By IANS
London : Opposition parties called for tighter immigration controls, seizing on official figures published Wednesday that showed more than one in five births in Britain last year was to a foreign-born mother, mainly from Pakistan and Bangladesh.
With British fertility rates – the number of children per mother – at a 25-year high, figures released by the National Office of Statistics show that the proportion of births to a foreign-born mother is up by a third since 2001 and by nearly half since Labour came to power in 1997, the Daily Telegraph, a pro-Conservative Party newspaper reported.
The figures show that the average mother in Britain gives birth to 1.6 children.
But a break-up of nationalities shows that Pakistani mothers have a fertility rate of 4.7, followed by Bangladeshis at 3.9 and Indians at 2.3.
It shows that 154,000 – or 21 percent – of the 749,000 births in Britain last year were to immigrant mothers, compared to 12 percent in 1996 and 15 percent in 2001.
The figures were released in the midst of a major national debate on immigration. Newspapers reported Tuesday that more than 80 percent of new jobs created in the last decade had been taken by migrant workers.
The opposition Conservatives immediately called for tighter controls on foreigners entering Britain, saying public sector infrastructure was coming under strain.
“It is long past time the government came up with a proper population strategy,” said shadow home secretary David Davies.
“The figures show the impact immigration can have on the public sector infrastructure, including schools and hospitals, and why the government must answer our calls to take these factors into account. Immigration can be of real benefit to the country, but not all or any immigration.”
David Coleman, professor of demography at Oxford University, said the higher fertility rates among foreign-born women were “a direct consequence of the very substantial increase in immigration”, the newspaper reported.
However, he pointed out that a higher birth rate could also help offset an ageing population in Britain. The population of Britons aged 85 and over increased by six percent to reach 1.2 million by the middle of 2006, and the figure is expected to double by 2031.
According to United Nations agencies, countries such as Britain, Spain and Italy are facing what is called a ‘demographic trough’ – where falling birth rates combines with increasing life expectancy to create a situation where there are more old people in society than young, working-age people.
In such situations, experts argue, immigration is necessary to generate economic growth while helping run public service infrastructures in health and education.