Net migration to the UK has reduced by 20 per cent in the year to June after reaching a record of 906,000 last year, figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) show.
Initially estimated to have reached 740,000 in 2023, revised figures for last year show that net migration was estimated to be higher by 166,000. The statistics for this year indicate that net migration has now dropped to 728,000.
But what is net migration, and what do the latest figures tell us?
What is net migration?
With the latest long term migration figures out today, Jay Lindop, Deputy Director of Migration Statistics at ONS explains how migration patterns and behaviours have changed since the #COVID19 pandemic ⬇️https://t.co/X0ZCI9Ln5H pic.twitter.com/2hvQlxcHSU
— Office for National Statistics (ONS) (@ONS) November 23, 2023
Net migration is the difference between the number of people arriving and leaving the country.
A total of 1.2 million people are estimated to have arrived in the UK in the year to June 2024, while 479,000 are likely to have left.
A total of 1.18 million people are estimated to have arrived in the UK in the year to June 2023 while 508,000 are likely to have left – a difference of 672,000. Of the arrivals, around 1 million were non-EU+ nationals, 10 per cent were EU+ nationals and 5 per cent were British nationals.
Why was last year’s estimate revised?
According to PA, it’s normal for estimates of migration to undergo revisions as more data becomes available. The jump in last year’s figures is also due to changes and improvements adopted by ONS. As time passes, an increasing amount of information becomes available to show the impact of new arrivals - including numbers on visa applications, tax registrations and education statistics.
Last year, the ONS’s deputy national statistician Emma Rourke explained that its migration statistics “are always provisional and supported by assumptions around whether we think people will stay 12 months or more”.
The organisation said in an explanatory blog accompanying the latest release of figures that “provisional estimates will be updated with greater statistical certainty” as further data becomes available, allowing the ONS to understand more about “shifting patterns and behaviours – especially people staying in the UK for longer”.
Ms Rourke added: “We are responding to changes in a highly volatile world and our revisions reflect the unexpected patterns arising from that unpredictability. This will continue to influence our measures of uncertainty.”
Our provisional estimates show a 20% fall in long-term net-migration (difference between people coming to live in the UK and people leaving):
— Office for National Statistics (ONS) (@ONS) November 28, 2024
• 728,000 - latest estimate for year ending June 2024
• 906,000 - updated estimate for year ending June 2023https://t.co/D2UkfhQIYd pic.twitter.com/2wG0BT9wwY
But isn’t it confusing when statistics change?
The ONS faces a “trade-off between accuracy and timeliness”, according to Madeleine Sumption, director of the Migration Observatory at the University of Oxford.
She told PA last year: “The thing that people focus on is the recent figures and I think that they (the ONS) do just face a trade-off between accuracy and timeliness.
“And I think there’s a cost in terms of public trust, of having – even if the revisions are planned – revisions that are really big.”
She said the hope is that patterns will settle down, leaving it easier to predict who will turn out to be long-term and short-term migrants.
What has driven the rise in recent years and where are people coming from?
Post-pandemic, long-term migrational to the UK has been at “unprecedented levels”, the ONS said.
This is due to a number of factors, including the war in Ukraine, the impacts of a post-Brexit immigration system, and building demand for studying in the UK.
The ONS has estimated that the fall in net migration is due to a falling number of dependants arriving on study visas. New measures introduced by the previous Conservative government came into effect from January, including that international students were now prevented from bringing their family to the UK with them. Figures show that non-EU immigration of people coming to the UK as dependents on study via applications was around 80,000, which is down from 115,000 last year.
The declining number is also due to people leaving the UK who arrived on study-related visas themselves. “This is likely a consequence of the large number of students who came to the UK post-pandemic now reaching the end of their courses,” the ONS said.
What have political figures said?
The leader of the opposition Kemi Badenoch admitted that the Conservative party government had failed on migration. “On behalf of the Conservative Party, it is right that I as the new leader accept responsibility, and say truthfully we got this wrong,” she said in a speech on Wednesday.
A Downing Street spokesperson has said that the statistics prove that “the Government inherited a situation from the previous government where they had effectively run Britain as an experiment in open borders”. They continued that the current Government would work on “bringing down these record high levels of legal migration and tackling the root causes behind it”.
Calling the latest figures “horrendous”, Reform UK leader Nigel Farage said in a speech on Thursday that he believes the Conservatives would not be forgiven in the coming years “for what they have done”.
