Net migration has increased to a record level of more than 600,000 despite promises from ministers over four years to bring the total to below 245,000.
Figures from the Office for National Statistics show overall migration for 2022 was 606,000, which represents a 20% increase on the previous high of 504,000 last year.
The rise has been fuelled by people entering the UK to study, work or escape conflict or oppression.
Ministers have been braced for the figure for several weeks. It is particularly embarrassing for the arch Brexiters Rishi Sunak and Suella Braverman, who argued that leaving the EU would allow them to take control of UK borders.
The pre-Brexit average of net migration was between 200,000 and 250,000 a year. Braverman last year said she aimed to reduce overall migration to “tens of thousands” and Sunak has previously stuck to Boris Johnson’s 2019 pledge to bring down the overall figures to below 245,000. This week he has declined to give a specific target.
Immigration, via regular routes such as visa schemes and irregular routes such as across the Channel in small boats, will be a significant political battleground at the general election expected next year.
Sunak this week claimed the government’s new crackdown on foreign students – barring them from bringing in dependants or switching to work visas before completing their studies, and also reviewing their maintenance requirements – was the “biggest ever single measure” to tackle legal immigration.
Keir Starmer, the Labour leader, on Wednesday announced his party would scrap a rule under which overseas staff brought into the UK to fill vacancies on the shortage occupation list, including health, IT and engineering workers, could be paid up to 20% less than the equivalent domestic wage.
The surge in net migration – the number of people entering the country minus those leaving – will result in demands from Conservative MPs to go further to meet their 2019 manifesto pledge.
Although ministers claim a crackdown on students would have a “tangible” effect on net migration, their own forecasts acknowledged that net migration would still be about 500,000 by the time of the next election, due at the end of 2024.
They admitted net migration would only fall to pre-pandemic levels of between 200,000 and 300,000 in the medium term, defined by the Home Office as five years.
Overseas students and their dependants have been one of the biggest drivers of immigration, increasing by 76% from 354,900 in 2018 to 626,600 in 2022.
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Work visas have increased from 162,588 to 345,451 in the year ending March 2023. Other visas including humanitarian schemes for Ukrainians, Afghans and Syrians have also soared from 51,031 to 265,270 in the same period.
No 10 has so far rejected further measures proposed by Braverman to scale back the two-year graduate visa to only six months, as well as raise the salary thresholds to restrict the number of foreign skilled workers who can come to Britain.
She has been locked in a battle over net migration numbers with cabinet colleagues including the chancellor, Jeremy Hunt, and the education secretary, Gillian Keegan, over work visas.
Braverman’s rivals in the Conservative party say she is using the issue of immigration to position herself to take over from Sunak. Braverman, who has been dogged by scandals, has stated public support for Sunak.
https://news.google.com/rss/articles/CBMib2h0dHBzOi8vd3d3LnRoZWd1YXJkaWFuLmNvbS91ay1uZXdzLzIwMjMvbWF5LzI1L3VrLW5ldC1taWdyYXRpb24tcmVjb3JkLWhpZ2gtZGVzcGl0ZS10b3J5LXByb21pc2VzLWN1dC1hcnJpdmFsc9IBb2h0dHBzOi8vYW1wLnRoZWd1YXJkaWFuLmNvbS91ay1uZXdzLzIwMjMvbWF5LzI1L3VrLW5ldC1taWdyYXRpb24tcmVjb3JkLWhpZ2gtZGVzcGl0ZS10b3J5LXByb21pc2VzLWN1dC1hcnJpdmFscw?oc=5
2023-05-25 08:46:00Z
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