Toucan

The trend of rising immigration levels in Britain is slowing, the Department for Work and Pensions said.

Figures released by the DWP show that in the financial year 2007/08, 733,000 National Insurance numbers were allocated to immigrants.

Although a four per cent increase from the previous year, this is the lowest rate of increase since figures first became available in 2002/03.

Nearly 10,000 fewer Polish nationals registered for a National Insurance number compared to the previous year.

There was a five per cent overall drop in migrants from the eight EU accession countries over the year.

However, in the 12 months to the end of June 2008, there was a 12 per cent increase in the number of asylum applications, the figures show.

In total, the UK population has hit almost 61 million, a population growth rate of 0.5 per cent. Migration made up 52 per cent of population growth, less than the 55 per cent registered last year.

The difference is down to ahigher birth rate, the DWP said.

The figures revealed other population trends. For the first time ever, there are more people of state pensionable age than under-16s.

This reflects a decline in the number of under-16s, which fell to 18.9 per cent of the population, compared with rising numbers of men aged 65+ and women aged 60+, who accounted for 19.0 per cent of the population at mid-2007.

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