Net migration hit record high with almost 1MILLION MORE people arriving than leaving last year, revised stats show
NET migration hit a monster 906,000 last year as Britain’s population continued to soar.
The border figures for 2022-23 were today drastically revised up from the initial estimate of 740,000 released in May.
This year’s net migration stats – from June 2023-24 – stand at 728,000.
In that time some 1.2million people arrived in the UK – mainly via legal routes but also small boats – and 479,000 left.
It means there has been a 20 per cent reduction in year-on-year net migration, largely driven by measures imposed by the last Tory government.
They include a ban on care workers bringing family to the UK, and also a higher salary threshold for foreign employees.
The ONS said that although remaining high by “historic standards”, net migration is “beginning to fall”.
But today’s stats will spark calls for even tougher border controls after net migration was around a city the size of Nottingham.
Meanwhile government spending on asylum seekers stood at £5.38billion last year, up from £3.95 billion.
Home Secretary Yvette Cooper has vowed to wrestle down the ballooning migrant hotel bill by increasing returns.
Yet the number of asylum seekers in hotels has increased since the election, standing at 35,651 on September 30 up from 29,585 on June 30.
Legal migration is by far the biggest contributor to total arrivals, with work and study visas the most popular routes.
Indian was the most common nationality to arrive, with 240,000 crossing the border last year.
They are followed by Nigerians (120,000), Pakistani (120,000), Chinese (78,000) and Zimbabwean (36,000).
People coming from the EU is now a tiny percentage of the overall figures after Brexit.
Former Conservative Home Secretary James Cleverly took credit for the 20 per cent reduction in annual net migration.
He said: “Today’s migration figures are the first to show the impact of the changes that I brought in as home secretary.
“Numbers are still too high, but we see the first significant downward trend in years.”
A Labour spokesman hit out: “In their own words, the Tories broke the immigration system.
“On their watch, net migration quadrupled in four years to a record high of nearly one million, despite saying they’d lower it to 100,000.
“They are an open borders party who lied time and again to the public. This is the chaos Labour inherited and any crowing from the Tories should be seen in that light.”
Shadow Home Secretary Chris Philp said: “Such high numbers place mounting pressure on housing, public services, and damage social cohesion, causing a real impact felt by communities across the UK.
“We need immediate action to enforce stricter controls on the border, get these numbers down, and put the needs of British workers and families front and centre.”
Tory leader Kemi Badenoch got ahead of the shock stats yesterday vowing to get tougher on immigration.
Vowing to “tell the truth on immigration,” she used her first major speech as Tory leader to warn: “This country is not a dormitory or a hotel, it is our home.”
She pledged a “strict” cap on arrivals with visas only doled out to those who “will make a substantial and clear overall contribution”.
And the Opposition chief promised to review Britain’s membership of the European Court of Human Rights and its basis in UK law.
Both policies mark a hardening in her position since she ran for the leadership and were adopted by her rival Robert Jenrick.
Taking aim at Labour and her Conservative governments on immigration, she attacked the “failure of politics over the last thirty years” to “gloss over it or make it a fringe issue”.
She also took aim at Home Office civil servants who would “much rather be working in a charity, helping people with asylum” than controlling borders.
Ms Badenoch said: “Millions want to come here, but we as politicians have to do right by the citizens of this country, before anyone else.
“Our country cannot sustain the numbers we have seen. We are reducing the quality of life for people already here.
“Because immigration is at a pace too fast to maintain public services, and at a rate, where it is next to impossible to integrate those from radically different cultures.”
She vowed to tighten citizenship and settlement criteria so a British part is “earned not an automatic right”.