Hege Storhaug, HRS
Totalt fødte utenlandsfødte mødre 184 000 barn i fjor, som på landsbasis utgjør 25,5 prosent av alle fødsler registrert på sykehus. I London var andelen 56,7 prosent. Andelen utenlandsfødte mødre har aldri vært så høy som I fjor på de britiske øyene.
Polakker stod for flest fødsler, tett fulgt av pakistanere, henholdsvis 20,495 og 18,434 babyer. Deretter følger India med 14,892 fødsler, Bangladesh med 8,371, Nigeria med 7,476 og Somalia med 5,654 fødsler.
Noen av barna som fødes er en del av den såkalte ”helseturismen”, altså at gravide kvinner i mindre utviklede land reiser til Storbritannia for å føde der under tryggere forhold. Et eksempel er nigerianske Bimbo Ayelabola (33) som valgte å besøke Storbritannia høygravid med femlinger (hun hadde gjennomgått fruktbarhetsbehandling). En sykehusfødsel stipuleres til å koste 1.600 britiske £, mens Ayelabolas fødsel, kostet skattebetalerne 200.000 £, melder Daily Mail. “Helseturismen koster Storbritannia 200 millioner £ årlig.
Storbritannia har hatt en innvandring på rundt 250 000 personer årlig, og måløet er å få innvandringen ned på 100 000 i 2015. Det er en lang vei å gå for å nå målet, da det i fjor ble registrert 216 000 nyankomne.
This means that means hundreds of thousands more people every year are coming to the UK when compared to numbers who leave.
Meanwhile the number of foreign-born mothers is rising consistently annually, with the figures now double what they were 30 years ago.
Figures compiled by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) showed that a 25.5 per cent of all children born in 2011 had foreign-born mothers, compared with 25.1 per cent the year before.
More than 20,000 were from Poland, followed by 18,000 from Pakistan, almost 15,000 from Indian and and more than 8,000 from Bangladesh.
It is the highest proportion of births to non-UK born mothers since parents’ country of origin was introduced in birth registration in 1969.
The ONS found that a slight rise of 0.1 per cent in the overall number of newborn children compared with 2010 was entirely due to foreign-born mothers.
Women born in the UK had 1,957 fewer babies in 2011 compared with the previous year, in a reversal of rising numbers of births to UK-born women since 2002.
Meanwhile mothers born outside the UK had 2,702 more babies, in line with a trend since 1995 for the number of births to women who came to the UK from abroad to rise year-on-year.
The ONS said: ‘This is the highest proportion of births to mothers born outside the UK since the collection of parents’ country of birth was introduced at birth registration in 1969.
‘This proportion has increased every year since 1990, when it was just under 12 per cent, with a marked rise over the last decade. In 2001 the proportion of births to non-UK born mothers was 16.5 per cent.’
It added: ‘The slight fall in the number of births to UK born women is a reversal of the previous trend of rising numbers of births to UK women since 2002. In contrast, the number of births to women born outside the UK has risen every year since 1995.’
Dr Martin Ruhs, director of the Migration Observatory at the University of Oxford, said the estimated figures were based on the International Passenger Survey (IPS) and margins of error meant they could be 35,000 higher or lower than stated.
So while net migration was put at 216,000 for last year, this was the central estimate for the figure which could range from 181,000 to 251,000, meaning that the apparent drop is not statistically significant.
‘There is a constant desire among policy makers in all parties, the press and other interest groups in having ‘hard’ facts and specific numbers about migration, but the reality is that sometimes these are simply not available,’ Dr Ruhs said.
‘The uncertainty around the official migration estimates means that the figures need to be used and interpreted with great care.’
NIGERIAN TOURIST HAD ‘£200,000’ QUINS ON THE NHS
Nigerian-born Bimbo Ayelabola, 33, travelled to Britain to give birth to quins at a cost of up to £200,000 to British taxpayers.
The wife of a wealthy businessman had two boys and three girls by Caesarean section in April last year and was in Homerton Hospital, East London, for almost two weeks.
Mrs Ayelabola, from Lagos, who had been taking a fertility drug, said at the time: ‘I had already had miscarriages and couldn’t bear the stress another pregnancy would cause. So I decided to visit my family in London.
‘I thought I would stand a much better chance of avoiding another miscarriage in a calmer place with friends and family.’
Mrs Ayelabola claimed her husband left her and returned to Nigeria after discovering she had given birth to five babies. She was given a visa to stay in Britain which runs out in December of this year.
Long-term immigration fell slightly to 566,000 from 591,000, similar to the level it has been at since 2004, while emigration rose slightly from 339,000 to 350,000.
Study was the most common reason for those coming to Britain, with figures showing 232,000 came last year, similar to the 238,000 in the year to December 2010.
But the number of visas issued for the purpose of study, including student visitors, were down a fifth in the 12 months to June, the ONS figures showed.
There were 282,833 visas issued for study, a fall of 21 per cent compared with the previous 12 months.
Sir Andrew Green of MigrationWatch said: ‘This is an astonishing fact, just slipped out by the ONS.
‘It throws a new light on the huge impact of mass immigration on our society and on our future.’
The Home Office told MailOnline that the statistics show their measures are working.
Immigration Minister Damian Green said: ‘We are now starting to see the real difference our tough policies are making, with an overall fall in net migration and the number of visas issued at its lowest since 2005.
‘At the same time, there are encouraging signs that we continue to attract the brightest and best and to support tourism in the UK.
‘We will continue to work hard to ensure that net migration is reduced from the hundreds of thousands to the tens of thousands by the end of this Parliament.
‘We are doing this by improving the selectivity of our immigration system and increasing enforcement activity to prevent people coming into the UK illegally and removing those with no right to be here.’