One per cent of Britain's population declare themselves to follow the "Jedi" faith and for the first time blacks and Asians outnumber whites in two areas of the country, according to the results of the 2001 census which were released yesterday.

Whites made up 39.4 per cent of people living in the East London borough of Newham and 45.3 per cent in Brent in the North West of the capital.

Nearly 72 per cent of people gave their religion as Christian (37 million).

The second largest faith was Islam with 1,547,000 followers - three per cent of the population.

There were 552,000 Hindus, 329,000 Sikhs, 260,000 Jews, 144,000 Buddhists - and 390,000 "Jedi" followers.