The think tank, ippr, said it would take 20 years and £5 billion to deport 500,000 illegal immigrants.
Sir David Metcalf, the government's chief adviser on
immigration controls, has indicated that Prime Minister Theresa May was
considering introducing work permits for low skilled migrants from the EU. An estimated half a million EU migrants could be forced to leave the UK.
Sir David, head of the Migration Advisory Committee, told
the Telegraph the scheme would be "pretty straightforward" to
run and could be based on a previous work permit system for seasonal
agricultural workers.
Lord Green, of the Migration Watch pressure group said:
"The Brexit negotiations must achieve a significant reduction of EU
migration and very firm action is needed against overstaying students from
outside the EU."
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