UK net migration hits record high despite Tory
promises to cut arrivals
Rise to more than 600,000 in 2022 will be seen as
embarrassing for Brexiters Rishi Sunak and Suella Braverman
Rajeev Syal
Home affairs editor
Thu 25 May
2023 09.37 BST
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.
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.
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