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BBC Online – Oct 8, 2024

Deaths have outnumbered births annually in the UK for the first time in nearly 50 years, excluding the Covid pandemic, new official figures show.

There were 16,300 more deaths than births in the year to June 2023, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) said. In Scotland and Wales, deaths outnumbered births while the opposite occurred in England and Northern Ireland, although not by a large margin.

The UK population still increased by the largest amount since the early 1970s, with net migration the main contributor across all four countries.

The ONS says the population grew by 662,400 to an estimated 68,265,200 people in the year to mid-2023 – a 1% increase.

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Migration surge drives fastest UK population increase on record

Melissa Lawford – The Daily Telegraph Oct 8, 2024

A surge in net migration has driven the fastest increase in the size of the UK population since at least the 1970s, official data shows.

The population grew by 1pc to 68.3m in the year to mid-2023, according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS), which was the biggest percentage increase since records began in 1971.

This was driven entirely by net migration as, for the first time in nearly 50 years, more people died across the UK than were born over the period. Without migration, the population would have shrunk by 16,300, representing the first time since 1976 that deaths outnumbered births, based on mid-year data tracked by the ONS.

The drop in the British-born population over the period reflects both a rise in the number of deaths and a fall in the number of births.

More broadly, it reflects a long-term decline in the birth rate in Britain. For comparison, births outnumbered deaths by more than a quarter of a million in the 12 months to mid-2012.

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