Commenting on today’s population forecast, Sir Nicholas Soames MP and Frank Field MP, Co-Chairmen of the Cross-Party Group on Balanced Migration, said;

‘The Office for National Statistics have set out in stark terms the consequences of not reducing immigration to the UK. They project that if net migration is 185,000 per annum our population will increase by almost 5 million in the next ten years. 68% of this increase will be as a result of future migration. It is not in the national interest to increase our population so rapidly. It is not of benefit to the existing residents of the UK.  The country will become still more overcrowded and the housing crisis even worse. Reducing immigration to more sustainable levels must be front and centre of Government policy making.’