Nicholas Soames: To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office if he will estimate the level of net migration per annum which would be required to stabilise the population of the UK below 70 million. [109561]

Nick Hurd MP; Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State: The information requested falls within the responsibility of the UK Statistics Authority. I have asked the authority to reply.

Letter from Stephen Penneck:

As Director General for the Office for National Statistics, I have been asked to reply to your Parliamentary Question asking for an estimate of the level of net migration per annum which would be required to stabilise the population of the UK below 70 million (109561).

The most recent national population projections, based on the resident population at the middle of 2010, were published by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) on 26 October 2011. Under the principal assumption of long-term annual net migration of 200,000, the UK population is projected to surpass 70 million people by 2027. ONS have not carried out any analysis to determine what level of net migration would be required for the population to stabilise below 70 million over the projection period to 2110. However, ONS has produced a number of variant projections based on alternative assumptions of net migration. Under the assumption of long-term annual net migration of 100,000 or less, the UK population would not exceed 70 million by 2035.

The assumptions underlying national population projections are demographic trend based. They are not forecasts and do not attempt to predict the impact that factors such as future government policies or changing economic circumstances might have on the population. The projections also become increasingly uncertain the further they are carried forward in time.