More
than one in five of children born in Britain in 2007 had a mother born
overseas – a total of 160,300 compared with 529,700 for British-born
mothers.
In
the London boroughs of
Newham and Brent, 74.8 per cent and 72 per cent of all births were to
foreign-born women.
The
increase – well above the 6.4 per cent rise in numbers of births among
British-born women – is because more immigrants are coming to live in
the UK, said the Office for National Statistics.
Critics
said the figures pointed to future problems for social cohesion.
Robert
Whelan, of the Civitas think-tank, said: “This shows the impact that
mass immigration is having on the demography of the country.
“It’s changing the
make-up of the population. Many of the children now being born will be
brought up in a different culture to that of the majority population.
“This
suggests there may be issues in the future when the children grow up.”
Among
women born in Britain, fertility rates are running at a low level.
British-born women will have a theoretical average 1.6 children each.
But
mothers born outside Britain have an average 2.2 children. And among
women from Pakistan and Bangladesh the average is 4.7 and 3.9 children
respectively.
Official
projections suggest that the UK population will reach 70 million by
2028, and that 70 per cent of the 10 million increase will be driven by
immigration.
Record
number of immigrants settled in the UK in the year to June 2007,
topping 600,000 for the first time and helping push Britain’s
population to a new high of 60,975,000, a rise of almost two million in
six years.
The
immigration rate of 605,000 – double the annual figure when Labour came
to power in 1997 – means that on average 1,650 newcomers are settling
here every day and almost a quarter of all babies in Britain are now
born to immigrant mothers.
The
number of births in the UK increased each year between 2001 and 2007,
when the proportion of foreign-born women in the childbearing
population increased to 14 per cent.
The
statistics office report stated: “The rise in the overall total
fertility rate is mainly due to increasing fertility among UK-born
women, since fertility among foreign born women has remained relatively
stable since 2004.
"However,
foreign-born women, who generally have higher fertility, are making up
an increasing share of the population, which is also acting to push the
overall total fertility rate upwards.
“This
has resulted in an increase in the proportion of births to foreign-born
women, from 15.3 per cent in 2001 to 21.9 per cent in 2007.”
Daily Express
