Migration Watch UK
November 24, 2022
Commenting, Alp Mehmet, Chairman of Migration Watch UK, said:
Net migration of 504,000 is a truly breathtaking figure. It is also unprecedented and Migration Watch UK takes no comfort from it being just as we predicted. The hideously loose post-Brexit immigration system, the ease with which people can make their way to the UK and stay, and the appalling failure to remove those with no right to be here, have all contributed to this astonishing net migration figure.
Will the Conservative and Labour leaders now accept that the level of immigration is damagingly high? And will the government tell us how they intend to bring it down?
See ONS release on net migration estimates
The ONS figures show that net migration has more than doubled in the space of one year. It is now at an all-time record and 170,000 more than the previous all-time record of a third of a million in 2015/16.
As well as the ONS release on estimated net migration, the Home Office issued new visa figures for the year to September 2022 which showed that there were nearly1.4 million residence visa grants (another all-time record) in the past year.
Only 56,600 of residence visas granted were to EU nationals. The primary reason for the huge recent increase is a rise in grants to non-EU nationals following introduction of the post-Brexit system in early 2021, including a loosening of the work and study visa systems and a removal of key controls.
See Home Office release: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/immigration-statistics-year-ending-september-2022