Net migration dips but only after revised record-breaking figures
If Number 10 and Number 11 harboured any hopes that attention would stay focused on the measures in the Chancellor’s Autumn Statement they were dashed this morning with the release of the latest immigration numbers.
Immigration looks set to become a central issue in next year’s general election, with the Reform party, run by Nigel Farage‘s friends, starting to make an impact in opinion polls.
Yet it was not the net migration figures for the year ending June 2023 (some 672,000) that grabbed the attention today, but instead the ONS’s revisions for the year before that bumped 606,000 up to a record-breaking 745,000.
So there has been a dip in net migration, but the ONS said it was too soon to know if this represented the start of a longer downward trend. And the numbers are still very high.
Net migration is the difference between the amount of people moving to the country to live and those moving out of the country. In total, 1.2 million people moved to the UK while 508,000 emigrated, resulting in net migration of 672,000 in the last year. Of the 1.2 million immigrants, 82 per cent (968,000) were non-EU nationals. Some 129,000 were EU nationals and 84,000 were British nationals returning.
Since major changes to the immigration system in January 2021, the amount of non-EU nationals moving to the UK has substantially increased. This is a result of many factors but importantly Brexit changes to the UK’s immigration laws played a part. In the year to June 2019, the overall net migration of non-EU nationals to the UK was 179,000. This year it was 768,000.
This year, there has been an increase in non-EU nationals coming for work on health and care visas – 33 per cent this year compared with 23 per cent a year ago. But the largest contributor to non-EU immigration was study, with 39 per cent of migrants arriving on student visas.
The top five non-EU nationalities for immigration into the UK were: Indian (253,000), Nigerian (141,000), Chinese (89,000), Pakistani (55,000) and Ukrainian (35,000).
Another significant change in the statistics this year is the number of dependents that non-EU immigrants are bringing with them. In 2019, relatives of non-EU migrants were 6 per cent of student migration and 37 per cent of work migration. Dependants now account for 25 per cent of non-EU student migration and 48 per cent of non-EU work immigration.
There has also been a reduction of people coming through humanitarian routes – 9 per cent (83,000) down from 19 per cent in the year to June 2022. As for asylum, this year 90,000 people immigrated long-term for asylum. This was an increase from 75,000 in YE June 2022. In July this year, government statistics showed 47,500 people (42% of people in receipt of asylum support) were in hotel accommodation at the end of March 2023 costing about £2.28 billion annually.
Immigration has soared in the last quarter of a century. At the beginning of the New Labour era in 1997, net immigration sat at 107,000. When the Conservatives came to power in 2010, it was 294,000. Since Boris Johnson’s landslide victory in 2019, an important promise of which was reducing immigration, the figure has sky-rocketed. Former home secretary Suella Braverman said today’s figures were “a slap in the face to the British public who have voted to control and reduce migration at every opportunity”. The New Conservatives, a caucus spearheaded by Tory MPs Miriam Cates and Danny Kruger, called it a “‘do or die” moment] for their party.
At least it has taken everyone’s mind off the rising tax burden.
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