MIGRATION AND POPULATION CHANGE IN BRITAIN

As the debate around net migration to the UK grows, it is important to focus on the facts of population change around Britain. A good place to start is the Office for National Statistics Population and Migration page from which the above graphic is taken -  http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/guide-method/compendiums/compendium-of-uk-statistics/population-and-migration/index.html
The UK is forecast to become the most populous country in Europe by 2035 - http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/immigration/8851902/Migrants-to-send-Britains-population-soaring-to-largest-in-EU.html - largely as a consequence of migration from within and outside the European Union. This has led to a growing number of calls for the impacts of migration and population change to be better understood, as well as reports questioning the sustainability - environmental, social, economic and cultural - of existing and predicted increases in Britain's population. Such critical reports include work commissioned by the think tank Civitas - http://www.civitas.org.uk/pdf/LargescaleImmigration - and the campaign group Population Matters - http://www.populationmatters.org/documents/myths_migration.pdf

Population forecasts have a level of uncertainty as acknowledged by ONS. What is needed are future scenarios based on lower and higher level projections and descriptions of their potential effects on key areas of concern. The UK government should have the intellectual and technological resources to do this and to engage the British public in an objective national discourse about migration and population. However, the traditional parties have hitherto eschewed such a "Big Conversation" - http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/3245620.stm - apparently preferring to accept that an already "Big Society" - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Society -
- is just going to get bigger regardless of the consequences. The recent award of a peerage to Sir Andrew Green, founder of Migration Watch - http://www.migrationwatchuk.org - for his work  "to improve public understanding of the impact of the very high levels of net migration" appears to indicate that the factual component of a popularist "big conversation" on this subject should now be supported in the managed political process.