ILLUSION,

CONFUSION, AND COLD HARD FACTS

AGE ......................................................................................... 5

BEING ‘BRITISH’ – NATIONAL IDENTITY ......................................... 6

BULLYING AND HARASSMENT IN THE NHS ..................................... 7

ETHNICITY ................................................................................ 8

IMMIGRATION AND COUNTRY OF BIRTH ........................................ 9

INCOME AND UNEMPLOYMENT .................................................. 10

LANGUAGE .............................................................................. 11

PARLIAMENTARY REPRESENTATION ............................................ 12

RELIGION ............................................................................... 13

THE NUMBERS ......................................................................... 14

www.brap.org.uk

4

What proportion of the population are immigrants? One in four, perhaps? Maybe one in three?

What about religion – how many people are Muslim would you say?

Don’t take this the wrong way, but chances are you’re probably wrong. Surveys have shown we’re extremely

misinformed on a range of key issues. For example, on average people think 31% of the population are

immigrants. In fact the figure is closer 10%. About a third of people think we spend more on Jobseeker’s

Allowance than pensions. In reality we spend 15 times more on pensions.

This short booklet examines some of the more common misconceptions we come across when we’re

delivering training. It’s intended to provide people with baseline knowledge of what the UK looks like. To

make this easier, we’ve added in a few graphs and images. These are usually proportional to the figures

they represent, so you can get a good grasp of the situation with a quick glance.

Although this booklet was developed with people attending brap training in mind, we think it might be

interesting to anyone wanting to know the facts behind tabloid headlines. We’ll be updating it every so often,

so if there’s anything you want included in future editions drop us a line at brap@brap.org.uk, send us a

tweet, or message us on Facebook.

A note on abbreviations: ‘BME’ stands for ‘Black and minority ethnic’. It refers to those ethnic groups that

don’t fall under ‘White British’. In this report we use the ethnic categories outlined in Census 2011

www.brap.org.uk

5

AGE

The largest age groups in the UK are 40-44 and 45-49, both representing 7.3% of the population. The age distribution of the UK is

as follows:

The population is ageing: this can be seen by looking at which age group is the largest, over time:

1991

25 to 29 8% 2001

35 to 39 7.9% 2011 45 to 49 7.3%

www.brap.org.uk

6

BEING ‘BRITISH’ – NATIONAL IDENTITY

The British Social Attitudes Survey in 2013 asked people what is important for people to be ‘truly British’1:

2013 2003

The ability to speak English 95% 86%

Having British citizenship 85% 83%

Respecting Britain’s political institutions and laws 85% 82%

Feeling British 78% 74%

Having lived in Britain for most of your life 77% 69%

Being born in Britain 74% 70%

Having British ancestry 51% 46%

Being Christian 24% 31%

Also, 50% of people agree2 with the statement “It is impossible for people who do not share Britain’s customs and

traditions to become fully British” (52% in 2003).

1 The percentages quoted reflect the proportion of respondents who answered ‘very important’ or ‘fairly important’ 2 Meaning the percentage of people who answered ‘agree’ or ‘strongly agree’

www.brap.org.uk

7

BULLYING AND HARASSMENT IN THE NHS

The 2014 NHS Staff Survey found that:

3% of

staff have

experienced

physical

violence

from staff in

the last 12

months

14% of staff

have experienced

physical violence from

patients, relatives or

the public in the last 12

months

24% of staff

have experienced

harassment, bullying or

abuse from staff in the last

12 months

28%

of staff have experienced

harassment, bullying or abuse

from patients, relatives or the

public in the last 12 months

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8

Other

Mixed

Black

Asian

ETHNICITY

Britain is a majority White country – 85.9% of the people living in the UK are white (more specifically, 80.5% of the population are

White British).

Only 14% of the population are BME, this breaks down as:

Asian 7.5%

Black 3.3%

Mixed 2.2%

Other 1%

The fastest growing ethnic group is ‘Asian’, which increased by 3.1% between 2001 and 2011 (5% of the population

were Asian in 2001, compared to 7.5% in 2011). The second fastest growing group is ‘Black’, which has increased from

2.2% of the population in 2001 to 3.3% of the population in 2011 (an increase of 1.1%). The fastest shrinking ethnic

group is ‘White’: in 2001 91.3% of the population were White, in 2011 this dropped by 5.4% to 85.9%.

www.brap.org.uk

9

IMMIGRATION AND COUNTRY OF BIRTH

In the year ending March 2015

636,000 people immigrated to the UK

An estimated 307,000 people emigrated from the UK

The recent British Social Attitudes Survey found that

31% of people think immigration has been good for Britain’s economy

47% think immigration has been bad for Britain’s economy

20% think immigration has been neither good nor bad for Britain’s economy

In terms of the cultural impact of immigration, 40% of people agreed that

“Immigrants improve British Society by bringing new ideas and cultures”

91% of people living in the UK identify with at least one UK national identity. The

vast majority of people who live in the UK were born in the UK (48,000,000+

people, 86.6% of the population). After England, Wales, Scotland and Northern

Ireland the highest countries of birth are as follows:

India 690,000 people 1.2% of the population

Poland 570,000 people 1.0% of the population

Pakistan 480,000 people 0.9% of the population

Ireland 400,000 people 0.7% of the population

EU accession countries3 350,000 people 0.6% of the population

Germany 270,000 people 0.5% of the population

3 Countries that joined the EU between April 2001 and March 2011, not including Lithuania, Poland and Romania

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10

INCOME AND UNEMPLOYMENT

INCOME

Income inequality has been rising for 30 years. In 2014 the average household had a

weekly income of £501.50. The richest tenth of the UK population saw their incomes

increase by 4% in 2012/13. But incomes were down by 15% for the poorest tenth of the

population.

There are 209,000 jobs with pay less than minimum wage held by employees aged 16 and

over, constituting 0.8% of UK jobs. In fact, there are more low paid employees in the UK

than in other developed countries4.

UNEMPLOYMENT AND SOCIAL SECURITY

At the beginning of 2008 the unemployment rate was just over 5% (1.6 million people

unemployed). In October 2014 the unemployment rate was 6% (1.96 million).

The number of people claiming unemployment benefits has also increased during the recession, but has been falling since

January 2012. In November 2014, 900,100 people were claiming Jobseeker’s Allowance.

In 2013, 36% of people supported more spending on welfare, but in 2014 this figure dropped to 30%. However, 46% of people

agree that cutting benefits damages people’s lives (up from 42% in 2010). When asked to rank welfare spending for different

groups in order of priority for extra government spending, the majority of people place retirement pensions at the top of the list and

benefits for the unemployed at the bottom. This has been the case since this question was first asked in the British Social Attitudes

Survey in 1994.

4 21% of the UK population earn less than two thirds of median full-time pay (i.e. the pay in the middle – earning more than the lowest paid half of the income distribution, and less than the highest paid half). Compared to 18% in Germany, 9% in Switzerland and Finland, and 6% in Belgium.

www.brap.org.uk

11

LANGUAGE

The most commonly spoken language is English, which is spoken by

49,800,000 people. The most commonly spoken languages after

English are:

Polish spoken by 540,000 people 1% of the population

Punjabi spoken by 270,000 people 0.5% of the population

Urdu spoken by 260,000 people 0.5% of the population

Bengali spoken by 220,000 people 0.4% of the population

ENGLISH PROFICIENCY

98.4% of the population speak English as their main language or can

speak it well. 1.3% cannot speak English well, and only 0.3% of the

population cannot speak English.

Polski

Polish

ਪੰਜਾਬੀ ਦੇ

Punjabi

اردو

Urdu

বাঙালি

Bengali

www.brap.org.uk

12

PARLIAMENTARY REPRESENTATION

ETHNICITY

In the 2015 election the number of BME MPs increased by 56% to 42.

However, the number of BME MPs is still lower than would be required

to be representative of the population - only 6.6% of MPs are BME,

while 14% of the population are.

GENDER

The representation of women in Parliament has increased relatively steadily over time, but the gender

split is still heavily weighted towards men – 29% of MPs are women, while 50.8% of the population

are.

EDUCATION

Of the MPs elected in 2015, a quarter (25%) attended private school, compared to just 7% of the

population as a whole.

71%

29%

93.4%

6.6%

www.brap.org.uk

13

RELIGION

The most common religion in the UK is Christianity – 63.9% of the country call themselves Christian.

After Christianity comes…

No religion 27.1%

Islam 5.2%

Hinduism 1.6%

Sikhism 0.8%

Buddhism 0.5%

Judaism 0.5%

Other 0.5%

www.brap.org.uk

14

THE NUMBERS Note: most of the larger numbers have been rounded to the nearest hundred thousand.

Intro: the figures on people’s misconceptions are taken from Social Research Institute (2013) Perils of Perception (accessible here: https://www.ipsos-

mori.com/researchpublications/researcharchive/3188/Perceptions-are-not-reality-the-top-10-we-get-wrong.aspx)

Age: figures on age come from the 2011 Census.

National identity: NatCen (2014) British Social Attitudes 31 (accessible here: http://www.bsa-31.natcen.ac.uk/media/38202/bsa31_full_report.pdf)

NHS bullying: NHS (2014) National NHS Staff Survey 2014 (accessible here:

http://www.nhsstaffsurveys.com/Caches/Files/NHS%20staff%20survey_nationalbriefing_Final%2024022015%20UNCLASSIFIED.pdf)

Ethnicity: figures on ethnicity come from the 2011 Census.

Income and employment: the fact that income inequality has been rising for 30 years is looked at in more depth here: Inequality Briefing (July, 2013) Video: Wealth inequality in

the UK (accessible here: http://www.inequalitybriefing.org/brief/wealth-video). Figures relating to average pay: ONS (November 2015) Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings,

2014 Revised Results (accessible here: http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/publications/re-reference-tables.html?edition=tcm%3A77-400776). Figures relating to the rise and fall in

income for different income groups is taken from: Inequality Briefing (May 2015) Briefing 58: The richest get richer, the poorest get poorer (accessible here:

http://inequalitybriefing.org/brief/briefing-58-the-richest-get-richer-the-poorest-get-poorer). Figures relating to the number of jobs paid below minimum wage: ONS (April 2015)

Low Pay, April 2015 (accessible here: http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/rel/ashe/low-pay/april-2015/index.html). Figures relating to comparisons of low pay to other developed

countries: Inequality Briefing (May 2015) Briefing 59: There are more low-paid workers in the UK than in other advanced economies (accessible here:

http://inequalitybriefing.org/brief/briefing-59-there-are-more-low-paid-workers-in-the-uk-than-in-other-advance). Unemployment figures can be accessed here:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/10604117. Data relating to attitudes to welfare spending are available from NatCen (March 2015) British Social Attitudes 32 (accessible here: http://www.bsa.natcen.ac.uk/media/38977/bsa32_welfare.pdf)

Immigration: figures on immigration: ONS (August 2015) Migration Statistics Quarterly Report (accessible here: http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/rel/migration1/migration-statistics-

quarterly-report/august-2015/stb-msqr-august-2015.html. Figures relating to public perception of immigration: NatCen (2014) British Social Attitudes 31 (accessible here:

http://www.bsa-31.natcen.ac.uk/media/38202/bsa31_full_report.pdf). Figures on country of origin come from the 2011 Census

Language: figures relating to main language and language proficiency come from the 2011 Census

Parliamentary representation: see The Guardian (May 2015) Record numbers of female and minority-ethnic MPs in new House of Commons (accessible here:

http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/may/08/record-numbers-female-minority-ethnic-mps-commons); and UK Political Info, Women MPs & parliamentary candidates since

1945 (accessible here: http://www.ukpolitical.info/FemaleMPs.htm)

Religion: figures relating to religious affiliation come from the 2011 Census

Updated December 2015

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