No 10 defends Sunak asylum backlog plan after Jenrick says it could boost arrivals: UK Politics Live | Policy

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New data from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) shows net migration at unusually high levels of 606,000 in 2022, and some are early signs that the numbers can have started the downward trend after peaking in the year to September…

Net migration is defined as the number of people who immigrate minus the number of people who emigrate. Today’s data, which is based on a tentative experimental methodology, suggests that the UK experienced long-term immigration of 1.2 million and emigration of 557,000 in 2022.

ONS figures suggest that net migration peaked at 637,000 in the year ending September 2022, before falling to 606,000 in the year ending December 2022.

The previous figure of 504,000, published last year for the year ending June 2022, was revised up, also to 606,000, due to changes in the methods the ONS uses to calculate the numbers. In other words, the ONS estimates that net migration did not increase between the two periods (the year ending in June and the year ending in December). Most of the upward revision to the previous figure (just over 70,000) was due to the decision to include asylum seekers in the figures for the first time since new methods were introduced after the pandemic. The rest of the increase was due to technical methods and data changes.