Say one thing, do another? The government’s record net migration rise

The 12 months to June 2022 saw the fastest population growth since the 1960s. Current projections from the Office for National Statistics put the UK on course for 74 million people by 2036 - six million more than there are today. The answer, according to the ONS, is largely immigration. Small boats are an important issue - on a human and national level.

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has made stopping the boats one of his five priorities. But it’s not small boats that are driving an increase in immigration. It’s choices made by the government. In 2022, it’s estimated to have reached an all-time record of 745,000.

Last year there were more than 1. 4 million visas issued to people relocating to the UK. In 2022, the government issued almost 300,000 humanitarian visas. Last year the number was 102,000 - that’s just 7% of the 1.

4 million visas issued. There was political consensus that issuing visas to people from Hong Kong, Ukraine and elsewhere was the right thing to do. The government has made other choices that have pushed up immigration. Last year, there were around 150,000 vacancies in England, and recruiting British workers remains difficult.

Care home owners responded by asking the government to make it easier to employ overseas care workers. Migration Advisory Committee also suggested the government should fund higher wages to attract more British workers into the sector. Government stopped overseas care workers from bringing dependants. Of all of those visas, more than 146,000 went to health and social care workers.

Another 203,000 of those went to their dependants, the government says. This seems certain to reduce net migration numbers, but it’s not certain how the care sector will find the staff it needs. Domestic tuition fees at English universities are capped at £9,250 a year. That hasn’t risen for seven years - but costs have.

Some universities have targeted higher-paying overseas students to help cross-subsidise UK undergraduates. Forty per cent of the students at Coventry University are from overseas. Last year the government issued almost 458,000 sponsored study visas. And almost 144,000 for dependants of postgraduate students.

Together, they made up almost 42% of the more than 1. 4 million visas issued last year. It achieved that goal nine years early. In May last year it announced that, from January 2024, most overseas postgraduate students would no longer be able to bring dependants.

This March, the government took further action - it ordered a review of the visa that allows overseas students to stay on and work. This, let’s remember, is the scheme the government had introduced only three years ago. Some universities are seeing a sharp drop in applications from overseas students for postgraduate courses. But there’s a risk that as applications go down, so does the income of some universities, says Universities UK.

But when you consider the dependant numbers that have come with students, that has been very, very challenging. Think tank British Future has shared its latest opinion poll with Panorama. For the first time in four years, the poll suggests a majority of 3,000 respondents - 52% - want overall immigration to fall. 69% of those polled say they are dissatisfied with the government on immigration - that’s the highest since its polling began in 2015.

Some argue that the government has overemphasised the issue of small boats. Almost 30,000 people came by small boats last year and 1. 4 million visas were issued by the government for people to come to the UK legally. Dr Sumption told me the media’s focus on small boats has probably created the impression that almost all migration comes that way.

Ms Braverman says she struggled to have a meaningful conversation with the PM. She was left to written correspondence on several occasions throughout a period of 12 months, putting forward policy proposals. 34;I think the prime minister has not necessarily assumed that it’s an important issue for the British people,"" she says. The government announced plans to cut net migration by reducing the number of people coming to the UK by 300,000.

The latest estimate for net migration is 672,000 for the year to June 2023. If the government meets its new target, that would take the numbers back towards where they were… just before the Brexit vote. There seems little doubt the government’s latest measures will make a difference. But if it does, the longer-term challenges that immigration has been easing may come into sharper focus.

Prof Anand Menon, who leads the independent think-tank UK in a Changing Europe, says there is an element of dishonesty in the government. For this government, for any government, these choices will involve difficult and sometimes expensive trade-offs. I’d hoped to ask Labour some questions about how it would approach these choices, but it declined. Legal Migration Minister Tom Pursglove argues that Brexit has given the UK greater control and flexibility to adapt immigration policy to circumstance.

In the Spring Budget, the Chancellor Jeremy Hunt said it would be easy to fill the 900,000 job vacancies with higher migration. Others point to recent data showing that one in five working-age adults are off work in the long-term. The government though still insists the numbers will and must come down. Despite all the promises, this government chose more immigration.

It is unlikely to be the last to do so, despite the promises it made to the British public. It’s time for a change in the way the UK is governed, says Lord Heseltine, the former head of immigration at the Home Office.