Poles are now largest foreign-born contingent in Britain as migration grows
tally for 2015 announced shortly before the EU referendum.
The new migration total was made up of 633,000 arrivals from overseas last year, balanced against the 306,000 people who emigrated from this country during the same period.
Immigration from within the EU, at 268,000, was slightly lower than the inflow of 282,000 from countries outside the EU, but is still the second highest total ever recorded for European arrivals.
One reason is a record number of migrants from Romania and Bulgaria, which together accounted for an inflow of 69,000 people, a record annual high for those from the two countries.
The number of births to women born outside the UK has also reached the highest level on record, accounting for 27 per cent of babies born last year. Polish women accounted for the largest number of births. In the last five years, more than 210,000 babies have been born to eastern European mothers living in the UK.
The statistics will add to the pressure on Theresa May to reduce net migration, following the Brexit vote in which immigration was a key issue for a signific ant number of voters. Nicola White, head of migration statistics at the ONS, said today’s figures did not cover the period after the referendum and showed a “broadly flat” trend of net migration continuing close to record levels.
“The influx of Romanians and Bulgarians has also reached a new high, although that’s offset by falls in non-EU immigration and from ot her c e ntral and eastern European countries,” she said. “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.”
On the record number of Poles, she said: “The number of Polish-born citizens living in the UK has continued to increase since Poland joined the EU and the number of UK residents born in Poland was eight times higher in 2015 compared with 2004.”
Today’s figures also show that 5.6 million people — 1 in 12 people or 8.7 per cent of the population — who are living in Britain is a foreign citizen. They comprise 3.2 million EU nationals and 2.4 million citizens of countries outside the European Union. In London, 37 per cent of residents were born abroad.