Indians are largest migrant community in Great Britain

New figures released yesterday showed that one in nine people living in Britain were born abroad. They also showed that Indian-born people made up the largest number of foreign-born residents last year, with a total of 619,000.

The number of people born overseas who were resident in Britain increased by 290,000 last year to a record 6.5 million. The figures included 4.1 million foreign nationals living in the country in the year to June 2008, up from 3.8 million in the previous 12 months, according to the Office for National Statistics.

All in all, demographics reveal that one in nine people living in Britain were born abroad.

It was also shown that recession had slowed the influx of East European workers. Polish-born residents were the second largest group, after Indians, with 461,000 living in the country.

This is a consequence of the expansion of the European Union and also the fact that historically Britain always had a large Polish émigré population.

Evidence suggested that there has been a dramatic fall in the numbers of people emigrating from Eastern Europe, which is now down by almost half over the previous year.

The number of short-term migrants coming to Britain for work or study was also down 13 per cent on 2006 levels, indicating how the slump in the economy is affecting the number of people travelling to Britain.

Net immigration into Britain has increased dramatically since the early 1990s. While in 1992, 13,000 more people left Britain than those arrived; by 2007 the tide had reversed with migrants moving to the UK outnumbering those leaving by 237,000.

Danny Sriskandarajah, director of the Royal Commonwealth Society, is  quoted as saying the number of foreign-born people living in Britain compares with the estimated 5.5 million Britons who live overseas.

He said immigration to Britain had to be seen in the light of hundreds of years of Britain as a hub for people on the move. "Immigration adds to the patchwork of Britain," he said. "Two generations ago the country saw Jews escaping Nazism. One generation ago there were people from the former colonies coming to Britain seeking work and study. In the past decade it has been eastern Europeans coming to work.

"Britain is such an important hub for international migration because it has such substantial links with the rest of the world, either from the legacy of colonialism or its links with Europe."

The Liberal Democrat Home Affairs spokesman, Chris Huhne, said: "The sharp decline in economic migrants from eastern Europe is a clear demonstration of how unappealing the recession has made the UK to foreign workers. In their desperation to look tough on immigration and court headlines, many politicians and some sections of the media forget what an outstanding contribution immigration has made to our national life. The national dish is chicken tikka masala, half of London's nurses are immigrants and both of the last two England cricket captains were born in South Africa."