Government's hopes of reducing migration suffer blow with figures showing it remained at 250,000 in the year to June 2011
The government's hopes of reducing net migration to Britain to below 100,000 have suffered a fresh blow with the latest figures showing that it remained at the record level of 250,000 in the year to June 2011.
The Office of National Statistics said that figures published on Thursday showed long-term immigration remained steady at 593,000 coming to live in Britain in the year to June 2011.
Long-term emigration over the same period was also stable at 343,000 people going to live abroad, giving a net migration figure of 250,000.
The figures for the first year of the coalition government showed that net migration actually rose from 235,000 to 250,000 in their first 12 months in office.
This increase was driven by falls in the emigration side of the equation, with the number of people going to live abroad at its lowest level since 1998.
The latest quarterly ONS migration statistics report confirms that studying remains the most common reason to come to live in Britain, with an estimated 242,000 students arriving in the year to June 2011.
The figures also show that long-term immigration of new Commonwealth citizens – mainly from the Asian sub-continent – hit a record level of 170,000 – two-thirds of them students – over the same period.
A separate set of Home Office immigration statistics giving annual figures for 2011, which do not include an estimate for the politically sensitive figure of net migration, show that study, work or family visa applications to Britain fell by 6% last year. The latest visa data shows a fall in the number of overseas students since a peak in June 2010.
The immigration minister, Damian Green, insisted there were signs of progress: "Our reforms are starting to take effect. Home Office figures from the second half of last year show a significant decrease in the number of student and work visas issued, an early indicator for the long-term direction of net migration.
"Net migration remains too high, but is now steady, having fallen from a recent peak in the year to September 2010," he said. "This government remains committed to bringing net migration down from the hundreds of thousands to the tens of thousands over the course of the Parliament." The latest net migration figure is only 5,000 below the September 2010 peak of 255,000.
The number of people granted settlement, which is to be the subject of fresh curbs to be announced next week, fell by 32% last year to 163,477. But it is thought this drop represents a backlog of long-term asylum "legacy" cases moving through the system. There were 177,000 new British citizens – 9% fewer than in 2010.
The Home Office figures show a sharp rise in asylum cases in the last three months of 2011 to 5,261 – the highest quarterly total since 2009 with rises in applications from Pakistan, Libya and Iran.
The number of people detained for immigration reasons in Britain, already the highest in Europe, rose by 11% to 6,681 in the final quarter of 2011. The figure includes 41 children, the majority of whom were detained in the new "pre-departure" family accommodation run in association with Barnardos.
Ministers will also be concerned to see that removals and deportations also fell again during 2011 from 60,244 in the previous year to 52,526. The last three months of the year saw some recovery in the number of removals.
Comments