Afternoon summary
Net migration boosted the UK population by a record 745,000 in the year to December 2022, fuelled in part by a surge in overseas professionals arriving to work in the NHS and care homes and prompting a furious response from rightwing Conservatives. The former home secretary Suella Braverman called the figures “a slap in the face to the British public” and called for much tougher visa restrictions and an annual cap on net migration. (See 4.09pm.)
The Labour MP Alex Cunningham has said that he does not accept James Cleverly’s claim that, in the Commons yesterday, he did not call Stockton a “shit-hole”, but he did call Cunningham, one of its MPs, a “shit”. The home secretary issued this account of what happened after Ben Houchen, the Tory Tees Valley mayor, joined Labour MPs saying Cleverly should apologise for his slur on the town. (See 2.20pm.) Cunningham told Radio 4’s PM programme he did not believe Cleverly’s new version of what happend and that people had seen the minister describe the town as a “shit-hole”. He went on:
I want an apology for the people of my community who are really upset about this.
As Mark Brown reports, Cleverly’s comment has provoked fury in the town.
But Houchen has welcomed Cleverly’s apology, describing him as “a good guy who made a mistake”.
I’m pleased James Cleverly has apologised for using unparliamentary language
Whatever was said, the speculation dragged Stockton’s name through the mud, which is unacceptable
We’re all human & he’s a good guy who made a mistake
Now let’s get back to building Teesside
I’m pleased James Cleverly has apologised for using unparliamentary language
— Ben Houchen (@BenHouchen) November 23, 2023
Whatever was said, the speculation dragged Stockton’s name through the mud, which is unacceptable
We’re all human & he’s a good guy who made a mistake
Now let’s get back to building Teesside https://t.co/6wboa1b3fZ
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A reader asks:
Regarding the immigration numbers it would be interesting to know how many are students and how many have come to work in the NHS.
Is there anywhere where these numbers are available or (and this wouldn’t surprise me) do the government not know?
These figures are all in the ONS report.
It says study is the biggest reason for non-EU immigration.
The largest contributor to non-EU immigration (39%) was study, which was largely unchanged compared with YE June 22; however, while historic evidence has shown that more than 80% of students typically left within 5 years, analysis of more recent cohorts is suggesting that more are staying for longer and transitioning onto work visas …
Those immigrating long-term on study-related visas (main applicants and dependants) made up 39% of non-EU long-term immigration at 378,000 in the YE June 2023. This is an increase from 320,000 in the YE June 2022. This increase is mainly attributed to dependants (from 58,000 in YE June 2022 to 96,000 in YE June 2023). The Home Office’s statistics report, Why do people come to the UK? To study, suggests that this is because of an increase in the number of visas granted to dependants from Nigeria and India.
The increase in the number of people coming to the UK to study in the last two years may partly be reflected in the attraction of the new Graduate visa route. This visa route allows international students to apply to work in the UK for at least two years after completing their studies.
But it also says that it is the increase in people coming to work is what has been driving the overall increase in non-EU immigration.
The increase in non-EU immigration in the YE June 2023 was mainly driven by migrants coming for work (up to 33% from 23% in YE June 2022), largely attributed to those coming on health and care visas; in contrast, those arriving on humanitarian routes decreased from 19% to 9% over the same period …
Those immigrating long-term on work-related visas (main applicants and dependants) made up 33% of non-EU long-term immigration in the YE June 2023, with an estimated 322,000 arrivals. This is compared with 198,000 in YE June 2022. This is split fairly evenly between main applicants (169,000) and dependants (154,000).
The Home Office’s statistics report, Why do people come to the UK? To work, shows growth in long-term sponsored work visas following the introduction of the “Skilled Worker” and “Skilled Worker - Health and Care” visas in 2020. Health and Care work visas were the most common type of work visa that dependants came to the UK on and is driving the increase in immigration of those on work dependant visas (from 86,000 in YE June 2022 to 154,000 in YE June 2023).
Badenoch tells inquiry extra funding would not have stopped ethnic minorities being disproportionately affected by Covid
Kemi Badenoch told the Covid inquiry additional funding would not have stopped ethnic minorities being disproportionately affected by Covid.
The equalities minister insisted:
Being an ethnic minority was not the cause of being disproportionately impacted. It correlated with what the causes were – the co-morbidities. So you have to tackle the actual cause, not the thing that comes in common with it.
There was no perfect way of finding a particular group to give extra cash to. And extra cash, in and of itself, would not have solved the problem which you were trying to resolve of trying to make sure people were protected and away from the virus.
Questioning her, Prof Leslie Thomas KC, of the Federation of Ethnic Minority Healthcare Organisations, argued “structural inequalities” could have been one of the causes, including poverty and discrimination.
But Badenoch said there was no “silver bullet” to resolving such issues, noting her team had not found structural inequalities in the research they undertook.
She said:
In terms of the issues around deprivation, poverty – a lot of work was done to look at what we could do to fix that but we can’t cure diabetes, we can’t remove poverty.
Reflecting on the broader levels of financial support given during the pandemic, she said it was inevitable some people felt excluded. “There will always be people who feel that they’re on the wrong side” regardless of where the boundary was drawn on support, she said.
Reflecting on what more could have been done to mitigate the disproportionate impact of Covid on disabled people and ethnic minorities, Badenoch said “joining forces” with the disabilities minister wouldn’t have made a difference.
She went as far as saying it was not possible to prepare for the pandemic, or have a government response ready.
I think just because you’re looking at things separately doesn’t mean there’s a hierarchy of needs. The evidence showed that disabled people were more impacted and we were keen to ensure that it was the people who were most impacted that got the most attention.
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Rees-Mogg suggests, if farmers can't produce fruit without foreign pickers, UK should just import it instead
Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg, the former business secretary, told Radio 4’s The World at One that he was “embarrassed” as a Conservative by today’s net migration figures, which show the party is failing to keep the promise it made at the 2019 election. (See 11.33am.) He said:
This is a phenomenally high level with economic consequences … I’m embarrassed that we haven’t achieved what we set out to achieve.
Rees-Mogg said the level of legal migration was a more serious problem than people crossing the Channel on small boats. “In terms of the numbers, the small boats is a distraction,” he said.
Asked if he agreed with Suella Braverman’s call for a cap on net migration numbers (see 4.06pm), Rees-Mogg said that this would be one way of reducing the numbers.
And when it was put to him that the UK needed to allow foreign workers to come to the country to pick fruit, he said he didn’t agree. He explained:
We don’t need fruit pickers. If fruit can be grown more cheaply and more economically in foreign countries, we should import fruit and focus on our competitive advantage.
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Braverman calls for annual cap on net migration, saying today's figures 'slap in face to British public'
Suella Braverman, the former home secretary, has described today’s immigration figures as “a slap in the face to the British public”. She is calling for much tougher visa restrictions and an annual cap on net migration.
She has made her comments in a short thread on X starting here.
Today’s record migration stats show we’ve let in an extra million people in just 2 years, a population equivalent to Birmingham. The pressure on housing, the NHS, schools, wages, and community cohesion, is unsustainable. When do we say: enough is enough? 1/3
— Suella Braverman MP (@SuellaBraverman) November 23, 2023
Today’s record migration stats show we’ve let in an extra million people in just 2 years, a population equivalent to Birmingham. The pressure on housing, the NHS, schools, wages, and community cohesion, is unsustainable. When do we say: enough is enough? 1/3
We were elected on a pledge to reduce net migration, which was 229k in 2019. Today’s record numbers are a slap in the face to the British public who have voted to control and reduce migration at every opportunity. We must act now to reduce migration to sustainable levels. 2/3
Brexit gave us the tools. It’s time to use them. As HS I pushed to:
- Put an annual cap on net migration;
- Raise the salary threshold to £45k (excluding health & social care);
- Close the graduate visa route;
- Cap health & social care visas;
- Limit dependents on all visas. 3/3
Kemi Badenoch, the business and trade secretary, has said the government is not doing enough to combat online misinformation.
She made the comment to the Covid inquiry, where she was giving evidence today in her role as minister for women and equalities.
Referring to misinformation that spread during the pandemic, she said:
I say this, even as a constituency MP, the number of people who come up to me in the street and tell me that I am part of a grand conspiracy to infect them, and ‘so-and-so died’ because of the material that we were putting out.
I don’t think government has got a handle on dealing with misinformation. I don’t think that we have adapted to this age of social media where information travels at lightning speed across the world.
I don’t know how we solve it, but in terms of gaps, I think there is a lesson in the pandemic that this is an area that needs some addressing.
Badenoch said she has heard there is a lot of work going on in departments on the issue, but added: “I don’t see it.”
Referring to deaths during the pandemic, Badenoch also said that, if ethnicity had been recorded on death certificates, the disproportionate impact of Covid on ethnic minority people might have come to light sooner. She said:
One of the recommendations I think that would have come in an earlier report was even about recording ethnicity on death certificates, which was something that we discovered was not being done and was a big issue.
I felt that if we had had that – I don’t know why it wasn’t recorded, I don’t know if there was ever a reason, it was just something that wasn’t recorded – if we had had that, we might, not certainly, but we might have been able to spot the disproportionate impact a little bit earlier.
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In the light of today’s ONS figures, Rob Ford, the politics professor who co-wrote Brexitland, one of the best books on the electoral trends explaining the vote to leave the EU, has posted a good thread on Twitter about attitudes to immigration. He says public support for restrictions on immigration has fallen significantly. The thread starts here.
A few slides from my recent lecture on long term trends in immigration attitudes which may be pertinent today:
1. Though migration is at record highs, the LT trend in public support for restricting migration is *downwards*
A few slides from my recent lecture on long term trends in immigration attitudes which may be pertinent today:
— Rob Ford (@robfordmancs) November 23, 2023
1. Though migration is at record highs, the LT trend in public support for restricting migration is *downwards* pic.twitter.com/6HCjw6AqvK
And here are some of his posts.
All of this represents a *huge* shift in the politics of immigration now compared to a decade or two ago. Opposition to immigration is *lower*, immigration is *less salient* and concern about it is now more concentrated in particular political and social groups
Instead, immigration has become a “wedge issue” for the Conservatives. They cannot ignore intense concern about it among about half of their current base. But talking about it constantly risks looking out of touch with swing voters who don’t prioritise it or see it positively.
Tl;dr - immigration remains a polarising issue. But that doesn’t mean the politics of immigration in 2024 will be like the politics of immigration in 2001-2016. The landscape of opinion has changed dramatically in the last decade.
Cleverly did call Labour MP 'shit', but did not use similar term about his constituency, source close to home secretary claims
James Cleverly, the home secretary, has suggested that he was misheard in the Commons yesterday, saying that while he did call a Labour MP “shit”, he did not describe the MP’s constituency as a “shit-hole”.
He will be hoping that his revised explanation ends a row that escalated this afternoon when Ben Houchen, the Conservative Tees Valley mayor, joined Labour MPs in saying Cleverly should apologise for his remarks about Stockton. (See 2.20pm.)
The row started when Labour’s Alex Cunningham asked why child poverty was so high in his constituency during PMQs yesterday. Labour MPs believe that, as Rishi Sunak was getting up to respond officially, Cleverly, who was sitting beside him, said it was because the town was a “shit-hole”.
In response to the accusation, a spokesperson for Cleverly said yesterday: “He did not say that, and would not. He’s disappointed people would accuse him of doing so.”
This afternoon a source close to Cleverly told PA Media his off-the-cuff remark in the Commons had been directed at the MP, rather than his constituency. The source said:
James made a comment. He called Alex Cunningham a shit MP. He apologises for unparliamentary language.
As was made clear yesterday, he would never criticise Stockton. He’s campaigned in Stockton and is clear that it is a great place.
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Tory Tees Valley mayor Ben Houchen says Cleverly should apologise for calling Stockton 'shit-hole'
Ben Houchen, the Conservative Tees Valley mayor, has joined Labour MPs in saying James Cleverly, the home secretary, should apologise for calling Stockton a shit-hole during PMQs yesterday.
Cleverly, through a spokesperson, has denied using the remark. But his critics believe his voice can be heard on the recording of MPs heckling Labour’s Alex Cunningham, who represents Stockton North, after he asked a question yesterday about poverty in the town.
In a statement posted on X, which shows Houchen does not accept Cleverly’s denial, Houchen says:
It is clear to me that the home secretary, James Cleverley, should apologise for dragging Stockton’s name through the mud …
This type of language only furthers the outdated and inaccurate stereotypes we’ve battled for years …
Childish and unprofessional language used by Westminster politicians, who should know better, does nothing to help our plans for progress.
It is clear to me that the Home Secretary, James Cleverley, should apologise for dragging Stockton’s name through the mud. pic.twitter.com/3I55wRGJ25
— Ben Houchen (@BenHouchen) November 23, 2023
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Starmer calls latest net migration figures 'shockingly high'
Keir Starmer has described today’s net migration figures, showing it at 745,000 in the year to December 2022 (a figure that has been revised upwards) and 672,000 in the year to June 2023, as “shockingly high”. Echoing language used by Yvette Cooper (see 1.07pm), Starmer said:
That figure is shockingly high. It represents a failure, not just of immigration, but also of asylum and of the economy.
Because within that figure there’s a huge increase in work visas, which shows the government hasn’t done what it needs to do on skills.
Within that number there are a rising number of asylum seekers and disclosure that the hotel bills are going up and up.
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Starmer says autumn statement won't stop people getting poorer
Keir Starmer has said that the autumn statement won’t stop people getting poorer over the course of this parliament. Speaking to broadcasters on a visit to Essex, he said:
Whichever way the government tried to spin the autumn statement, the reality is that living standards are dropping, the tax burden is going up and that disposable income at the end of this government is going to be less than it was at the beginning for ordinary working people.
That’s worth thinking about. That means people will have less money in their pocket at the end of this government than they had at the beginning. [See 12.48pm.]
Starmer also said a Labour government would have “tough choices” to make on public spending if it came to power. But he said the party had plans to raise funds through some tax rises that it has announced, and he said Labour would champion growth.
If we are privileged enough to come into power, I don’t underestimate the challenges that we will face because of the 13 years of failure that we’ve already had. That will require tough choices. But we have already said where we will increase tax …
The underlying answer has to be about economic growth. And if you’re going to have economic growth, you need a realisable plan that’s worked with business to make it actually work.
The government says it wants growth, but just look at the forecast they’ve got after 13 years of near negligible growth. They’ve now got a forecast that it’s not going to grow very much in the future.
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Labour says today's figures show 'scale of utter Tory failure on immigration'
Labour says today’s ONS figures show “the scale of utter Tory failure on immigration”. This is from Yvette Cooper, the shadow home secretary.
Today’s net migration statistics, including a 65% increase in net migration for work, show the scale of utter Tory failure on immigration, asylum and the economy.
These figures are driven by a 54% increase in work visas and a 156% increase in health and social care visas which prove the Conservatives’ abysmal record on skills, training and workforce planning, as they have run our economy into the ground.
They are still failing to make changes Labour has called for to end the 20% wage discount in the immigration system and to link it to training requirements.
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No 10 says net migration 'far too high' and that there's 'much more to do' in reducing it
Downing Street has said that net migration is “far too high”.
Commenting on today’s figures from the ONS, the PM’s spokesperson said the government was working to bring numbers down, but he said there was “much more to do”. He told reporters at the lobby briefing:
Net migration remains far too high. That’s why we are taking action to bring it down. That is what the British public expect.
That’s why in May we announced the toughest-ever action to reduce migration. That includes clamping down on the roughly 150,000 dependants of students who come into the UK every year and introducing an additional immigration health surcharge and raising visa costs.
We know this is predicted to lead to significant reductions. As we’ve seen today, the ONS figures show migration is now reducing year on year [see 10.06am], but we believe there is much more to do.
Where the system is being abused, we will leave no stone unturned in rooting that out so companies and individuals cannot exploit our system.
Asked why the government did not just issue fewer visas, the spokesperson said it was important to “strike the right balance” and that it was necessary to allow foreign workers in to address “short-term pressures” in areas, such as health and social care. He went on:
It is important that we take the time to consider carefully how we approach this, given the importance that a number of migrants can contribute – whether that’s to our health and care sector, or elsewhere to the wider economy.
We do believe there is further to go here and that’s why we’re keeping it under review.
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In its own report on the autumn statement, the Resolution Foundation thinktank says this will be the first parliament on record in which household incomes in real terms will be lower at the end than at the beginning. (See 9.02am.) Here is the chart illustrating this.
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The Institute for Fiscal Studies has also published a distributional impact of the autumn statement. Confirming what other researchers have said, it shows that the measures announced yesterday (the green bars on the graph – cuts to national insurance contributions and the increase in local housing allowance rates) benefit the richest households most. But, if all tax and benefit measures from April 2019 are included, the poorest 10% of households have gained most.
(In fact, the poorest 10% of households are the only group that have gained overall. But the changes have been progressive, in that wealthier households have lost out more – both proportionally and in cash terms – than poorer ones.)
Hunt's tax cuts give back less than 25p for every £1 taken by Treasury in increased taxes since 2021, IFS says
Turning back to the Institute for Fiscal Studies’ assessment of the autumn statement, it says that Jeremy Hunt’s tax cuts yesterday return less than £1 to taxpayers for every extra £4 they are paying because of tax rises since 2021.
Another way of putting that would be to say that, for every £1 the Treasury has taken, less than 25p is coming back under yesterday’s measures.
This is from the analysis by the IFS’s Robert Joyce.
The headline measures in this autumn statement were cuts to the rates of national insurance contributions for employees and the self-employed. Taken in isolation, these put money back into the pockets of almost 30 million workers at a cost of around £10 billion per year, with anyone earning at least £12,570, or making profits of at least £6,725, per year benefitting.
The bigger picture is that these changes give back less than £1 of every £4 that is being taken away from households through changes to NICs and income tax announced since March 2021. Those takeaways are far less transparent than the smaller giveaway announced today - implemented as they are through multi-year freezes to income tax and NICs thresholds, which gradually bring more and more people into higher tax brackets, and especially so at a time of high inflation.
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Labour says Cameron should reveal more details of his role in China-linked port project in Sri Lanka
Labour wants David Cameron to reveal the extent of his links to a Chinese-backed enterprise, PA Media reports. PA says:
Labour has questioned reports of the foreign secretary’s links to a Sri Lankan port development and its ties with the Chinese government.
MPs also continued to question the Tory peer’s role in the Greensill affair, in which he privately lobbied ministers in an attempt to win access for the now-collapsed financial firm to an emergency coronavirus loan scheme.
During Cabinet Office questions in the Commons, Labour’s Pat McFadden asked who the “ultimate client” was for Cameron’s “role in promoting the Port City Colombo project in Sri Lanka”, and if it was a company owned by the Chinese state.
The project is part of China’s global infrastructure strategy, the belt and road initiative, with Chinese companies involved in its construction.
The Cabinet Office minister John Glen replied: “This isn’t a matter for me. This is a matter for the processes that I have set out which have been complied with. And I believe Lord Cameron has made some comments with respect to those matters.”
McFadden had earlier asked “whether all benefits in kind received by the foreign secretary while he acted as a lobbyist for Greensill Capital have been properly declared”, and whether the former prime minister’s tax affairs were examined and considered by the House of Lords appointments commission before his peerage was approved.
Glen replied: “I’m not going to comment on media speculation … Lord Cameron’s appointment followed all the established processes for both peerages and ministerial appointments. The ennoblement was approved by the House of Lords appointments commission in the usual way, and that included a check with HMRC.”
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Tory MPs say party faces 'do or die' moment if Sunak can't slash immigration before next election
The New Conservatives, a group of rightwing Tory MPs co-chaired by Miriam Cates and Danny Kruger, have expressed alarm about today’s net migration figure.
In a statement, the group says that this is a “do or die” moment for the Tories and that Rishi Sunak should publish plans to show how the party will get net migration below 229,000, the level it was at the time of the last election, when reducing migration was a Tory manifesto promise. The New Conservatives say this must happen by the next election, which must be held by January 2025 at the latest.
They say:
For the Treasury, there may be reasonable arguments for increasing immigration – because more people translates into more recorded economic activity – but the truth is the public won’t accept it. Our voters can tell the difference between real economic growth that improves the standard of living for ordinary households, and the phantom ‘growth’ that importing ever more people puts on a Treasury spreadsheet.
High rates of immigration depress wages, reduce investment in skills and technology, put unsustainable pressure on housing and public services, and threaten community cohesion.
The word ‘existential’ has been used a lot in recent days but this really is ‘do or die’ for our party. Each of us made a promise to the electorate. We don’t believe that such promises can be ignored.
The government must propose, today, a comprehensive package of measures to meet the manifesto promise by the time of the next election. We will assess any such package and report publicly on whether it will meet the promise made to the electorate.
The New Conservatives include prominent supporters of Suella Braverman, the former home secretary who has herself criticised Sunak for not doing enough to bring down immigration.
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Hancock, Gove, Raab and Javid due to give evidence to Covid inquiry next week
The Covid inquiry has announced its timetable for hearings next week. Matt Hancock, the former health secretary, who has been repeatedly accused by witnesses to the inquiry of giving false assurances to colleagues, is due to give evidence for a day and a half, starting on Thursday. And Michael Gove, who as Cabinet Office minister at the time was one of the lead ministers dealing with Covid, is due to give evidence for most of Tuesday.
Sajid Javid, another former health secretary, and Dominic Raab, foreign secretary and first secretary of state during most of the Covid crisis, and stand-in PM when Boris Johnson was ill, are due to appear on Wednesday.
Here is the full schedule.
This timetable suggests Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak may appear the following week.
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Hunt has paid for tax cuts with unrealistic spending cuts which create huge problems for next chancellor, IFS says
The Institute for Fiscal Studies has released its full assessment of the autumn statement. In his summary, Paul Johnson, the IFS director, says Jeremy Hunt’s tax cuts are “paid for by planned real cuts in public service spending” which are not credible. He says this means Hunt has left a huge problem for whoever is chancellor after the next election. He explains:
The net result is that Mr Hunt is, by the narrowest of tiny margins, still on course to meet his (poorly designed) fiscal rule that debt as a fraction of national income should be falling in the last year of the forecast period. In reality debt is set to be just about flat at around 93 per cent of national income over the whole period. And that is on the basis of a series of questionable, if not plain implausible, assumptions. It assumes that many aspects of day to day public service spending will be cut. It assumes a substantial real cut in public investment spending. It assumes that rates of fuel duties will rise year on year with inflation – which they have not done in more than a decade and they surely will not do next April. It assumes that the constant roll over of “temporary” business rates cuts will stop. It assumes, of course, that the economy doesn’t suffer any negative shocks.
Like his predecessors Mr Hunt has taken a modest improvement in the public finance forecasts and spent most of it. He has spent up front and told us he will meet his targets largely by unspecified fiscal restraint at some point in the future. What he will do in March if the OBR downgrades its forecasts we do not know. Any such downgrading would leave him with a big headache. More importantly he or his successor is going to have the mother and father of a headache when it comes to making the tough decisions implied by this statement in a year or two’s time.
And here is Johnson’s conclusion.
The fiscal forecasts have not in any real sense got better. Debt is not declining over time. Taxes are still heading to record levels. Spending is also due to stay high by historic standards, not least because of high debt interest payments. But those payments plus pressures on health and pension spending mean current plans are for some pretty serious cuts across other areas of public spending. How did Mr Hunt afford tax cuts when real economic forecasts got no better? He banked additional revenue from higher inflation, and pencilled in harsher cuts to public spending.
I’m not sure I’d want to be the chancellor inheriting this fiscal situation in a year’s time.
Cameron visits scene of one of last month's Hamas massacres in Israel
David Cameron, the new foreign secretary, is in Israel, where he visited Kibbutz Be’eri, the scene of one of the Hamas massacres last month. He said:
I wanted to come here to see it for myself; I have heard and seen things I will never forget.
Today is also a day where we hope to see progress on the humanitarian pause.
This is a crucial opportunity to get hostages out and aid in to Gaza, to help Palestinian civilians who are facing a growing humanitarian crisis.
As PA Media reports, Cameron’s visit comes a day after he met counterparts from Arab and Islamic countries – including the Palestinian Authority – at Lancaster House in London to discuss the Middle East crisis. Foreign ministers from Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Egypt, Turkey, Indonesia and Nigeria, as well as the secretary general of the League of Arab States and the ambassador of Qatar, attended the event.
Cameron said the group discussed how to use the planned pause in the Israel-Hamas fighting to consider “how we can build a peaceful future which provides security for Israel but also peace and stability for the Palestinian people”.
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ONS puts net migration at 672,000, but says provisional figures suggest it might be falling from record high
Here is the Office for National Statistics’ report on migration figures. (See 9.33am.)
Here is an extract from the ONS’s summary. It puts the latest annual net migration figure at 672,000, but says provisional figures suggest this is starting to fall from a record high. That would be due to immigration falling and emigration rising, it says.
The provisional estimate of total long-term immigration for year ending (YE) June 2023 was 1.2 million, while emigration was 508,000, meaning that net migration was 672,000; most people arriving to the UK in the YE June 2023 were non-EU nationals (968,000), followed by EU (129,000) and British (84,000).
Net migration for YE June 2023 was 672,000, which is slightly higher compared with YE June 2022 (607,000) but down on our updated estimate for YE December 2022 (745,000); while it is too early to say if this is the start of a new downward trend, these more recent estimates indicate a slowing of immigration coupled with increasing emigration.
Methods for measuring international migration are in development, and these timely estimates for year ending June 2023 and December 2022 are provisional, supported by assumptions that are informed by past behaviour; this means the uncertainty associated with these estimates will reduce in our next releases, when we have more data to confirm people’s long-term migration status.
Before the coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic, migration was relatively stable, but patterns and behaviours have been shifting considerably since then; net migration increased sharply since 2021 because of a rise in non-EU immigration driven by a range of factors including those arriving on humanitarian routes (including Ukrainian and British national (overseas) schemes), as well as an increase in non-EU students and workers.
And here is a table from the report.
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Hunt says he feels 'incredibly guilty' after autumn statement - because he did not buy his wife birthday present or even card
Jeremy Hunt does not seem to have any qualms about the Conservative party misleadingly saying taxes are going down, when the tax burden is going up. (See 9.31am.) But there is something about which he feels “incredibly guilty”. He told LBC this morning that, despite starting his autumn statement speech with a reference to it being his wife’s birthday, he did not get round to buying her a present – or even a card. He said:
I’m afraid I have not bought anything for my wife. I didn’t even get her a birthday card. I feel incredibly guilty.
What I did was publicly acknowledge her birthday to millions of people, which is something I haven’t done before. So, hopefully I will be able to make up for that at the weekend.
Estimated net migration to UK in year to June 2023 was 672,000, ONS says
PA Media has just snapped this.
Estimated net migration to the UK stood at a provisional 672,000 in the year to June 2023, up from 607,000 in the previous 12 months but below a revised record figure of 745,000 in the year to December 2022, the Office for National Statistics said.
Hunt rejects claim it is misleading for Tories to say they are giving people 'biggest tax cut in British history'
Yesterday the Conservative party released an advert in history saying Jeremy Hunt had announced “the biggest tax cut in British history”.
This is HUGE for business.
— Conservatives (@Conservatives) November 22, 2023
It will be a big boost for the economy and living standards for families across the country. pic.twitter.com/G3scBSXt7A
In an interview on the Today programme, Nick Robinson put it to Jeremy Hunt that this was “downright misleading” given the fact that the tax burden is at a record high. Hunt rejected this. He replied:
No. We’ve been very clear and upfront that we’ve had to take difficult decisions to increase taxes to pay down our Covid debt. But we are starting now to bring taxes down again. That is very significant.
Hunt rejects claims his proposals to hold down government spending will make public services worse
In his analysis of the autumn statement, Larry Elliott, the Guardian’s economics editor, described it as “a classic ‘live now, pay later’ ploy in which pre-election tax cuts are paid for by implausibly tough public spending plans in future years”.
Larry is referring to the way the autumn statement includes spending plans for the future which have not gone up in line with inflation. Most experts think they are unrealistic because they think in practice a future chancellor will have to spend more to stop public services collapsing.
In an interview with Times Radio, Hunt defended his spending plans. “We do need to be disciplined in public spending in the short run,” he said. But he claimed that this approach was necessary to stimulate growth.
And when it was put to him that his spending plans would lead to public services getting worse, he said he did not accept that. He explained:
No, and the reason is very straightforward. If we want to have money to invest in the NHS, in schools, in our armed forces over the longer term, you have to grow the economy.
That is the only way in the longer run that you can fund the cost of an ageing population and that’s why I took those decisions for the long term.
In the short run, I am showing discipline with public spending. I think that is the right thing to do. We need a more productive state, not a bigger state.
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Households will be £1,900 poorer on average over course of this parliament, says thinktank
Jeremy Hunt may claim that his autumn statement wasn’t influenced by election timing (see 8.43am), but that’s not the view of the Resolution Foundation. The thinktank has now published its analysis of the autumn statement and its title is: “A pre-election Statement”. Here is a summary from Torsten Bell, the RF’s chief executive.
Jeremy Hunt yesterday got his pre-election giveaways in early, with an autumn statement offering tax cuts today, at the price of implausible spending cuts tomorrow. Well-targeted specifics, addressing problems such as our tax system’s bias against working-age earnings or benefit system’s failure to keep pace with fast-rising rents, were juxtaposed with far less well-designed big picture fiscal choices. Tax-cutting rhetoric clashed with tax-rising reality, and positive steps to encourage business investment combined with a growth-sapping hit to public investment.
Ultimately this reflects the pressures, not only of an upcoming election, but of governing a sicker, older, slower-growing Britain, amidst an era of far higher interest rates.
That might be difficult for policy makers, but it’s a disaster for households whose wages are stuck in a totally unprecedented 20-year stagnation. This parliament is set to achieve a truly grim new record: the first in which household incomes will be lower at its end than its beginning.
The thinktank says the fall in the value of real household incomes over the course of this parliament will work out at £1,900 on average in real terms. It says:
The biggest inflation shock in four decades, and taxes rising to their highest level in eight decades, means the outlook for living standards remains dire. Real household disposable income per person is expected to fall by 1.5 per cent in 2024 – presenting a bleak economic backdrop to the 2024 election. The last time RHDI fell in an election year was 50 years ago, in 1974. This helps drive a new grim record on living standards: this parliament is on track to be the first in which real household disposable incomes actually fall (by 3.1 per cent from December 2019 to January 2025): households will, on average, be £1,900 poorer at the end of this parliament than at its start.
The RF also says that around 40% of the gains from the tax and benefit measures announced yesterday will go to the richest fifth of the population. Graeme Wearden has more on this on his business live blog.
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Hunt says it is ‘silly’ to see his autumn statement tax cuts as pre-election giveaway
Good morning. The tax cuts in Jeremy Hunt’s autumn statement yesterday were larger than expected and, unusually, the national insurance cut will take effect from January, not April, when tax cuts or tax rises are normally implemented. Inevitably, that prompted speculation at Westminster that Hunt was preparing for an early election.
But in an interview this morning Hunt claimed it was “silly” to view his tax cuts as a pre-election giveaway. He told Sky News:
We haven’t chosen the most populist tax cuts. I think it’s silly to think about this in terms of the timing of the next election.
We’re trying to make the right decisions for the long-term growth of the British economy.
'Silly' to think of autumn statement in terms of election timing says Chancellor Jeremy Hunthttps://t.co/PAiZ4D1jU3
— Sky News (@SkyNews) November 23, 2023
📺 Sky 501, Virgin 602, Freeview 233 and YouTube pic.twitter.com/eoyfl1KJGy
Hunt also claimed he had not even discussed election timing with the PM. He told LBC:
I can confirm regarding the date of the election that I’ve had absolutely no discussions with the prime minister.
Those are some of the lines from Hunt’s morning interview round. I will post a full summary shortly.
Here is the agenda for the day.
9.30am: The ONS publishes its latest migration figures.
9.30am: Prof Dame Angela McLean, the government’s chief scientific adviser, gives evidence to the Covid inquiry. At 2pm Kemi Badenoch is due to give evidence as minister for women and equalities.
10.30am: The Institute for Fiscal Studies publishes its assessment of the autumn statement.
Morning: Jeremy Hunt is on a visit in Wrexham.
Morning: Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves, the shadow chancellor, are on a visit in Essex.
11.30am: Downing Street holds a lobby briefing.
12.30pm: Richard Hughes, chair of the Office for Budget Responsibility, speaks at an Institute for Government event.
Afternoon: Rishi Sunak is on a visit in Yorkshire.
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