Net migration could top 300,000 this year despite Tory manifesto pledge

Official figures are set to reveal a level on par with the numbers before Britain voted to leave the EU and ‘take control of its borders’

Net migration is set to hit more than 300,000 this year, returning it to the record levels of the mid-2010s, despite manifesto pledges to reduce it.

Official figures next month are expected to reveal net migration has increased by more than a quarter in a year from 239,000 last year, putting it on a par with the numbers before Britain voted to leave the EU and “take control of its borders”.

It follows a record 1.12 million applications by foreign nationals to work, study, resettle or join family in the UK in the past year.

The number of work visas issued to foreign nationals and their dependents has hit more than 330,000 in the year to June 2022, up nearly 80 per cent on the previous year.

Tom Pursglove, the immigration minister, admitted demand for work visas has been “extremely high” and “above forecasts”, forcing the Home Office to put on extra staff to process applications.

The disclosures will fuel the Cabinet row over proposals to further relax immigration restrictions to boost growth that saw Suella Braverman resign as Home Secretary.

Ms Braverman was resisting demands by Liz Truss and Chancellor Jeremy Hunt to liberalise the regime and to maintain net migration in at least the 200,000s to convince the Office for Budget Responsibility that growth from immigration could plug a £10 billion black hole in the finances.

The former Home Secretary saw it as a breach of the Conservative’s 2019 manifesto pledge to bring down overall migration after declaring it her ambition at the Tory conference to reduce it to “tens of thousands”.

Official data show that applications for work visas from migrants outside the EU are running at 58 per cent higher than what the Government forecast for post-Brexit.

Internal Home Office modelling suggested Boris Johnson’s new immigration points system would lead to work visa applications from individual non-EU workers would rise from 35,000 a year to just over 60,000 a year.

However, Home Office data for the year to June 2022 show that, in fact, it has risen to 95,000. This has been largely fuelled by the NHS and social care recruiting to plug staff shortages. The health sector accounts for nearly 60 per cent of the increase.

“Recruiting foreign doctors, nurses and care workers is a much easier way to bring people in quickly for the health service because domestic recruits are following a timetable where they have to be trained. You cannot magic up new doctors or nurses,” said Madeleine Sumption, director of the Migration Observatory.

The number of foreign students has also risen by 70 per cent in a year to 491,924 after the Government set a target of 600,000, while the arrival of more than 200,000 Ukrainians and Hong Kong Chinese has further swelled the numbers - though these numbers could dwindle in coming years.

Alp Mehmet, chair of think tank Migration Watch, said: “Given the removal of key controls, like a cap on work permits and the rule requiring employers to look locally first, the skyrocketing of immigration is no surprise. 

“The answer has to be to restore control and invest much more in training, especially in the IT and health sectors. 

“Employers could also raise wages and improve working conditions. The continued reliance on cheaper overseas labour is both self-serving and damaging to the UK labour force.”

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