PRESS RELEASE

NEW GOVERNMENT FIGURES SHOW UK NEEDS NATIONAL POPULATION POLICY

The case for a national population policy has been reinforced by new government figures, published today (August 25) by the Office of National Statistics, which show England's population passing the 50 million mark for the first time and the UK’s population continuing to rise at record rates, according to the Optimum Population Trust.

The figures, which reveal a 281,200 increase in the UK’s population in the year to June 2004 , confirm that the UK’s population is growing faster than at any time since the “baby-boom” years of the mid-20th century and remains on course for a nearly 10 per cent increase, to almost 66 million, over the next 25 years. The 2003-2004 rise was 21 per cent higher than the previous year (232,100).

“On an overpopulated planet where crucial resources like oil are being used up fast, the new ONS estimates show that our population growth is out of control,” Prof. John Guillebaud, OPT co-chair and emeritus professor of family planning and reproductive health, University College London, said today. “It’s estimated that there are now, in mid-2005, more than 60 million of us in the UK and the forecasts show growth continuing for at least another 40 years. This should be a wake-up call to the Government. A small and crowded country like Britain cannot cope with the environmental pressures created by the rise in human numbers we are witnessing.”

The 2003-04 population rise of 281,200 is equivalent to a city nearly the size of Cardiff (population 292,000 in the 2001 Census). According to calculations by the OPT, based on current trends in household formation, vehicle usage and water consumption, just this one year’s growth will mean the UK having to find room for around 122,000 new houses and over 150,000 more vehicles, mainly cars. Given an average car length of four metres, this is equivalent to three lanes of the M25 motorway jammed solid with traffic for the whole of its (118-mile) length. In annual water abstractions, the population rise is equivalent to nearly a third of the volume of Windermere, England’s largest lake (the lake’s total volume is 69 billion gallons).

In terms of global “ecological footprint” - the amount of land needed to feed and service a population - the single year’s increase reported today is equivalent to over 1.5 million hectares - an area more than four times the size of Hampshire. (The UK’s per capita global footprint is 5.4 hectares). Most of this land will be overseas, much of it in developing countries. The UK is in effect appropriating such land to support relatively high British levels of affluence and consumption.

Growing strains on the UK’s environmental infrastructure caused by population growth include water shortages, housing pressures, traffic congestion, particularly in the South East, airport expansion, deteriorating air quality and new threats to the green belt. The Institute for Public Policy Research, the left-of-centre think-tank, recently warned of the “tensions” between economic and population growth and environmental sustainability (Commission on Sustainable Development in the South East. IPPR, July 2005). More than three-quarters of Britons think the UK is overcrowded, according to YouGov.

Many countries with lower population densities than the UK yet with lower levels of per capita consumption and environmental impact have successfully adopted policies leading to significant reductions in population growth rates. These include Thailand, Iran and Costa Rica. In the UK itself, a Government panel as far back as 1973 declared that Britain’s population could not “go on increasing indefinitely" and the government should “define its attitude” to the issue. The UK then had roughly four million fewer people.

Prof Guillebaud said: “Our government can no longer go on turning a blind eye to the UK’s population problem. No one disputes that this is a sensitive issue but it won’t go away if we simply ignore it. Other countries which do far less global environmental damage than the UK have shown what can be achieved on population reduction where the political will exists.

“At the very least the UK Government could set up an independent inquiry on the issue – or ask bodies such as the Sustainable Development Commission or the Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution to investigate it. If we don’t take action on population, there’s no doubt Britain will become a much worse place to live over the next few decades.”

For further information, telephone 07976-370 221 or see this website. Prof John Guillebaud can be contacted on 01865 863 982 or 07779 180188 (mobile).

Other contacts: Val Stevens (OPT Co-chair) 01509 843109; David Nicholson-Lord ( OPT Research Associate) 020 8693 5789; Rosamund McDougall (OPT Advisory Council) 07799 38 40 83 (mobile)