Nicholas Soames: To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office what estimate he has made of the population of the UK in 2050. [112724]

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

Letter from Stephen Penneck, dated June 2012:

As Director General for the Office for National Statistics, I have been asked to reply to your recent Parliamentary Question to the Minister for the Cabinet Office, asking what he estimates the population of the United Kingdom will be in 2050.

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. The projected total population for the UK in 2050 is 78.4 million people.

Assumptions of future mortality, fertility and migration underlying national population projections are demographic trend based. The projections become increasingly uncertain the further they are carried forward. To help understand the uncertainty, a number variant projections based on alternative assumptions are also produced. National population projections 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.