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Arrivals to Britain bolstered the population by about 250,000 per year between 2004 to 2015, whereas natural growth -- births minus deaths -- added about 200,000, the ONS said in a report published on Friday. Immigration peaked in 2014, with the increase over the previous decade coinciding with the expansion of the European Union to the east, it said.
[...] Separate data including the three months following the Brexit referendum showed net migration falling to the lowest in more than two years, the ONS said last month. May’s Conservative Party has repeatedly pledged to reduce the figure to below 100,000, a target critics say will be difficult to achieve.
The U.K. population climbed to a record 65.1 million in 2015 and is officially projected to exceed 71 million by 2030. Migrants tend to be of “traditional working age,” between 20 to 36, the ONS said.