Baby boom sees UK population pass 61 million

The UK population passed 61 million after the largest annual increase for at least a generation, figures from the Office for National Statistics show.

The rise to more than 61.3 million people last year was due to a baby boom, driven partially by immigration.

For the first time in more than a decade, natural change - the difference between births and deaths - has overtaken net migration as the main influence behind population growth.

This was partly due to the highest fertility rate in more than three decades and a sharp fall in overall net immigration which dropped by 44 per cent to 118,000 last year.

However, immigration is still having an impact on population growth because more than half of the increase in births last year was due to non-UK born mothers.

Figures from the ONS also showed the recession has led to a large increase in the number of migrants returning home, especially those from Eastern Europe.

There was a 28 per cent fall in the number of Eastern Europeans, including Poles and Slovakians, arriving in the UK last year while the numbers returning home increased by more than half to 66,000.

However, the flow from the so-called A8 countries, which joined the EU in 2004, is not over and there was still a net immigration of 13,000 last year.

A total of 408,000 people were added to the UK population last year - the largest numerical increase since 1972 and believed to be the highest on record.

But there is also an ever-increasing ageing population with the number of people over 85 now at a record 1.3 million, the equivalent of one in every 50 people.