Successive Conservative prime ministers have aimed to reduce net migration but they never seem to get there.
In 2010, David Cameron pledged to bring net migration – the difference between the numbers who arrive in the UK and the numbers leaving – down to “tens of thousands”. He missed every year.
Theresa May, the longest serving home secretary for 60 years with a hardline reputation, said she would hit the target while PM – she did not.
And in 2019, Boris Johnson promised “overall numbers would come down” as he aimed to “take back control” of UK borders in line with the leave campaign he led to victory. Instead, the numbers ballooned.
But none have been hit by the record-breaking net migration figure of 606,000 that landed on Rishi Sunak’s desk on Thursday morning, a day after an Ipsos poll found that Labour is now more trusted than the Tories on immigration policies.
Sunak, the child of Indian parents who had moved to the UK from east Africa, remains caught between promises to his party to curb immigration and demands from the economy and the public sector to allow more.
He has some genuine excuses. As Oxford University’s Migration Observatory has explained, non-EU migration has significantly risen thanks to the UK welcoming 114,000 people from Ukraine and 52,000 from Hong Kong.
But how should he explain the enormous boom in visas handed out to workers – particularly after Suella Braverman pledged she would repeat Cameron’s goal of cutting net migration to tens of thousands of people?
Part of the answer lies in Johnson’s decision to introduce a points-based immigration system allowing employers to recruit overseas workers with some language skills and earning potential of £25,600.
If employers want to employ staff on lower salaries and with fewer skills, they can lobby the government to make it easier for their particular sector to fill gaps in the labour market.
This has led to a change in the workforce coming to the UK. Post-Brexit, Indians account for more than a third of those coming to the UK on long-term visas. Many of the Polish workers who arrived in the early 2000s have left.
Because there has been a move towards allowing skilled workers, who tend to be older and less transient, many of those arriving now bring their families.
The Resolution Foundation has pointed out that the net migration rise has been entirely driven by non-EU workers, whose numbers are up by 220,000.
Migration patterns have shifted away from London, the thinktank has found. The West Midlands saw the biggest fall in the share of UK-born workers, down 5%, as well as the biggest increase in non-EU born workers, up 3 %.
Tight labour market conditions are a factor in the UK’s high inflation, and big business demands that skilled workers be allowed to enter the UK.
Last year, care workers were added to the shortage occupation list, allowing care homes to recruit overseas workers on £10.75 an hour, a little over the minimum wage. The number of overseas workers arriving to work in the health and care sector more than doubled last year.
Sunak’s dilemma of balancing political and economic demands remain fraught and were illustrated on Wednesday. Under pressure from Braverman, the government announced the tightening of rules for students’ family members, a move which may curb more than 130,000 dependants who arrive every year. On the same day, the government relaxed visa rules for fishers due to a labour shortage.
