§ 58. Mr. Biggs-Davisonasked the Secretary of State for Social Services whether she will make a statement on the decline of the British birth rate.
§ Dr. OwenFigures showing the current birth rate in England and Wales were given last week in the Registrar General's Weekly Return. The annual total number of live births in England and Wales is estimated to have fallen by 7 per cent. in 1973–74, and shows no sign of levelling out. From the mid-1950s births increased on average by 3 per cent. a year until their post-war peak in 1963–64, but after that they fell by 2 per cent. per annum until 1969–70, then increased a little in the following year, only to decline more steeply at an average rate of about 6 per cent. per annum since 1970–71.
The provisional estimate of 13.3 births per 1,000 population of all ages in the year to mid-1974 is the lowest ever recorded; it compares with a previous post-war low of 15.0 in 1955 and with the pre-war low figure of 14.4 in 1933. However this rate—the crude birth rate—is considerably affected by the age and sex composition of the population. The fertility rate, which relates births to the number of women of childbearing age, is estimated at 69 per 1,000 women aged 15–44 for the year ended mid-1974, considerably higher than the comparable figure of 59 per 1,000 in 1933 and only slightly lower than the fertility rates of 72 to 73 per 1,000 of the early 1950s.
The factors which have caused the decline in the birth rate are highly complex and we need to know more about them. My hon. Friend, the Parliamentary Secretary, Civil Service Department, in his reply to my hon. Friend, the Member for Wolverhampton, North-East on 22nd July, announced that the Government therefore propose to give higher priority 417W to survey and research work to study fertility, as well as to mortality and migration.