Birth Rates 2. Mr. Powell asked the Secretary of State for Social Services what estimate he has made of the proportion which births to mothers born in the New Commonwealth and Pakistan bore to total births during the last 10 years in Birmingham, Bradford, Huddersfield, Leicester, Wolverhampton and the boroughs comprised in the Inner London education area. Mr. Ennals Information on births by birthplace of mother, which first became available in 1969, is published annually by the Registrar-General. As the answer involves a number of figures, I will, with permission, circulate a table in the Official Report. Mr. Powell Do not these proportions, already covering nearly 10 years, give a very good indication, at any rate as a minimum, of the eventual proportion of the total population in these areas which will be of New Commonwealth ethnic origin? Mr. Ennals What they show is something very different from what I think the right hon. Gentleman has been suggesting. He picked his own years and his own areas. The figures show an average figure for New Commonwealth and Pakistan births of 22 per cent., which is far less than the figure of 33 per cent. to which the right hon. Gentleman has frequently referred. He should not assume that fertility rates in these ethnic communities will continue at a high level, nor that there will not be a movement of minority groups from one city to another, as is already happening. I point out to him that in many of the areas which he specified the proportion of births to New Commonwealth and Pakistan mothers went down during the period concerned. That includes the constituency that the right hon. Gentleman originally represented. Mr. Flannery Will my right hon. Friend accept from me that the obsession which the right hon. Member for Down, South (Mr. Powell) has about the births of coloured people is not shared by human beings in general throughout the entire universe, and that women will go on having babies as long as there are men with them? Is it not about time that we thought about improving the lot of all human beings instead of being obsessed with this particular aspect, as the right hon. Gentleman is? Mr. Ennals I agree with much that my hon. Friend said. It has, I believe, ----------------------------------------- |Birmingham | ----------------------------------------- |Bradford | ----------------------------------------- |Kirklees | ----------------------------------------- |Leicester | ----------------------------------------- |Wolverhampton | ----------------------------------------- |Inner London Education Authority: Total| ----------------------------------------- |Camden | ----------------------------------------- |Greenwich | ----------------------------------------- |Hackney | ----------------------------------------- |Hammersmith | ----------------------------------------- |Islington | ----------------------------------------- |Kensinston and Chelsea | ----------------------------------------- |Lambeth | ----------------------------------------- |Lewisham | ----------------------------------------- |Southwark | ----------------------------------------- |Tower Hamlets | ----------------------------------------- |Wandsworth | ----------------------------------------- |City of Westminster and City of London | ----------------------------------------- |Total of above areas | -----------------------------------------