General   (General discussion, talk about anything.)

Peter Israel

It’s always worth double checking newspaper figures with the official statistics.
The UK population has taken on a dramatic increase in the last few years which will take years to cope with in terms of housing and public services.
Starting with Mrs Thatcher’s government in 1979 the UK population was 56.2 million. At the start of Tony Blair’s government in 1997 it had risen to 58.2 million. At the end of Gordon Brown’s tenure it had risen to 62.5 million.
During the Blair/Brown government there were two significant law changes relating to immigration.
The UK adopted the EU human rights legislation with the final arbiter being the EU court of justice.
Several acts of Parliament were passed (from memory 80 odd in total) that changed the status of immigrants. From then on immigrants were to be legally considered to have the right to be in the UK.
In this current year the UK population has risen to 67.9 million which represents an increase from 1997 of 9.7 million or 17%. That’s equivalent to 3.5 times the population of Greater Manchester which has 1.2 million households.
One final note on this matter. Currently 30% of live births in England and Wales are to a foreign born parent/parents.
For comparison with our three largest EU neighbours, the population increases from 1997 to 2020.
Germany up 2% from 82 to 83.8 million.
France up 12.2% from 59.7 to 67 million.
Italy up 1% from 56.9 to 60.5 million.