Net immigration to the UK hits a record high of 606,000

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Net migration to the UK rose to an all-time high of 606,000 in 2022, piling pressure on Rishi Sunak’s government, but the country’s statistics agency said the influx was stabilising.

Thursday’s record figures fell short of some earlier forecasts than net immigration it reached 700,000 last year. However, they bucked the Conservatives’ 2019 manifesto promise – reaffirmed by Sunak – that “overall numbers will go down”.

“The numbers are too high, it’s that simple,” the prime minister told ITV after the release of the 606,000 figure. “And I want to shoot them down.”

The Office for National Statistics said the total – which compares with a 2021 net immigration figure of 488,000 – was led by people who arrived in the UK from outside the EU, including from Ukraine and Hong Kong. Kong. But he said net migration to the UK was now leveling off, with immigration slowing and emigration picking up.

The statistics agency also noted that the migrant mix had changed over the year, with proportionally fewer new arrivals coming from students and more via humanitarian routes.

The ONS estimated gross immigration from outside the EU at around 925,000, up 287,000 from 2021. Students and their dependents made up more than a third of the total, with 235,000 arriving on visas of work and about 250,000 as asylum seekers or through humanitarian routes.

Non-EU emigration also increased, largely due to students returning home, leaving net non-EU immigration at 660,000.

Immigration from the EU, which accounted for more than half of arrivals until 2018, was just 151,000 in 2022. With 202,000 EU citizens leaving the UK during the year, net EU immigration it is now negative.

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Jay Lindop, director of the ONS Center for International Migration, said “unprecedented global events” combined with the lifting of Covid-19 restrictions have led to record levels of immigration.

But he added that the evidence suggested immigration was slowing, “potentially demonstrating the temporary nature of these events.”

Immigration remains highly politically charged, with the government under attack from the right, and Labor say they have lost control of the issue.

Sunak said measures announced this week to prevent foreign students from bringing family members along would lower levels over time, and urged the public to “be sure” they have control over the matter.

But current inflows remain far above the government’s 2010 pledge to reduce net immigration to “tens of thousands”.

The ONS also revised the net immigration figure for the year ending June 2022, which now stands at 606,000 after including asylum seekers, up from the previous estimate of 504,000.

Tory MPs have warned the government to redouble its efforts to reduce numbers.

“Where the hell are you going to host these people? We build around 180,000 new homes a year,” former Conservative minister Sir John Hayes, who chairs the so-called Common Sense group of right-wing MPs, told the BBC before the figures were released.

Labor has lashed out at the government over the ‘extraordinary figures’, noting that the number of work visas issued had doubled since the start of the coronavirus pandemic.

Shadow Home Secretary Yvette Cooper said the government “has no control over immigration” and “has failed to address skills shortages, especially in health and social care, or get people back to work after the Covid”.

However, Jonathan Portes, a professor at King’s College London, said figures show net immigration is expected to decline in 2023.

“The narrative that immigration is rampant or out of control is simply false,” he said. She added that the figures showed the continuing impact of Brexit, with “a complete reorientation of UK migration flows out of the EU and towards the rest of the world”.

Marley Morris, associate director for migration at the IPPR think tank, said ministers should avoid “gut reactions” to the figures.

He said there were clear signs of net immigration stabilizing and there was “strong public support for the main drivers of net migration, including NHS recruitment, international students and humanitarian routes”.