1. There is little doubt that the next set of official migration statistics to issue on 23rd May will confirm that the scale and pace of immigration has run out of control and that the post-Brexit immigration system must bear the bulk of the blame. The only effective way forward is now to impose a cap to ensure net migration is no more than 100,000 a year. This would have wide public support and might avoid the serious economic and social strains that are very likely to arise from the present chaos.

Introduction

2. Much press attention has been focussed on the asylum system, which is clearly in urgent need of reform, but the current scale of net migration is many times greater and about 20 times the rate of illegal Channel-crossers. Debates around the Rwanda Scheme should not be a distraction from reducing legal migration, which has been the main driver of mass migration over many years, and which will have a transformative impact on our society.

Graph 1: Net migration to the UK, 2000-2022^[1]

The consequences of uncapped migration

3. We now find that the nearly 8 million increase in the UK population in the 20 years preceding the last census in 2021 was 84% due to immigration. The latest ONS projections show a UK population increase of 6.6 million by 2036 of which 6.1 million (92%) will be due to immigration.^[2] Population increase on such a scale is unprecedented in our history and will have a major impact on the economy, society, and culture of the UK.

4. The impact on demand for housing and public services, especially the NHS, is already huge. Fifteen new Birminghams would be needed to accommodate immigration-driven population growth should uncapped migration continue at its current levels.^[3] This will mean building something like 6,700 schools, 2,600 GP surgeries, and 8,000 miles of road by 2046. We will also need to build over half a million new homes a year.^[4]

5. The social effects of millions of arrivals from different cultures are already considerable. Numbers matter. We find ourselves unable to assimilate migrants already here, let alone the accelerating rates of migration that are now being forecast. Challenges include multilingualism, reduced social trust, and sectarian conflict. We can see this clearly demonstrated by the current widespread antisemitism at extensive protests. Research has found that 46% of British Muslims sympathise with Hamas and 32% want Sharia law enforced in the UK. Too many new arrivals are not assimilating into British culture or accepting British values.^[5]

Public Opinion

6. Opinion polls now show that some 63% of the public believe immigration is too high.^[6] As much as 52% of the public want immigration reduced.^[7] But the public are simply not aware of the scale of the problem. Most people believe that 70,000 migrants entered the country last year, which is only about one tenth of the actual level. When asked, 80% of respondents want migration below 100,000 per year.^[8] They are certainly not aware that, if current levels of migration were allowed to continue, a child born today to an indigenous British couple would be in a minority in the country of his or her parents by the time they reached their forties.

Conclusion

7. British society is founded upon the shared heritage, values, rich history, and culture of the British people. Its future stability, economic wellbeing and cohesion are dependent on manageable levels of immigration which now drive unprecedented population growth. Massive levels of immigration from disparate parts of the world, if left unchecked, will result in a fractured society and increasing tensions between different religious and cultural groups, many from conflict-ridden parts of the world.

8. The way forward is a cap on overall numbers. Under the Conservative-Liberal Democrat Coalition the UK introduced its own cap on higher-skill visas (20,700 p.a.) for non-EU nationals. It worked. The cap was never breached and played a significant part in non-EU migration falling to its lowest levels since the 1990s. Caps have also been used with varying degrees of success in the United States, Canada, and Australia.

9. At present there is no effective control of immigration. The system has, in effect, been deliberately delegated to employers and universities with no limit on the numbers they can bring. This has to change. The government must take back decision making and impose a cap on immigration to be determined at the start of each parliamentary term. This should be set at a level to ensure net migration is less than 100,000 a year. A cap is the simplest and most effective means of control. In short: no cap, no control.

Annex A – Conservative Manifesto Pledges

Conservative Manifesto 2010 (p.21)

we will take steps to take net migration back to the levels of the 1990s – tens of thousands a year, not hundreds of thousands.

Conservative Manifesto 2015 (p.29)

keep our ambition of delivering annual net migration in the tens of thousands, not the hundreds of thousands.

Conservative Manifesto 2017 (p.54)

But with annual net migration standing at 273,000, immigration to Britain is still too high. It is our objective to reduce immigration to sustainable levels, by which we mean annual net migration in the tens of thousands.

Conservative Manifesto 2019 (p.20)

overall numbers will come down.

Net migration for calendar 2022 was 745,000.

Footnotes

1. Migration Watch UK (2023). ‘Migration Statistics Over Time’. Accessed on 14 May. Available at: https://migrationwatchuk.org/migration-statistics-over-time
2. ONS (2024). ‘National population projections: 2021-based interim’. 30 January. Available at: https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/populationand… ulationprojections/2021basedinterim
3. Migration Watch UK (2023). ‘Fifteen new Birminghams’. 8 November. Available at: https://migrationwatchuk.org/briefing-paper/518/fifteen-new-birminghams
4. CPS (2023). ‘Net migration and Housing – A CPS Briefing’. 27 November. Available at: https://cps.org.uk/research/net-migration-and-housing-a-cps-briefing/
5. HJS (2024). ‘Only one in four British Muslims believe Hamas committed murder and rape in Israel on October 7th’. 8 April. Available at: https://henryjacksonsociety.org/2024/04/08/only-one-in-four-briti… -and-rape-in-israel-on-october-7th/
6. YouGov (2024). ‘Do Brits think that immigration has been too high or low in the last 10 years?’. 28 April. Available at: https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/trackers/do-brits-think-that… oo-high-or-low-in-the-last-10-years
7. British Future (2024). ‘Immigration and the election: Time to choose’. 25 March. Available at: https://www.britishfuture.org/publication/immigration-and-the-election-time-to-choose
8. Onward (2024). ‘Reality Check’. 14 January. Available at: https://www.ukonward.com/reports/reality-check/

1. Britain’s population growth is nowadays entirely due to immigration. If net migration were to continue at the present record level of 606,000 a year, Britain’s population would rise to between 83-87 million by 2046. This would represent an increase of more than 15 million in Britain’s population – equivalent to fifteen new cities the size of Birmingham. This paper provides a description of what this would require in terms of new schools, hospitals, roads, bus lanes, colleges and police stations. Such mass immigration would place an intolerable strain on public services, especially health, transport and education. Table 1 provides a summary of the new infrastructure required. Of course, if net migration was to be held to four or five hundred the requirements for infrastructure would be proportionately less. There Is a strong case for an annual limit on net migration of about 100,000 a year.

Table 1: Infrastructure required to accommodate fifteen new Birminghams (2023) ^[1]

Population size and economic performance

2. According to Professor George Borjas of Harvard University, there are many “extravagant claims” that mass immigration increases the wealth of nations by the tens of billions of pounds^[2]. We are told that we need immigration to grow the economy, and that the more there is, the faster it will grow. As one political commentator recently put it: “Newcomers are a net benefit to a modern economy and should be welcomed accordingly.”^[3]

3. These claims are often accepted uncritically. Yet most serious academic attempts to identify such benefits have found that, at best, they are marginal^[4]. A larger population will certainly make the economy bigger, but it will not raise living standards unless it makes GDP (the quantity of goods and services) grow more rapidly than the population. What matters to the existing population is not GDP for its own sake, but GDP per head^[5]. Internationally, there is no evidence over the last century that countries with faster population growth have achieved faster income or productivity growth^[6].

4. Economic benefits from immigration unquestionably exist^[7]. But, beyond a certain point, the benefits do not increase in proportion to the numbers settling here, whereas the problems (and costs) do. In a densely populated city like London, for example, rapid population growth puts immense strain on public services, roads and transport, while increasing the cost of land and housing^[8]. The British taxpayer will often have to bear the cost: either through higher taxes or hidden subsidies such as those to make accommodation more affordable for key workers.

5. Furthermore large-scale immigration places increasing pressure on the pre-existing stock of infrastructure and land, thus reducing productivity and living standards unless costly new investments; these in turn choke-off other productive investment.^[9]

6. In general, smaller countries can thrive in a world with free trade. Many of the countries with the highest incomes per head have small populations – countries like Luxembourg, Singapore, Denmark and Norway^[10]. In that sense, Britain does not ‘need’ large-scale immigration. It has a population of 67 million, and considerable reserves of unused labour. High migration will increase Britain’s aggregate GDP, but this has little to do with individual welfare where per capita GDP is the relevant measure.

Population growth and public services

7. Should the level of net migration be allowed to continue, we will have to build around 6,675 new schools, 2,640 new surgeries, 135 hospitals, 75 universities, 75 police stations and 165 further education colleges by 2046. Expansion of infrastructure on such a scale would be both difficult and costly to implement, but the pressure on public services would become too severe to ignore.

8. To arrive at these estimates we have taken local authority data from Birmingham City Council and multiplied it by fifteen. However, these projections do not account for variations in geography and future settlement patterns, which cannot be forecast accurately in advance. Nevertheless, these figures provide a snapshot of the infrastructural challenges that the UK government would face should the level of net migration continue at the record level of 606,000.

9. Given the demands on infrastructure, it is not surprising that data from 32 OECD countries show no statistically significant association between productivity and population growth^[11]. In parts of England there is already intense competition for primary school places. Moreover, new residents signing up with their local GP in areas where immigration is high will exacerbate longer waiting times for GP appointments and treatments. To illustrate this point, Table 2 provides a breakdown of the thousands of schools that would be needed for fifteen new Birminghams:

Table 2: Schools needed for fifteen new Birminghams (2023)^[12]

10. Some argue for making the investments early so that new infrastructure becomes available at the time it is needed. This reflects a belief that immigration pressures can be handled by building more homes, schools, hospitals, roads, rail networks and airports. Unfortunately, the changes required to accommodate a rapidly growing population may be both difficult and costly to implement, even when problems have become too severe to ignore. As Professor Robert Rowthorn has noted: “Suitable land may not be available except at great material or environmental cost. Re-engineering existing cities to accommodate the additional population may be very costly, and expansion into the surrounding countryside may be resisted by local people.”^[13]

Population growth and transport systems

11. In addition to the impact on schools and hospitals, there is also the impact of immigration on roads and transport systems. In 2022, the average London driver lost £1,377 due to congestion, while drivers across the country missed out on £707^[14]. According to the INRIX traffic scorecard, Birmingham is the fourth most congested city in the UK, with an average of 73 “hours lost”:

Table 3: INRIX traffic scorecard, UK (2022)^[15]

12. Should the level of net migration be allowed to continue until at about 600,000 a year until 2046, Britain will have to build around 7,785 new roads and 2,235 bus lanes^[16]. Diseconomies of congestion will occur when demand for road travel exceeds the supply of roads. According to INRIX, “negative externalities like freight delay, inflationary pressure and environmental impact are generally exacerbated due to traffic congestion.”^[17]

13. In terms of population size, large-scale immigration may have benefited sparsely populated countries when they needed a certain size of population to develop their resources and achieve economies of scale. However, the reverse is the case in a densely populated country like Britain: current levels of migration generate diseconomies of congestion and increase the cost of land and infrastructure. Rapid population growth means that some other investment that would otherwise occur will tend to be ‘crowded out’ to make way for the infrastructure needs of the increased population.

Conclusion

14. A serious downside to large-scale immigration is its impact on population growth. As the population increases, the UK economy may receive some benefit from a larger talent pool and, perhaps, greater specialisation. However, much of the current massive inflow is relatively low skilled and any resulting benefits must be weighed against the future costs that a larger population will impose on land, housing, services and infrastructure. This paper demonstrates that mass immigration to Britain would place intolerable pressures on public services, especially health, transport and education. Even at lower net migration of 4-500,000 per year there would be severe pressure on infrastructure. The way forward, therefore, is to establish an annual limit on net migration of about 100,000 a year and stick to it.

Footnotes

1. Birmingham City Council., 2023. Directory. URL: https://www.birmingham.gov.uk/directories
2. Borjas, G. 2016. We Wanted Workers. p.132
3. Jenkins, S., 2023. “Britain is desperate for workers – but Sunak won’t admit immigration is the answer”, Guardian. URL: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/feb/06/britain-wor… -sunak-immigration-brexit-vacancies
4. Migration Observatory, 2022. “The fiscal impact of immigration in the UK”, URL: https://migrationobservatory.ox.ac.uk/resources/briefings/the-fis… al-impact-of-immigration-in-the-uk/
5. Coleman, D., and Rowthorn, R., 2004. “The economic effects of immigration into the United Kingdom..” URL: https://cooperative-individualism.org/coleman-david_the-economic-… mmigration-into-the-uk-2004-dec.pdf
6. Collier, P. 2013. Exodus: immigration and multiculturalism in the 21st century, p. 291
7. Productivity, vital to the economy, may be enhanced by immigrants moving into well-paid jobs that are in demand. This is most obvious in the case of skilled professionals – people who work in technology, finance, law, and medicine.
8. Collier, P., 2013. Exodus: immigration and multiculturalism in the 21st century, p. 291
9. Fry, J. 2014. “Migration and Macroeconomic Performance in New Zealand: Theory and Evidence “ URL: https://www.treasury.govt.nz/sites/default/files/2014-04/twp14-10.pdf
10. Collier, P, 2013. Exodus: immigration and multiculturalism in the 21st century, p. 291
11. Betts, K., 2015. “The tenuous link between population and prosperity”, The Conversation. URL: https://theconversation.com/the-tenuous-link-between-population-and-prosperity-38291
12. Birmingham City Council, 2023. Directory. URL: https://www.birmingham.gov.uk/directories
13. Rowthorn, R., 2015. The Costs and benefits of large-scale immigration, Civitas. p.41.
14. Fernandez, C., 2023. “Bad news for London commuters!”, Daily Mail, URL: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-11619213/Londons-roads-congested-WORLD.html
15. INRIX Global Traffic Scorecard, 2022. URL: https://inrix.com/scorecard/
16. Ibid.
17. Ibid.

1. The Conservative election manifesto in 2019 stated that attracting highly skilled workers would be a key policy objective. The government’s aim was to make the UK “a magnet for the best and brightest”, meaning that “there will be fewer lower-skilled migrants” and “overall numbers will come down.”^[1]

2. This paper finds that, in practice, the reverse has been the case. The description of future immigrants as “the best and brightest” turned out to be the reverse of the truth. Here are the key findings:

• Since 2019, there has been a near six-fold rise in skill-related work visas for non-EU main applicants from 27,000 to 159,200.
• Nearly 60 per cent of all foreign workers in the UK are employed in jobs that are not highly-skilled – totalling just over 3 million people. These occupations include immigrant chefs, butchers, fishmongers and poultry dressers.
• The share of skilled work permits being granted for below-graduate level jobs rose from 11% in 2021 to 62% in 2023.
• Since overhauling its immigration policies, the UK Government has gradually expanded a list of shortage occupations, making It easier for software developers and even ballet dancers to immigrate. However, by far the biggest increase has been for 62,018 immigrant care workers – jobs that require a minimum level of education.

Introduction

3. The UK government has systematically made immigration easier. Net migration is now at a record high of 606,000, up from 219,000 in 2019. This is the highest number on record, demonstrating that the UK government has failed to deliver on its repeated promise to control and reduce immigration. Post-Brexit changes to the UK immigration system have expanded work visas on a scale never previously experienced.

4. Figure 1 (below) shows that 159,000 skill-related work visas were granted to non-EU nationals in 2022/23, a nearly six-fold increase from 27,000 visas issued in 2018/19:

Figure 1: Grants to non-EU citizen main applicants for Tier 2 (General) visas and post-2021 equivalents (not including intra-company transfers) (2019 – 2023). ^[2]

Grants to non-EU citizen main applicants for Tier 2 (General) visas and post-2021 equivalents (not including intra-company transfers) (2019- 2023)

50K100K150K

27.3K

38.3K

31.7K

71K

159.2K

YE March 2019

YE March 2020

YE March 2021

YE March 2022

YE March 2023

Note: This graph includes both pre-2021 points-based system Tier 2 (General) visa grants to main applicants, and grants to applicants of Skilled Worker visas (not including intra-company transfers) since January 2021. Both are included in Figure 1 for the sake of clarity, since they both allow migrants to move to Britain to do an eligible job with an approved employer.

Get the dataDownload imageCreated with Datawrapper

5. The Skilled Worker visa is the main work route under the UK’s new ‘points-based system’. It was introduced in 2020 and has replaced a visa previously known as Tier 2. Unlike the Tier 2 visa, there is no maximum amount of time that can be spent in the UK on a Skilled Worker visa, provided the leave remains valid.

6. Migrants applying to work in the UK under this Skilled Worker route need to demonstrate that they meet a specific set of requirements for which they must score at least at least 70 points. In addition to passing the relevant UK criminality checks, the applicant must speak English to an acceptable standard (10 points); must have a job offer from a licensed employer (20 points); and the job must be at or above the minimum skill level (20 points). The remaining 20 points are awarded for meeting a salary threshold for the future job, which can be lowered if the applicant has a Ph.D. or a job offer for an occupation on the Shortage Occupation List.

7. To qualify for the Skilled Worker visa, the applicant must be going into an occupation that is classed by the government’s ‘Regulated Qualifications Framework’ (RQF). The RQF has nine levels from the least challenging Entry Level up to the most challenging or difficult, which is a Ph.D. (at Level 8). The minimum requirement for a Skilled Worker visa is a job offer skilled to RQF Level 3. These jobs typically require at least A-level education – a significant reduction from the previous requirement for a degree.

8. In addition, all jobs have a corresponding Standing Occupational Classification (SOC) code. SOC is used to identify the relevant going rate and salary threshold for each job, both at ‘new entrant’ and ‘experienced’ rates, and provides details such as example job titles associated with a four-digit occupation code. Only occupations featured on this list can qualify for the Skilled Worker visa route. With the relevant SOC code selected, the employer can then assign a Certificate of Sponsorship (CoS) to the applicant.

Table 1: Interaction between RQF skill levels and SOC occupation codes (2017).^[3]

Notes:* RQF Levels 6-8 were open to non-EU recruitment prior to the PBS, but subject to an annual cap of just under 21,000.
** RQF Levels 3-5 were opened to overseas recruitment by the PBS in 2021.
*** RQF Levels 1-2 are mostly not open to global recruitment apart from, for example, migrant care workers.

Data

9. This paper provides an analysis of skills possessed by migrant workers as measured by the RQF and SOC frameworks. Analysis of occupations by skill level and nationality are derived from the Labour Force Survey – a study of the employment circumstances of the UK population. Meanwhile, the number of skilled visas granted in each quarter, including visas for non-graduate jobs, is based upon information provided by the Home Office.

10. This dataset only provides data for 115 of the 140 SOC occupations skilled to the mid-level (RQF Levels 3-5). This may be due to the fact that no work permits were issued for those outstanding roles, possibly due to jobs under those categories failing to meet the minimum salary threshold.

Non-graduate jobs

11. The government has said that the points-based system will reduce the number of legal migrants coming to the UK. It has also claimed there will be “fewer lower-skilled migrants”. However, examination shows that the government’s rhetoric does not match the reality on the ground. In fact, government policy is now to encourage, sustain and even to increase levels of lower-skilled migration. Figure 2 shows a significant increase in the number of Skilled Worker visas granted for non-graduate jobs (RQF Levels 3-5), which amount to 124,104 since 2021:

Figure 2: Skilled Worker visas granted for non-graduate jobs (2021 Q1-2023 Q2)^[4]

Skilled Worker visas granted for non-graduate jobs (2021 Q1-2023 Q2)

Total Skilled Worker visa grants

Of which: Jobs skilled to no higher than A-level (RQF Levels 3-5)10,00020,00030,00040,00050,000

11,269

248

12,387

888

20,286

2,170

22,958

4,478

24,909

6,627

30,159

9,298

43,502

15,786

43,349

21,219

52,441

32,059

50,166

31,329

2021 Q1

2021 Q2

2021 Q3

2021 Q4

2022 Q1

2022 Q2

2022 Q3

2022 Q4

2023 Q1

2023 Q2

Get the dataDownload imageCreated with Datawrapper

12. In short, the government has manipulated the points-based system to increase immigration rather than restrict it. It has done so by opening up the entry requirements to a number of job roles that previously would not have been eligible under the Tier 2 visa. This includes:

• abolishing the annual cap of non-EU workers arriving in the UK (set at just under 21,000);
• opening RQF overseas recruitment to lower skill levels (RQF 3-5);
• opening still lower levels (RQF 1-2) to migrant care workers^[5];
• the removal of the Resident Labour Market Test (the requirement that jobs should first be advertised on the home market before being offered to applications from overseas).
• lowering the general salary threshold from £30,000 to £25,600.

13. To give some idea of trends in the data, Figure 3 shows the percentage of skilled work permits being granted for non-graduate jobs, which rose from 11 percent in 2021 to 62 percent in 2023. That figure is nearly double the share of mid-skilled work permits granted when Britain was last open to such occupations between 2009 and 2011. During this period, non-graduate roles made up between 24 and 35 percent of work permits granted.^[6]

Figure 3: % of Skilled Worker visas granted for non-graduate jobs (2021 Q3-2023 Q2)^[7]

% of Skilled Worker visas granted for non-graduate jobs (2021 Q3-2023 Q2)

204060Jul2021OctJan2022AprJulOctJan2023Apr

11

20

27

31

36

49

61

62

Get the dataDownload imageCreated with Datawrapper

Foreign-born workers by skill level

14. In total, there are 368 SOC codes covering different roles in the UK labour market. This code can be broken down into nine broad ‘skill categories’, as explained in Appendix A. Here is a brief summary:

• High-skill occupations: SOC codes 1 and 2
• Mid-skill occupations: SOC codes 3, 4 and 5
• Low-skill occupations: SOC codes 6, 7, 8 and 9

15. SOC codes 1 and 2 are deemed to be highly-skilled. These roles require significant knowledge of the production process, with some occupations requiring a postgraduate degree or formal period of job-related training. Examples of jobs in this category include civil engineers and medical practitioners.

16. SOC codes 3, 4 and 5 are deemed to be mid-skilled. These roles involve a substantial period of full-time training and a moderate/minimum level of education. Examples of jobs in this category include butchers, bakers, florists and gardeners.^[8]

17. SOC codes 6, 7, 8 and 9 can be categorised as low-skilled. They generally require a shorter period of work-related training and a minimum level of education. Examples of jobs in this category include care workers, call centre operatives, cleaners and security guards.

18. Table 2 shows the total number of foreign employees in Britain divided by their occupation’s SOC category. It is clear from this data that the government’s selection criteria for limiting the number of lower-skilled foreign workers has failed. For example, 53 per cent of non-EU workers are employed in jobs that are not highly-skilled – totalling just over 1.8 million people:

Table 2: Foreign-born workers by skill level (January-March 2023)^[9]

19. Nearly 60 per cent of all foreign nationals working in the UK are employed in jobs that are not highly-skilled – totalling just over 3 million people. Table 3 provides a list of such occupations and the number of visas granted for those roles between 2021 and 2023 Q2. They include immigrant chefs, butchers, fishmongers and poultry dressers. Entry clearance visas were also granted for carpenters and joiners (391), bricklayers and masons (230), dental nurses (151), and bakers and flour confectioners (100). By far the largest cohort, however, are care workers and home carers.

Table 3: Skilled Worker visas granted by occupation (2021 Q1-2023 Q2) ^[10]

Care workers

20. The ‘Health and Care Worker’ visa is a sub-category of the Skilled Worker visa. It allows medical professionals to come to or stay in the UK to do an eligible job with the NHS, an NHS supplier or in adult social care. It has the same requirements as the Skilled Worker visa but applies to particular SOC codes on the Shortage Occupation List.

21. In the past, elementary care workers were not eligible for recruitment under the Health and Care Worker visa. This changed in February 2022 when immigration rules were relaxed for foreign care workers, who were added to the Home Office’s Shortage Occupation List. This policy change was prompted by a recommendation from the Migration Advisory Committee, which said that there were “severe and increasing difficulties” faced by the care sector following the Covid-19 pandemic.^[11] Since Q1 2022, 62,018 work permits have been granted for migrants occupying care worker roles:

Figure 4: Skilled Worker visas granted to care workers (2022 Q1-2023 Q2)^[12]

Skilled Worker visas granted to care workers (2022 Q1-2023 Q2)

Skilled Worker visa grants for care workers

Total Skilled Worker visa grants20,00040,000

113

24,909

1,869

30,159

6,645

43,502

11,252

43,349

20,671

52,441

21,468

50,166

2022 Q1

2022 Q2

2022 Q3

2022 Q4

2023 Q1

2023 Q2

Get the dataDownload imageCreated with Datawrapper

22. To qualify under the points-based system, immigrant care workers must be paid an annual salary of £20,960 or above. This is much lower than median annual pay for full-time UK workers (£33,280 in April 2022)^[13] and also well below the ‘break even’ point of £30,000-£38,000 per year (i.e. the level of income at which taxes paid to the Treasury ‘balance out’ the consumption of public services and other benefits). Therefore, it is likely that this specific immigration route imposes a net fiscal cost on the British taxpayer.

23. Analysts at the Migration Advisory Committee have noted that a policy of encouraging the recruitment of migrant care workers will “not solve underlying problems with pay and incentives that are fundamental to placing the social care sector on a sustainable footing.”^[14] As one former Chair put it: “the central problem is that the [social care] sector does not pay enough and the terms and conditions are not attractive enough. The sector is not paying the market wage… the bullet has to be bitten on that.”^[15]

Conclusion

24. Shortly before introducing its post-Brexit immigration system, the government said the aim of this policy would be to make the UK “a magnet for the best and brightest” workers from around the world. It added that “there will be fewer lower-skilled migrants” and “overall numbers will come down”. The opposite has happened, with net migration levels nearly tripling from 219,000 in 2019 to a record 606,000 in 2022. In addition, the government has failed to reduce overall levels of lower-skilled immigration, and is now intent on opening further low-skilled routes.^[16]

25. Home Office visa grant data shows growing shares of ‘skilled’ work permits being issued since 2021 for overseas workers to fill below graduate-level roles (including 62,018 low-skilled care work jobs in the past year). Other jobs seeing significant work permit grants include nursing auxiliaries, chefs and bar managers.

Appendix

Broad grouped Standard Occupational Categories (SOC) codes ^[17]

Footnotes

1. Conservative election manifesto, 2019, p. 20. URL: https://assets-global.website-files.com/5da42e2cae7ebd3f8bde353c/… Conservative%202019%20Manifesto.pdf
2. Home Office visa statistics. Tier 2 (General) grants to main applicants and post-1 January 2021 ‘skilled worker’ equivalents.
3. Calculations by the Migration Advisory Committee using the Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings (2017). Data reproduced from MAC report on EEA migration, September 2018, p. 113, URL: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/syste… ta/file/741926/Final_EEA_report.PDF
4. Home Office data, ‘Sponsored work entry clearance visas by occupation and industry’, Table Occ_D01. https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/syste… pation-visas-datasets-jun-2023.xlsx
5. Care work is the only occupation skilled below RQF level 3 that qualifies for the Skilled Worker visa. However, in 2020, following appeals by the care worker industry, the MAC reclassified two occupations within SOC code 9119 (fishing and other elementary agricultural occupations) to RQF Level 3 if they have at least three years full-time experience. MAC report on Shortage Occupation List, 2020, p. 16, URL: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/syste… le/927352/SOL_2020_Report_Final.pdf
6. MAC report, Points-Based System, 2020, p. 185, URL: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/syste… hresholds_Report_MAC_word_FINAL.pdf
7. Home Office data, ‘Sponsored work entry clearance visas by occupation and industry’, Table Occ_D01, URL: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/syste… pation-visas-datasets-jun-2023.xlsx
8. Ibid
9. Office for National Statistics, Labour Force Survey, 2023.
10. Home Office data, ‘Sponsored work entry clearance visas by occupation and industry’, Table Occ_D01, URL: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/syste… pation-visas-datasets-jun-2023.xlsx
11. Annual report by the MAC for 2021/22, p. 2, URL: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/syste… Annual_Report_combined_FINAL_v3.pdf
12. Home Office data, ‘Sponsored work entry clearance visas by occupation and industry’, Table Occ_D01. https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/syste… pation-visas-datasets-jun-2023.xlsx
13. The ONS calculated that median weekly pay for full-time employees was £640 in April 2022. At 52 weeks per year, this totalled £33,280 per annum. ONS, Employee earnings in the UK: 2022, URL: https://www.ons.gov.uk/employmentandlabourmarket/peopleinwork/ear… annualsurveyofhoursandearnings/2022
14. MAC review of shortage occupation list, 2020, p.127.
15. Professor Alan Manning, Home Affairs Committee, Home Affairs Committee, Oral evidence: Post-Brexit Migration, HC 1614, Tuesday 9 October 2018, Q55, URL: http://data.parliament.uk/writtenevidence/committeeevidence.svc/e… ostbrexit-migration/oral/91576.html
16. MAC, Construction and Hospitality Shortage Review, March 2023, URL: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/syste… ty_Shortage_Review_-_March_2023.pdf
17. ONS, SOC 2020, January 2023, ‘SOC 2020 Volume 1: structure and descriptions of unit groups’, URL: https://www.ons.gov.uk/methodology/classificationsandstandards/st… tructureanddescriptionsofunitgroups

2. Furthermore, there is a clear inconsistency in strenuous Government efforts to reduce “asylum seekers” by 50,000 a year while increasing the number of economic migrants by some 150,000 a year[1] . The economic case for such massive immigration is, at best, extremely weak. The Government has no policy as to how large a population they envisage and are content to have migration driven purely by the “needs of the labour market”[2]. Meanwhile, the impact on society and on public services is being glossed over and public opinion is deeply concerned.

3. This paper examines both the weaknesses in “management” and the extent to which eight Government “initiatives” since 1997 have encouraged immigration. The paper looks at gross immigration as a measure of the task of assimilation and integration which our society faces. It covers those who are known to have entered Britain either with an intention of staying or with an option to stay indefinitely. The numbers who leave is not accurately known because there are no checks on the departures of foreign nationals.

4. We estimate that gross long-term migration into the UK from outside the present European Union has more than doubled from 186,000 in 1997 to 379,000 in 2002. The continued expansion of the work permit system and migration from the new members of the European Union could increase this figure further to 425,000 in 2004[3]. This will be balanced by departures (not necessarily of the same people) of about 200,000 people a year. In the continued absence of embarkation controls an accurate estimate is not possible.

5. The paper also estimates that in the same period (1997-2002) gross short-term migration from outside the EU has increased from 363,000 in 1997 to 454,000 in 2001 and we predict there will be a further increase to 515,000 in 2004[4] .

6. None of the foregoing figures take account of those who enter the country clandestinely, nor of those who enter on student or visitor visas and stay on illegally.

Detail
7. The following measures have been taken to either encourage or ease the conditions for inward migration to the UK in recent years:

8. Some of these measures, such as the seasonal workers scheme, are not intended as entry routes to permanent settlement in the UK. However, there are no checks whatsoever on who has left the country and little or no checking of the residence status of people within these schemes. It is highly likely therefore that significant numbers of people with temporary permission to enter the country will overstay and will not be detected. The following paragraphs examine each measure in turn.

9. The work permit system [8]
Work permits are either issued on a short-term (less than one year) or a long-term (up to five years) basis. People who have been granted long-term permits are entitled to apply for permanent settlement after 4 years and the vast majority (over 95%) of such applications are accepted. Overall, approximately 27% of people issued with long-term permits seek, and are granted, settlement rights after 4 years but with large variations depending on the country of origin – for example only 15% of American long-term work permit holders, but 55% of long-term work permit holders from the Indian sub-continent, seek and are granted settlement in the UK [9]. In the early 90’s between 25,000 and 30,000 work permits were issued, split roughly 50:50 between long-term and short-term permits. At that time the United States, Japan, Australia, New Zealand and Canada accounted for about half the permits issued.

By 2000 the number of permits issued had grown to 85,000 of which nearly two-thirds were long-term permits. Nearly two-thirds of all permits were issued to citizens of third-world countries, increasing the percentage who are likely to eventually settle permanently in the UK. 2001 saw a further increase in work permits issued to 120,000 and 136,000 were issued in 2002.

The Government has actively encouraged this trend by simplifying
the system so that 90% of work permits are issued in one day and
by assuming for some occupations that vacancies cannot be filled
by native workers – thus lifting the requirement to advertise vacancies
in-country before making an application. They are also now writing
to small businesses to promote permits for workers from outside
the EU.

The Government has set a target of processing 200,000 work permit applications in the financial year 2003-4. If the target is achieved this will result in about 165,000 individual long and short-term permits being issued [10]. 110,000 of these permits will be long-term assuming the same proportions of long and short-term permits as in 2000.
The following graph shows the rise in the number of permits issued since 1990:



10. Spouses and fiancé(e)s [11]
The primary purpose rule, in effect from 1980 to 1997, was intended to prevent marriage, particularly arranged marriages, being used to circumvent immigration controls. In June 1997 the rule was effectively abolished. This has opened the door to substantial and continuous secondary immigration. As a result the number of spouses and fiancées admitted to the UK has increased from 18,600 in 1990 to 29,100 in 2001 – an increase of over 50%. The impact of the change in the rules can be seen in the following graph:



11. EU accession country admissions
From 1st May 2004 eight countries from Eastern Europe [12] plus Malta and Cyprus will join the EU. With the exception of Malta and Cyprus their peoples will not, however, be given the immediate right to work in the existing 15 EU countries. Instead they will have to wait up to 7 years to automatically acquire this right, although individual EU countries may confer full rights at an earlier stage. Ireland, Holland, Denmark, Sweden and Greece along with the UK have elected to grant the right with immediate effect from 2004.

The European Commission released a report in March 2001 in which they estimated that the entry of 10 central and east European countries [13] would lead to 335,000 additional immigrants a year to the current 15 EU members. Two-thirds of these were expected to move to Germany with the next most popular destination being Austria.

A PriceWaterHouseCoopers’ study in 2001 estimated that, if no immigration restrictions were in place, between 1.6 and 2.4 million people of working age would look to move from Poland, the Czech Republic and Hungary to the EU by 2006. 10% of those wanting to move from Poland and 8% of those wishing to move from the Czech Republic wanted to move to the UK [14].

At the moment, the UK Government operates a special system of passport checks at Prague Airport in order to moderate inflows of asylum seekers from the Czech Republic, most of whom are Roma. After EU accession such asylum seekers from the Czech Republic and from Slovakia will be permitted free entry into the UK.

As the UK labour market will be open whilst restrictions are still in place in all the other major EU countries, it seems likely that a higher proportion will seek to migrate to the UK from these countries from 2004. Our estimate is that 20% of the potential 335,000 immigrants, i.e. 67,000 people (including dependants) will move to the UK each year (i.e. double PWC’s indicative levels for Poland).

The huge gap in GDP per head between the UK and the accession countries makes it unlikely that this process will quickly reverse. These countries do not have the climatic advantages of previous new entrants to the EU, such as Spain and Portugal, rather the reverse.

12. Students
There has been a steady increase in the number of students admitted to the UK from 202,000 in 1990 to 339,000 in 2001 as shown below.



Until recently students were not able to remain in the UK after they had completed their study, although some undoubtedly stayed illegally and some may have found legal routes to stay, such as marriage. This has been relaxed from summer 2004 with a new entitlement for science, technology, engineering and mathematics students to work in the UK for 12 months following graduation.
There are no checks to ensure that students have left the UK at the end of their period of study.

13. Seasonal workers
The long-standing Seasonal Agricultural Workers Scheme (SAWS) until recently had an annual quota of 10,000 workers who were allowed to work in agriculture for 6 months during the summer months. The quota has now been expanded to 25,000 and new schemes for lower skilled migrants will operate from May 2003 in the food processing and hospitality sectors each with a quota of 10,000 per annum.
People on these schemes have no right to stay in the UK at the end of their period of employment but there are no checks whatsoever to ensure they leave the country.

14. Working holidaymakers
The working holidaymaker’s scheme is a long-established scheme which allowed holidaymakers, who were mainly from the old Commonwealth and the United States, to work and holiday in the UK for up to 2 years. The scheme has been altered from 2003 to “make it more responsive to labour market needs. Working holidaymakers will in future be able to take up work in any sector, move freely between employers, and switch into work permit employment after one year in the UK” [15].
The scheme has therefore become another entry point for long-term settlement into the UK.

15. Refugees direct from source countries
In the financial year 2003-4 the UK has agreed to accept 500 refugees (from Africa) as part of a new programme whereby refugees, after screening by the UN, are taken directly from refugee camps for resettlement in the UK. The Government expects to increase the numbers of refugees entering the country by this route over time.

16. Highly skilled migrants programme
The Highly Skilled Migrants Programme was introduced in 2002 to attract highly qualified and experienced migrants to the UK. 1,300 people were attracted into the UK via this route in 2002. The scheme is to be “strengthened” from August 2003 by “adjusting the threshold eligibility criteria, introducing a new category for younger applicants, and taking partners’ achievements into account in assessing individual applications” [16].

17. We estimate that the cumulative effect of these changes has been that gross long-term immigration into the UK from outside the existing EU, using our definition of a long-term migrant [17], has more than doubled in the period 1997 to 2002. There were approximately 186,000 [18] long-term migrants from outside the EU into the UK in 1997 and we estimate that this will have increased to 382,000 in 2002. Even if the Prime Minister’s target for reducing the number of asylum seekers is met we estimate that long-term migration from outside the existing EU will continue to increase, to 425,000 people in 2004, driven mainly by the expansion of the work permit system and by migration from the EU ‘accession countries’.

18. Similarly short-term migration of people from outside the EU has also been increasing rapidly from 363,000 in 1997 to 454,000 in 2001 and we estimate this will increase further to 515,000 in 2004 [19] driven mainly by the issue of more short-term work permits and the expansion of the seasonal workers scheme.

19. In some cases short-term migration can legally lead to longer-term migration and settlement, for example through extension of short-term work-permits to long-term ones or by switching from being a student into work-permit employment.

20.However, since there are no checks to ensure that people have left the country at the allotted time and no reliable system to identify those entitled to work and to benefits in the UK, short-term migration can also very easily lead to illegal longer-term settlement.

21. The trends in long-term and short-term migration are shown in the following graph:



22. These levels of inward migration are, of course, partially balanced by outward flows of people. In the absence of embarkation controls it is not possible to put accurate numbers on outflows. However, it should be noted that net migration into the UK from outside the EU (as measured by the International Passenger Survey) reached approximately 178,000 in 2001, without including 20,000 dependants of asylum seekers.

23. The foregoing takes no account of those who enter the country clandestinely, nor of those who enter with visitors’ visas and stay on illegally. There are approximately 3.5 million visitors a year from the third world and Eastern Europe.Unmanaged Migration – Appendix
Click here to PDF version

Footnotes

2. In addition, more than 60,000 refugee family members of refugees have come over during the period 2010-2022, bringing the total arriving via 13 routes to around 390,000.^[1]

3. The figures do not include main applicants or accompanying dependants of those afforded protection in the UK after claiming asylum following arrival by other means, of which there have been about 125,000 grants since 2004/2005^[2]. (In addition, there have been just under 250,000 refused asylum claims since 2005 – a declining proportion of whom will have been removed from the UK or departed voluntarily).

4. From 2005 to 2020, direct resettlement of refugees averaged about 2,000 per annum, and 4,200 between 2015 and 2020. However, during the year or so to mid-2022, the number of refugees who came to directly to the UK rose dramatically to more than 230,000.

5. Table 1 below shows that, during the period from 2005 to 2022, 13 different resettlement or relocation routes have been in place. If more than 60,000 refugee family members subsequently joining refugees are included, the total approaches 400,000 (larger than the present population of Leicester, which, according to the ONS, was 360,000 in 2020/21). However, it should be noted that some of those coming via the refugee family reunion scheme will be joining those granted protection after claiming asylum following entry to the UK by other means, including illegal arrival by boat, lorry or air.

Where does the data come from?

6. The data was compiled from a range of sources, including Home Office (HO) resettlement, visa and extensions data^[3], and the specific HO bulletins on Afghan and Ukrainian arrivals.^[4]

7. However, unfortunately the data provided with regard to Afghanistan resettlement in the past year has been unacceptably patchy and incomplete, with the government failing to disclose how many people have been resettled to the UK respectively via the two specific resettlement routes – the Afghan Citizens Resettlement Scheme (ACRS) and the Afghan Relocation and Assistance Policy (ARAP); we have only been given an overall figure of 21,450 people coming from Afghanistan but not even any clear indication of which exact time period this covers.

8. The public have had to rely on incomplete information from Parliamentary Answers by Ministers, correspondence from the government to parliamentary select committees or obscure data releases by the government such as the one issued in August 2022.^[5] This latter document states that, as at 12 August 2022, 21,450 Afghans had arrived via two resettlement schemes during or after the Taliban takeover but did not include a breakdown of the number of British nationals within this total, nor the number of total arrivals who arrived via each individual resettlement route.

Table 1: Refugees and dependants directly coming to the UK since 2005, by route.

Figure 1: Refugees directly coming to the UK since 2005 (not including refugee family reunion).^[6]Refugees directly coming to the UK since 2005 (not including refugee family reunion)2005200620072008200920102011201220132014201520162017201820192020Year to June 2022050,000100,000150,000200,000250,0002008●

 Refugee resettlement to the UK: 717

Annex A – Details of each of 13 refugee resettlement or relocation schemes

1. Refugee Family Reunion = 63,929 arrivals (Figures available for 2010 to 2022 only). The UK allows an adult granted refugee status or humanitarian protection to be joined in the UK by their spouse or partner and any of their children who are under 18, if they formed a part of the family unit before the refugee fled their country.

2. Gateway Protection Scheme = 9,789 arrivals (2005 – 2020). Although figures are only available from 2005 onwards, this route was opened in 2004. It was operated by UK Visas and Immigration in partnership with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). It offered a legal route for up to 750 refugees to settle in the UK each year, and was separate from the standard procedure for claiming asylum. Applications for resettlement under this programme were made to the UNHCR, which refers them to the UK. Applications could not be made directly to the UK government, to British diplomatic posts abroad or through other international organisations. All applications were assessed individually on their merits.

3. Mandate Scheme = 437 arrivals (2008 – 2019). The Mandate Resettlement Scheme was a global scheme that ran from 2004 to 2019 which resettled recognised refugees with a close family member in the UK who was willing to accommodate them. Beneficiaries of the Mandate scheme needed to have been recognised as refugees by UNHCR and judged by them to be in need of resettlement. The refugee must have been a minor child, spouse, or parent or grandparent aged over 65 of someone settled in the UK, or who had limited leave to remain in a category leading to settlement, who was willing to accommodate and support them. The UK relative did not need to hold refugee status. The government only considered wider family members (e.g. adult siblings) in exceptional circumstances.

4. Vulnerable Persons Resettlement Scheme (VPRS) = 20,319 arrivals (2014-2020). This was launched in January 2014 for refugees of any nationality still in the Middle East and North Africa region (i.e. in Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon and Turkey) that have fled Syria because of the current conflict (i.e. after March 2011). Over 20,000 people were resettled in the UK under this scheme.

5. Vulnerable Children’s Resettlement Scheme (VCRS) = 1,838 arrivals (2016-2020). This was launched in 2016, with the aim of resettling up to 3,000 ’at-risk’ refugee children from the Middle East and North Africa region, including their families. The government says it worked closely with UNHCR to design the scheme and on their recommendation the scheme did not solely target unaccompanied children, but also extended to vulnerable children at risk, such as those threatened with child labour, child marriage and other forms of abuse or exploitation. It was open to all at risk groups and nationalities within the region.

6. Community Sponsorship Scheme = 270 arrivals (2021 to present). This scheme enables community groups to directly welcome and support a resettled family into their local community. The Scheme was established in response to the desire of civil society to support refugees and is an example of effective government and civil society collaboration. Community Sponsorship is accessible to refugees under the same criteria as the UKRS (see below). Refugees resettled through the Community Sponsorship Scheme complement those resettled to local authorities through the UKRS (see number 6 below).

7. UK Resettlement Scheme (UKRS) = 1,685 arrivals (2021 to present). In June 2019, the Home Office announced a continued commitment to resettlement with a new global scheme to start in 2020. In the first year of operation, the aim was to resettle 5,000 people. However, this goal was hampered by the Covid pandemic. This consolidates the Vulnerable Persons’ Resettlement Scheme, the Vulnerable Children’s Resettlement Scheme and the Gateway Protection Programme into one global scheme. The Government has said: “The new programme will be simpler to operate and provide greater consistency in the way that the UK Government resettles refugees. It will broaden the geographical focus beyond the Middle East and North Africa. A new process for emergency resettlement will also be developed, allowing the UK to respond quickly to instances when there is a heightened need for protection, providing a faster route to resettlement where lives are at risk.”

8. and 9. Afghan Relocation and Assistance Policy (ARAP) and Afghan Citizens Resettlement Scheme (ACRS) = 21,450 arrivals (2021 to present). The government does not comprehensively break down the figures for the total number of Afghan citizens resettled here but has provided an overall figure for those resettled under the two schemes of 21,450 (as at August 2022). The ARAP remains open to any current or former staff employed directly by the government in Afghanistan since 2001, who are assessed to be at serious risk of threat to life, regardless of employment status or length of time served. The scheme is open-ended and there is no numerical limit. The policy provides for the main applicant to bring their close family members (spouse and under 18 children) and they will be granted Indefinite Leave to Remain. Other family may be come in exceptional circumstances. The scheme opened in April 2021. The first ARAP flight was on 22 June 2021. Since then, around 7,000 Locally Employed Staff and their family members have been relocated. Other arrivals included 500 ‘special cases’ evacuated in August 2021 who were identified as being particularly at risk, including female politicians, members of the LGBT community, women’s rights activists and judges and Chevening scholars (see government factsheet).^[7] Meanwhile, the ACRS was announced in August 2021 but began operation in early January 2022 with the first families arriving that month. 20,000 people will be allowed to resettle in the UK over the course of five years (see government factsheet).^[8]

10. Hong Kong Pathway to Citizenship = 116,702 arrivals (not including extensions of stay in the UK on this basis – 2021 to present). On 31 January 2021, the UK opened a new route for Hong Kong British National (Overseas) citizens (BNOs) and their close family members. Under the new route, an estimated 5.4 million Hong Kong residents will be eligible to move to the UK and eventually become British citizens.

11. Ukraine Family Scheme (UFS) and 12. Ukraine Sponsorship Scheme (USS) = 151,482 entry grants (not including extensions of stay in the UK on this basis). Launched in March 2022, the UFS allows immediate and extended family members of British nationals and people settled in the UK to come to the country. Those joining the Scheme will be granted leave for three years, giving them certainty and ensuring their future in the country. The Scheme is free and does not include any salary or language requirements (see factsheet). Meanwhile, launched on 14 March 2022, the USS allows individuals, charities, community groups and businesses in the UK to bring Ukrainians to safety – including those with no family ties to the UK. The sponsor must be either: a named sponsor who can provide accommodation for a minimum of 6 months. Those applying must be Ukrainian, or the immediate family member of a Ukrainian national who has been granted permission under, or is applying to and qualifies for, the Homes for Ukraine Sponsorship Scheme. (see government announcement). As of as of 11 October 2022, the government said a total of 191,000 had been issued under the schemes since their introduction in March 2022, allocated as follows: Ukraine Family Scheme visas: 53,800; Ukraine Sponsorship Scheme visas: 137,200 (this contrasts with the figures above which are for the year to June 2022 only).

13. Afghan Ex-Gratia Resettlement and Redundancy Scheme = 1,200 arrivals (2013-2021). In 2012 the government introduced this resettlement scheme for working staff who had been in post working directly for the UK Government. This eventually covered those who worked for the UK on or after 1 May 2006. The scheme was meant to be reserved for ‘the most serious cases’. Applicants also had to have served more than 12 months when they were made redundant or resigned.

Table A: Refugees coming directly to the UK since 2005 each year, by route.

Note 1: The rows highlighted in blue are for reader information and do not contribute to the calculation of the grand total in the bottom row.

Note 2: The total excludes extensions of stay in the UK under the Hong Kong BN(O) route and the Ukrainian resettlement schemes of which there were a total of 25,426 in the year to June 2022: 10,428 under the Hong Kong British National (Overseas) route and 14,098 under the two schemes for Ukraine).

Note 3: The refugee family reunion data is only for the period 2010-22. Data for 2005-09 does not appear to be publicly available at the present time.

Note 4: Data on Afghanistan resettlements is incomplete and should be treated as ‘provisional’, with the Home Office stating: “Following the evacuation from Afghanistan, the Home Office is working to assure information relating to all the individuals relocated on case working systems.”. It is not broken down between different routes as the Home Office does not appear to have yet confirmed how many people have come via each scheme. The exact time period during which people came in is also unclear. We make a rough and cautious estimate that at least 75% of the 21,450 total who have come from Afghanistan since early 2021 came during the year to June 2022, with the remainder coming in earlier parts of 2021. ARAP stands for Afghan Relocation and Assistance Policy and ACRS stands for Afghan Citizens Resettlement Scheme.

Footnotes

1. Home Office data on refugee family reunion appears not to be available for the period, 2005 to 2009.
2. Home Office, Asylum outcome analysis, 2004 to 2021.
3. Home Office visa and asylum data, August 2022, URL: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/immigration-statistics-year-ending-june-2022
4. Ukraine Family Scheme, Ukraine Sponsorship Scheme (Homes for Ukraine) and Ukraine Extension Scheme visa data, September 2022, URL: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/ukraine-family-scheme-… heme-homes-for-ukraine-visa-data–2 and Gov.UK, ‘Statistics on Ukrainians in the UK’, September 2022, URL: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/immigration-statistics-y… /statistics-on-ukrainians-in-the-uk
5. Transparency data on Afghan resettlements, August 2022, URL: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/afghan-resettlement-pr… ttlement-programme-operational-data
6. Data for 2021 is excluded from the graph to avoid duplication, although data on Hong Kong and possible Afghan arrivals for early 2021 is included in the Miscellaneous row (second from bottom) in Table A.
7. See Government guidance, September 2022, URL: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/afghan-relocations-and… nce-policy-information-and-guidance
8. See Government guidance, August 2022, URL: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/afghan-citizens-resettlement-scheme

1. The government promised that its post-Brexit immigration system would reduce overall immigration levels and deliver ‘firmer’ border control. Yet the opposite has happened, as we show below with analysis of Home Office (HO) data. In 2021, there were over 800,000 longer-term entry grants to non-UK nationals for work, study, family and resettlement. Meanwhile, illegal arrivals have tripled since 2018. The public sense that something is wrong (7 in 10 say Ministers are failing on immigration, YouGov). Yet official transparency on immigration is inadequate (and worsening). Key statistics are being delayed, and the picture of what is happening is being occluded as non-UK arrivals rise.

Introduction

2. Entry clearance grants for longer-term stays for work, family, study and resettlement were more than 800,000 in 2021, with 95% from outside the EU. Just 50,000 entry clearances were to EU citizens – who since 2021 have required visas for longer stays. Longer-term non-EU entry grants stood at about 780,000. There has been no recent public estimate of outflows due to repeated delays in the publication of both 2021 immigration estimates and exit checks analysis.

Detail

3. 2021 was the post-Brexit visa system’s first year of operation. This – we were told by the government – would enable renewed control of immigration following the UK’s departure from the EU, and a reduction in overall numbers. Previously EU citizens could come to the UK to live without visas under free movement rules but they are now included in the visa system for the first time in recent history. As would be expected, this has led to an increase in the total number of visas granted compared with the pre-Brexit figures. Figure 1 below shows that there were more than 880,000 entry grants (EU/non-EU) for work, study, family or resettlement in 2021. When short-term study/temporary work visas are excluded, the total is about 830,000. Around 50,000 (5-6%) were from the EU. ^[1]

Figure 1: Entry grants, visas / resettlement (all non-UK)^[2].Entry grants, visas / resettlement (all non-UK)Entry clearance grants (all non-UK)Of which: WorkOf which: StudyOf which: FamilyOf which: Resettlement200520062007200820092010201120122013201420152016201720182019202020210200,000400,000600,000800,0001,000,0002010●

 Entry clearance grants (all non-UK): 584,601● Of which: Work: 160,737● Of which: Study: 334,735● Of which: Family: 88,412● Of which: Resettlement: 717

4. These HO figures include EU citizens for the first time. Therefore, when looking at historical trends, we consider data for non-EU nationals only (below).

5. There were 835,000 entry grants to non-EU nationals in 2021, of which about 780,000 were for long-term purposes.^[3] The 35,000 or so illegal arrivals that the UK experienced in 2021 (over 90% of whom claim asylum and the vast majority of whom are from outside the EU) will also add to total arrivals.

Figure 2: Entry grants for visas / resettlement (non-EU)Entry grants for visas / resettlement (non-EU)Entry clearance grants (non-EU only)Of which: WorkOf which: StudyOf which: FamilyOf which: Resettlement200520062007200820092010201120122013201420152016201720182019202020210200,000400,000600,000800,0002005●

 Entry clearance grants (non-EU only): 570,137● Of which: Work: 243,466● Of which: Study: 207,418● Of which: Family: 119,182● Of which: Resettlement: 71

Which routes witnessed significant increases in 2021?

6. An increase in non-EU entry grants was the chief driver of the increase in numbers overall. For example, there were: a) more non-EU study visas issued b) more direct resettlements of refugees than ever before c) more illegal immigration (driving a record number of asylum claims). Meanwhile, there were 210,000 entry grants to non-EU nationals for work visas in 2021 – much higher than the average of 160,000 per year for the period 2010-20. This will be partially linked to weaker work permit rules, the scrapping of the annual cap on work visas and the recent creation of a special route for health-care workers.. 2021 also saw the most family visa grants / permits for non-EU citizens (119,000) since 2007.

7. Grants to non-EU nationals for sponsored study rose to 411,800, outstripping both their 2019 level of 285,500 as well as the previous high seen in the 2009-2010 period. See Figure 3 below.

Figure 3: Sponsored-study visa grants since 2001 (non-EU citizens). HO.^[4]Sponsored-study visa grants since 2001 (non-EU citizens)HOVisa grants for sponsored study (non-EU citizens)2001/22002/32003/4200520062007200820092010201120122013201420152016201720182019202020210100,000200,000300,000400,000500,000

8. Another factor pushing the increase in non-EU immigration was the rise in resettlement grants / asylum claims to those escaping dangerous parts of the world – Table 1 below. There was a massive increase of about 95,000 compared with 2020, mainly due to arrivals of Hong Kongers but also Afghans.

Table 1: Entry grants to those resettled from places of danger or their relatives

9. The government has also confirmed that there was a major increase in illegal immigration in 2021, with 36,800 people arriving without prior permission by air, lorry and boat (about three times the total in 2018). This will have fed into the fact that there were a historically high number (56,000) of asylum applications by main applicants and dependants in 2021 – the most since 2003 when the number hit 60,000. See Figure 4 below.

Figure 4: Asylum claims relating to main applicants and dependants, 2005-21.Asylum claims relating to main applicants and dependants, 2005-212005200620072008200920102011201220132014201520162017201820192020202110,00020,00030,00040,00050,00060,000

Conclusion

10. Global entry clearance permissions for longer-term residence in the UK have reached record levels – with more than 800,000 people being allowed to come in 2021 (more people than live in the city of Leeds). This has partly been driven by a huge spike in study visa grants and a significantly larger amount of direct refugee resettlement (with around 80,000 Hong Kongers arriving in one year). Mounting illegal arrivals during 2021 (including by boat) have also fed into the highest number of asylum claims since 2003 (over 50,000 by main applicants and dependants). The government has failed to deliver on its pledges to restore border control in the wake of Brexit, and to reduce immigration.^[5]

Annex A

Delays and gaps in immigration statistics

Although until mid-2020 there was a time lag of only six months on immigration data, the government has repeatedly delayed the release of statistics that would provide a clearer picture of net immigration for 2021. Such information is vital for the public to be able to hold the government to account on an important national issue, for the purposes of transparency and democracy. But we have now had a delay of nearly a year in the release of figures for the year to mid-2021. There have been three recent cases of delays:

• Net migration estimates for the year to June 2021 were supposed to be released on 30 March but the Office for National Statistics (ONS) have now postponed release until late May 2022.^[6]
• National Insurance Number registration data for adult overseas nationals for the period after June 2021 was meant to be released by the DWP earlier this year but that was postponed.^[7]
• Exit Checks analysis for 2020/21 was due to be released in August 2021 but has not been released with no sign of whether or when it will be.^[8]

Because of this, members of the public who are keen to know the truth about what has happened to immigration in the first full year since major policy are forced to rely only on figures produced by the Home Office (visa grants, asylum claims and resettlements).

Footnotes

1. Home Office immigration statistics, released 24 February 2022. URL: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/fifth-report-on-statisti… elating-to-exit-checks-2019-to-2020
2. The totals for 2005 to 2021 do not include short-term students. There was a very significant drop in the number of short-term students between 2019 and 202, falling from 120,000 to 21,502 – a near 100,000 fall.
3. The 2021 total is 840,000 if those given permission to enter on temporary work visas are excluded from the total. However, temporary workers are included here (making the headline figure 890,000) for reasons of comparability: the headline totals for 2005-2020 including ‘temporary workers’ who came under Tier 5, including some given permission to come to the UK for up to two years.
4. The 2001 to 2004 totals include both entry clearance grants as well as data relating to applications made within the UK for ‘leave to remain’. Data for 2005 to 2021 includes only entry clearance visa grants from outside the UK.
5. Home Office figures on irregular migration, released 24 February 2022.
6. The ONS statistics release calendar states that the statistics were originally scheduled to published on 30 March 2022. However, this was postponed to 19 April ‘to allow publication to go out alongside other related releases on the same day, in line with our revisions policy, and for further quality assurance of data’. Then this was postponed again to 24 May ‘to allow for further quality assurance against other available data sources, including provisional Census 2021 data, to have the highest confidence in the figures we publish.’ URL: https://www.ons.gov.uk/releases/longterminternationalmigrationprovisionalyearendingjune2021
7. See Parliamentary answer, 11 February 2022, URL: https://www.theyworkforyou.com/wrans/?id=2022-01-28.HL5761.h&s=speaker%3A25254#gHL5761.q0
8. Exit Checks data provides results on the proportion of non-EEA nationals who departed before their visa expired, as well as updated data quality metrics for data collected under the Initial Status Analysis (ISA) system, which combines data from different administrative sources to link an individual’s travel in or out of the UK with their immigration history. The most recent Exit Checks analysis report was released in August 2020, covering the year 2019/20. URl: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/syste… -relating-to-exit-checks-201920.pdf

1. The foreign-born population of the UK was estimated to be 9.2 million in 2019/20 – 90% of whom were residing in England. Three to four million (38%) were born in the European Union (EU) and 5.7 million (just under two in three) had been born outside the EU.^[1] More common reasons for those from the EU to come were work-related. For those settling from outside the EU, joining or accompanying relatives and study have been more common reasons of entry.^[2]

2. This paper finds that:

• Large-scale immigration – continued year after year – has led to huge population growth and change during a very short historical period. This has meant a stark demographic shift for our country despite clear opposition towards high immigration amongst a majority of the UK public. In the midst of failed immigration control, the non-UK born population rose by 4.5 million and immigration-driven population growth amounts to around 7 million.
• Just under half of the non-UK born population (4.3 million) are from Asia and Africa, while a third (3 to 4 million) are from the EU (para 3).
• 70% of the non-UK born population in 2019/20 came for family, study or other reasons (6.4 million). Only three in ten indicated they originally came to the UK for work-related reasons. Despite this, it should be noted that many of those who stated they came for reasons other than work will have subsequently moved into employment after arrival. The number of non-UK born estimated to be in employment in 2019/20 was nearly six million (ONS^[3]).
• The number of those of ‘Other White’ background increased by over 2.5 million since 2001. Other ethnic minority populations rose by 4.8 million. The largest portion of the latter increase (a third) was driven by a 1.6 million rise in the population of those of South Asian ethnicity.
• London, the West Midlands and North West have experienced major population change. The South East and East of England have felt the acute effects of population increase (including congestion, housing and environmental issues and overcrowding) as residents of all backgrounds have moved there. Since 2000/1, the total population of London rose by nearly two million, that of the South East increased by 1.2 million and that of the East of England ballooned by 900,000.

Part 1 – The foreign-born population

3. In 2019/20 the foreign-born population of the UK was 9.2 million – 90% whom were residing in England. Just under half (4.3 million) were from Africa and Asia, while just over a third (three to four million) were from the EU. Figure 1: Non-UK born population by place of birth (ONS / APS).ThousandsNon-UK born population by place of birthONS / APSNon-EU bornBorn in European Union2000/12001/22002/32003/420042005200620072008200920102011201220132014201520162017201820192019/2002,5005,0007,50010,0002007●

 Non-EU born: 4,421● Born in European Union: 1,987

4. Figure 2 below shows that, of the EU born, about half are from Western Europe (the EU14 countries such as Germany, France, Italy, Spain and Portugal) or from Greece, with the remainder from Eastern European countries such as Poland, Romania, Bulgaria, Hungary, Slovenia and Latvia.

5. Of the non-EU born population, about 3/4 (4.3 million) are from Asia and Africa, while 1.4 million or so are from the Americas, Europe and Oceania (of whom just under 500,000 were from Central and South America). 1.8 million are from South Asia and 1.3 million are from sub-Saharan Africa.

Figure 2: Breakdown of EU-born population, 2019/20 (ONS, APS).Breakdown of EU-born population, 2019/20ONS, APSEU14 – Western Europe: 1,677,000EU8 – Poland, Hungary et al: 1,187,000EU2 – Romania and Bulgaria: 492,000EU14 – Western EuropeEU8 – Poland, Hungary et alEU2 – Romania and BulgariaEU2 – Romania and Bulgariavalue:492,000

Figure 3: Breakdown of non-EU born population, 2019/20 (ONS, APS).Breakdown of non-EU born population, 2019/20ONS, APSAsia: 2,880,000Africa: 1,425,000Americas: 782,000Europe: 372,000Oceania: 243,000AsiaAfricaAmericasEuropeOceaniaEuropevalue:372,000

Which segments of the non-UK born population have risen the most?

6. Official estimates are that the total non-UK born rise was 4.5 million since 2001/2. The EU born and non-EU born populations have both risen more than two million. Table 1 shows in non-UK born population by world region of birth.

Table 1: Increase in non-UK born population by origin, 2001-19 (ONS).

For what reasons have people from overseas come to the UK?

7. An extensive body of research has consistently found that immigration is a fiscal cost to the UK, despite immigrants being younger than the overall population and much more likely to be of working age. The size of the overall annual fiscal cost was £4 billion-£13 billion per year for 2016/17 and 2014/15 respectively, depending upon assumptions made by the authors concerned^[4].

8. Figure 4 breaks down the non-UK born population (as measured by the Annual Population Survey in 2019/20) by the stated reason for migrating to the UK. 70% said they came for reasons other than work (i.e. accompanying or joining relatives, formal study or ‘other’ reasons). However, it should be noted that many of those who stated they came for reasons other than work will have subsequently gone into employment following arrival. The number of non-UK born estimated to be in employment in 2019/20 was just under six million^[5].

Figure 4: Stated reason for migration of non-UK population (ONS).Non-UK born population in 2020, by stated reason for migration to UKONSAccompanying / joining relatives: 4,013,000Work-related: 2,757,000Formal study: 1,183,000Other: 1,163,000Accompanying / joining relativesWork-relatedFormal studyOtherFormal studyvalue:1,183,000

9. As Figures 5 and 6 below show, 45% of the EU-born population said they came for work-related reasons, while the next largest share 1.2 million came to accompany / join. In contrast, 21% of the non-EU born population came for work-related reasons, as against 2.8 million (49%) who came for family-related reasons (to ‘accompany/join’); 16% (900,000) came for ‘other’ reasons.

Figure 5: Stated reason for migration of EU-born population (ONS).EU-born population in 2020, by stated reason for migration to UKONSWork-related: 1,557,000To accompany / join: 1,202,000Formal study: 406,000Other: 272,000Work-relatedTo accompany / joinFormal studyOther

Figure 6: Stated reason for migration of non EU born population (ONS).Non EU-born population in 2020, by stated reason for migration to UKONSWork-related: 1,199,000To accompany / join: 2,811,000Formal study: 777,000Other: 891,000Work-relatedTo accompany / joinFormal studyOtherTo accompany / joinvalue:2,811,000

10. What is the most significant route of entry for those who stay permanently? Figures on this are not available for EU citizens, although they are for non-EU citizens. Home Office statistics suggest that a very significant share of non-EU migrants granted settlement between 2009 and 2020 originally arrived on family visas or permits^[6]. The Migration Advisory Committee has said that the family visa stream has been the largest non-EU route leading to settlement^[7].

Indirect impact from immigration, by country of birth of mother

11. The ONS, Eurostat and statistics offices in various other countries have pointed to the indirect impact from immigration resulting from births to non-UK born parents. From 2008-19 about 27% of over 8 million births (2.2 million) were to non-UK born mothers. As seen in Figure 7, 67% were to non-EU born mothers. 80% of these were to mothers from Africa, Asia and the Middle East. Just over half (54%) of all births to foreign-born mothers were to mothers from these parts of the world (Figure 8). Figure 9 below shows that 70% of 733,000 births to EU-born mothers over the period were to those born in Eastern Europe.

Figure 7: Births by origin of non-UK born mother – England/Wales (ONS).Births to non-UK born mothers in England and Wales, 2008-2019. Total: 2.2 millionONSBirths to non EU-born mothers: 1,490,842Births to EU-born mothers: 732,991Births to non EU-born mothersBirths to EU-born mothersBirths to EU-born mothersvalue:732,991

Figure 8: Births by origin of non EU-born mother – England/Wales (ONS).Births to non-UK born mothers in England and Wales, 2008-2019. Total: 1.5 millionONSMiddle East and Asia: 782,580Africa: 430,816The Americas / Caribbean: 134,701Rest of Europe (non EU): 104,782Oceania: 37,963Middle East and AsiaAfricaThe Americas / CaribbeanRest of Europe (non EU)OceaniaOceaniavalue:37,963

Figure 9: Births by origin of EU-born mother – England/Wales (ONS).Births to EU-born mothers in England and Wales, 2008-2019. Total: 733,000ONSBirths to mothers born in EU14 (Western Europe / Greece): 223,320Births to mothers born in Eastern Europe: 509,671Births to mothers born in EU14 (Western Europe / Greece)Births to mothers born in Eastern Europe

Population of Great Britain broken down by ethnicity

12. Great Britain’s ethnic minority population was estimated to be 13.3 million in 2020 (ONS Labour Force Survey). 93% were residing in England (these figures do not take Northern Ireland into account). About a third were ‘other Whites’ (4.2 million); just under a third were South Asian (3.5 million or so). 13. The 13.3 million population is broken down in Table 2 below, with White British included for comparative purposes. In total, the 4.2 million ‘Other White’ population represents 6.5% of the total 64 million population of Great Britain (about double its 3% – or 1.7 million – in 2001), while the population of other ethnicities accounts for about 14% (about double its 2001 share of 7%).

Table 2: Population of Great Britain broken down by ethnic group, 2020 (LFS).

14. Figure 10 below shows each cohort as a share of the total ethnic minority population of 13.3 million.

Figure 10: Respective cohorts as share of ethnic minority population, Great Britain, 2020, (ONS).Ethnic minorities in Great Britain in 2020. Total: 13.3 millionONSOther White: 4,233,279Mixed/Multiple ethnic groups: 1,185,188Asian / Asian British: 4,593,958Black African / Caribbean / Black British: 2,167,738Other ethnic group: 1,079,391Other WhiteMixed/Multiple ethnic groupsAsian / Asian BritishBlack African / Caribbean / Black BritishOther ethnic groupAsian / Asian Britishvalue:4,593,958

15. Meanwhile, the total growth of other ethnicities in Great Britain since 2001 is estimated to be 7.4 million. Table 3 below depicts this change broken down by the scale of increase for different ethnic minority cohorts (2001-20).

Table 3: Change in various ethnic groups, Great Britain, 2001-20 (LFS).

16. Table 4 shows the percentage point increase in different populations as their share of the total population of Great Britain between 2001 and 2020. Meanwhile, Table 5 below indicates the degree of population change in each part of Great Britain. One form of change, characterised both by a decline in size of White British population and an increase in size of the population of other ethnicities, is particularly evident in London, the West Midlands, the North West and Scotland.

17. This is distinct from areas which have witnessed notable increases in residents of all backgrounds such as the South East, East of England, Yorkshire / Humberside.

18. As for areas which have seen the largest total population increase over the past two decades, since 2000/1, the total population of London rose by nearly two million, that of the South East increased by 1.2 million and that of the East of England ballooned by 900,000.

Table 4: Percentage point change in share of ethnic minority population of Great Britain as proportion of total, 2001-20 (ONS).

Table 5: Change in ethnic group by area of UK, 2001-20 (LFS).

19. Table 6 below highlights the top four areas of numerical change over the period by different ethnicity. Most impacted regions are in bold italics.

Table 6: Change in ethnic group by area of UK, 2001-20 (LFS).

Conclusion

20. Unprecedented levels of immigration from all parts of the world since 2001 have driven a rise in the non-UK born population between four and five million. By far the greatest share of the non-UK born population originally arrived for reasons other than to work (although ONS estimates also suggest that many of those who arrived for other reasons will have subsequently moved into employment). The huge range of places from which migrants have come in high numbers, with little apparent attention – let alone control by the government – makes the task of integrating our society into a unified national fabric extremely difficult if not impossible.

21. Ethnic change has been supercharged by uncontrolled immigration since 2001, with the share of births involving at least one overseas-born parent having risen from 23% of births in England and Wales in 2001 to 34% in 2019.^[8] By 2019, around two in five births were to ethnic minority mothers (over 200,000 births per year). Rapid and huge shifts in population have particularly affected areas such as London, the West Midlands and Scotland, while substantial growth is leading to increasing overcrowding, congestion and having a major development impact in regions such as the South East and East of England. The population of London gone up by nearly two million over that period, and the total populations of the South East and East of England have increased by around a million each.

Footnotes

1. Despite this, the latest statistics for the EU Settlement Scheme (EUSS) suggested there had been nearly six million applications by EEA nationals. It was always forecast that the numbers applying would be greater than the estimated stock of 3.5 million in 2018 as it was anticipated that immigration would continue at around previous levels until the end of the transition period on 31 December 2020. Meanwhile some people who previously lived in the UK will be applying from abroad. However, it was thought that less than a million more than the 3.5 million would apply, even when including non-EEA family members. The largest disparity between EUSS figures and stocks as estimated by the Labour Force Survey / Annual Population Survey are among those from Romania and Bulgaria where the EUSS statistics show a 158% increase.
2. ONS, Population By Country of Birth tables, 2019/20, ‘Overseas-born population in the United Kingdom, excluding some residents in communal establishments, by main reason for migration’, URL: https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/populationand… ngdombycountryofbirthandnationality
3. ONS, Employment by country of birth estimates, 2019/20, URL: https://www.ons.gov.uk/employmentandlabourmarket/peopleinwork/emp… bycountryofbirthandnationalityemp06
4. The £4.3 billion figure is taken from research conducted by Oxford Economics for the MAC and published in 2018, (in particular, see Fig. 11 on p. 22). URL: https://tinyurl.com/4abd5nec; The £13 billion figure was calculated by Migration Watch UK. See Migration Watch UK, ‘The Fiscal effects of Immigration to the UK, 2014/15’, May 2016, URL: https://migrationwatchuk.org/briefing-paper/381 and press release: ‘Immigration was a net fiscal cost to taxpayers of £13 billion in 2014/15’, May 2016, URL: https://migrationwatchuk.org/press-release/448/mwuk-press-rel… -immigration-on-the-public-finances
5. ONS, Employment by country of birth estimates, 2019/20, URL: https://www.ons.gov.uk/employmentandlabourmarket/peopleinwork/emp… bycountryofbirthandnationalityemp06
6. Home Office, Migrant journey analysis and statistics, May 2021, URL: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/migrant-journey-2020-report/migrant-journey-2020-report
7. MAC review of shortage occupation list, May 2019, p. 15, URL: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/syste… ll_Review_SOL_Final_Report_1159.pdf
8. ONS births statistics, England and Wales, URL: https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsa… rths/datasets/parentscountryofbirth

1. This paper should be read alongside our previous research (‘Impact of immigration in changing the UK population’, issued on 27 July 2021^[1]). That paper found that the foreign-born population of the UK had doubled from about 4.5 million to around nine million between 2001 and 2020 and that the ethnic minority population of Great Britain had more than doubled from six million to 13.5 million – reaching over a fifth of the total (this includes ‘Other White’, i.e. those who identify as White but are not British, often from European countries. Definitions of ethnic groups are based on those used by the ONS).^[2]

2. The paper looks at the impact of high immigration by non-UK nationals (net 300,000 per year since 2001) on the UK’s towns and cities. A majority of inhabitants of London (55%), Slough (69%), Leicester (58%) and Luton (57%) are of ethnic minority (EM) background. The EM share in inner London was 60% in 2016, and 48% and 42% in Birmingham and Manchester respectively.^[3] Nottingham, Thurrock, Coventry, Derby, Peterborough, Milton Keynes and Northampton have experienced major demographic shifts.

3. This paper shows that around half of births in some major English cities – London (57%), Birmingham (42%), Manchester (50%), Cambridge (57%) and Leicester (56%) – are to non-UK born mothers. Some of the biggest direct and indirect impacts of immigration during the past decade have been in areas adjacent to London, the East of England and East Midlands (Table 4 & 6 below). Scotland and Wales have also seen notable rises in the non-UK born and EM populations compared with a relatively lower 2001 level (Table 1 & 7).

4. This paper argues that the UK is likely to experience a growing gap in outlook between those of different heritage as more and more towns and cities become areas of hyper-diversity, some potentially marked by intensifying communal segregation. There are also likely to be growing divisions between urban and rural areas, and between young and old.

5. Given the serious problems of cultural division and value divergence pointed to by Dame (now Baroness) Louise Casey in her landmark 2016 report on integration, there is serious risk of the weakening of the basic fabric of shared understandings and common experience that have long undergirded British life.

Where do immigrants tend to go?

6. Immigration has direct and indirect impacts on population growth – due to the effect of arrivals from overseas and children who are subsequently born here. An annual average of 84% of population growth since 2001 has been due to immigration^[4] but the impact has been unevenly distributed. The Capital city’s EM population now accounts for 5 million of the total 9 million population (or about 55%), having risen from 2.8 million of the population of 7.2 million (just under 40%) in 2001. Put another way, the entire increase in London’s population over the past 20 years is down to immigration.

7. Figure 1 shows that, since 2001 just under 90% of nearly 11 million immigrants have gone to England, while 6% went to Scotland, 2% to Wales and just over 1% to Northern Ireland (gross immigration figures, including British citizens). Of those who went to England just under half (47%, or 4.6 million) chose London and the South East but the next highest totals (just under a million each) went to the East of England and the North West.

Figure 1: Immigrants’ destination within the UK, 2001-19 (ONS).^[5] NB: gross immigration (including British citizens), not net figures.Immigrants’ destination within the UK, 2001-19ONSEngland: 9,726,000Scotland: 697,000Wales: 332,000Ireland: 156,000EnglandScotlandWalesIreland

Figure 2: Immigrants’ destinations within England, 2001-19 (ONS).Immigrants’ destinations within England, 2001-19ONSLondon: 3,164,000South East: 1,429,000East of England: 985,000North West: 928,000Yorkshire and Humber: 837,000West midlands: 748,000South West: 692,000East Midlands: 613,000North East: 332,000LondonSouth EastEast of EnglandNorth WestYorkshire and HumberWest midlandsSouth WestEast MidlandsNorth EastSouth EastNumber of immigrants choosing destination 2001-19:1,429,000

Foreign-born population by area of UK

8. In 2019/20, 8.3 million non-UK born people (90% of the UK total of 9.2 million) were estimated to be resident in England, 530,000 (6%) in Scotland, 200,000 (2%) lived in Wales and 130,000 (just over 1%) lived in Northern Ireland. Table 1 below shows the increase in the non-UK born population in each area of the UK. Scotland had the largest percentage change since 2001/2.

Table 1: Change in non-UK born population by area of UK, (ONS).^[6]

9. Table 2 below shows 15 towns and cities in England which had relatively high proportions of foreign-born residents in 2019/20 compared to the overall English average of 15%, according to the ONS Annual Population Survey (APS). For this table, London is treated as one unit. However, as Table 3 shows, in certain parts of London – such as Kensington and Chelsea, Brent and Newham – 48% of respective borough populations are foreign-born.

Table 2: Places with relatively high foreign-born populations (ONS, 2019/20)^[7].

Table 3: London boroughs, top five non UK-born shares (ONS, 2019/20).^[8]

10. According to the ONS’s local area migration indicators tables, twelve local authorities witnessed a percentage point increase in the share of non-UK born residents between 2010 and 2019 that was ten points or more (Table 4 below).

Table 4: Change in non-UK born population as share of total, 2010-19 (ONS).^[9] Ordered by percentage point increase.

Indirect impact of immigration on different parts of the UK

11. In addition to the direct effect of immigration on population change, there is the effect of births to non-UK born parents. Since 1970, the share of births to non-UK born mothers in England and Wales has more than doubled in size from 12% to 29%. The UK share rose from 24% to 27% (2010-19) and in England from 26% to just under 30%.^[10]

12. By 2019, between 40% and 60% of births in some major English cities were to foreign-born mothers. Table 5 below shows 15 urban areas with the highest shares of live births to non-born mothers in 2019. It shows that the percentage was half or more in Luton, Oxford, Manchester, Leicester, Cambridge and London. The highest share in the UK (with London treated as one unit) was Slough (62%).

13. However, looking at London by individual borough, the five highest shares were: Brent (75%), Harrow (74%), Newham (73%), Ealing (70%) and Hounslow (69%). Although the share in London only rose by one percentage point (2010-19), areas such as Havering and Barking and Dagenham saw very high relative changes of 17 and ten points during that period respectively.

Table 5: Percentage of live births to non-UK born mothers (ONS)^[11]. Those with a share of half or more are highlighted in bold.

14. Table 6 below lists 14 local authorities in which the percentage point increase in the share of births to non-UK born mothers between 2010 and 2019 was eleven points or above.

15. The three English regions with a percentage point increase above four (England as a whole) were the East Midlands (6), East of England (5) and West Midlands (5). Notable rises were seen in places such as Northampton, Ipswich, Broxbourne, Mansfield and Nottingham, Corby and Peterborough.

16. Other areas of marked change during the past decade can be found in the North and East London commuter belts, Hertsmere in Hertfordshire and in Barking and Dagenham, Havering, Thurrock, Gravesham and Dartford.

Table 6: Change in births to non-UK born mothers as share of total live births, 2010-19 (ONS)^[12]. Ordered by percentage point increase.

17. Also experiencing relatively high growth were local authorities in the South East (Spelthorne, Gravesham, Rushmoor), West Midlands (Wolverhampton, Coventry, Warwick, Rugby), North West (Salford) and Scotland (Midlothian).

Ethnic change in different parts of the UK since 2001

18. For historical reasons, the UK regions with the largest EM shares have been and remain London and the West Midlands (2020 shares of about 55% and 38% respectively, according to the LFS). Such areas experienced continuing major change since 2001 but there have also been notably large changes in the North West, East of England and South East.

Figure 3: Numerical change in ethnic minority population, 2001-20 (ONS).Numerical change in ethnic minority population, 2001-20ONS200120112020North EastNorth WestYorks /HumbersideEastMidlandsWestMidlandsEast ofEnglandLondonSouth EastSouth WestWalesScotland02,000,0004,000,0006,000,000Wales●

 2001: 90,069● 2011: 161,865● 2020: 272,956

19. Table 7 contains data ordered by the size of the percentage increase, over the past two decades or so, of the ethnic minority population as a share of the respective total in each area of Great Britain.

Table 7: Change in ethnic minority share of the population by area, (ONS).^[13]

20. According to ONS estimates, three urban areas outside London had a majority of inhabitants who were of EM background in 2016. It should be noted that these ONS estimates are not official statistics but were produced using the Annual Population Survey (i.e. Labour Force Survey plus various sample boosts), the mid-year population estimates and 2011 Census:^[14]

• Already majority-minority – Urban areas included London (56%), Luton (57%), Leicester (58%) and Slough (69%). [Within London, Newham (85%) and Brent (84%) were top, then Tower Hamlets (73%), Ealing (73%), and Harrow (72%).
• Higher impact – Places where the EM population was 41%-50% of the total included Birmingham (48%), Manchester (42%), Watford (41%).
• Medium to higher impact – Those with EM populations of 31%-40% included Sandwell – the council that includes West Bromwich (38%), Coventry (36%), Reading (35%), Oxford (35%), Wolverhampton (34%), Nottingham (33%), Bradford (31%), Cambridge (31%).
• Medium to lower impact – Those where the EM population was 21%-30% of the total: Peterborough (30%), Oldham (29%), Milton Keynes (27%), Southampton (27%), Bedford (26%), Rochdale (24%), Walsall (24%), Kirklees (24%), Woking (23%), Harlow (22%), Derby (22%), Bristol (22%).
• Lower impact – With an EM population below the Great Britain average of 21% (20% or lower): Cardiff (19%), Sheffield (19%), Swindon (19%), Exeter (18%), Newcastle-upon-Tyne (18%), Stoke-on-Trent (18%), Leeds (18%), Brighton (18%), Liverpool (17%), Portsmouth (15%), Canterbury (14%), Plymouth (10%), Winchester (8%).^[15]

How are towns and cities changing?

21. We have suggested above that immigrants and minority ethnic groups have tended to settle more in urban and industrial areas, often reflecting labour market gaps which immigrant communities came to fill in the 20th Century. London is clearly the first port of call for many immigrants. Nearly one in three overseas immigrants to the UK in 2019 (29%) went to London, despite the fact that London only makes up 13% of the total UK population.^[16] As the Casey Review of 2016 noted, half of all minority ethnic citizens in Britain then lived in London, Birmingham and Manchester. Similar patterns of urban concentration exist in Scotland and Wales, such as Edinburgh, Glasgow, Cardiff and, increasingly, Swansea.^[17]

22. This is reflected in the fact that recent population growth has been much faster in urban and suburban areas than in rural areas, accompanied by a process of what the Resolution Foundation (RF) has called “demographic divergence”, in which the average age in rural populations is rising and urban populations are becoming younger. RF calls this trend ‘particularly worrying’, while noting the major implications for politics, local governance and economic strategies.^[18]

The growing urban / rural and older / younger divide

23. Immigrants and those from a minority background also tend to be younger than the overall resident population. As the RF noted in 2019: “The poorest parts of the country are often urban, young (and getting younger) ethnically diverse local authorities with high birth rates.” This means that large numbers of children are being born in low-income places.^[19]

24. More than 90% of immigrants arriving in the UK in 2018 were under 45, compared with less than 60% of the UK population generally.^[20] Meanwhile, the average age of international immigrants to London is 28.3, so migration and relatively high birth rates bring London’s average age down.^[21]

25. The younger cohort of the UK population is much more ethnically diverse than the older cohort. Our previous paper showed that just over a third of pupils in England’s state schools are of ethnic minority heritage (compared with just over a fifth of the total population in England), but with significant regional differences. In the North East of England, the figure is 12%, while it is 38% in the West Midlands and 80% in inner London^[22] – ethnic segregation becoming a major problem. A Demos study found that, in 2013, more than 50% of ethnic minority students were in schools where ethnic minorities formed the majority of pupils.^[23]

26. The graph below shows both actual and forecast share of ethnic minority pupils in English state-funded schools.^[24] The forecast line after 2020 is based upon the average annual increase in the respective share of ethnic minority pupils from 2009-20 (0.84% for Primary Schools and just over 1% for Secondary schools). This suggests that, on recent trends, ethnic minority children will become the majority in English state schools in about 20 years.

Figure 4: Share of ethnic minority pupils in state-funded schools in England (Dept. of Education figures, ‘School pupils and their characteristics’).^[25]Percentage (%)Share of ethnic minority pupils in state-funded schools in EnglandDept. of Education figures, ‘School pupils and their characteristics’EM pupils in state Primary Schools in EnglandEM pupils in state Secondary Schools in England2009201020112012201320142015201620172018201920202021202220232024202520262027202820292030203120322033203420352036203720382039102030405060

27. Younger people are more likely to move to urban areas, so the average age in rural areas is 45 (and rising), compared with 39 for urban areas. Indeed, it is quite striking that the fastest-growing population groups overall are rural 55-74s, and rural people over 75.^[26]

28. Professor Eric Kaufmann has described a process in which white majorities are moving towards areas that are heavily white while avoiding more diverse places, with White British families increasingly tending to avoid dense and diverse neighbourhoods – part of a broader picture of population churn. He also cites statistics which show divergence in the moving patterns of both whites and minorities. During the 2000s, two-thirds of white British movers chose whiter wards, 12% went to more diverse places and the rest selected wards of similar diversity. For minority movers, 25% per cent opted for white wards, while 40% chose more diverse wards to move to.^[27]

29. Meanwhile, Ian Gordon has suggested that London’s growing migrant population has been accommodated, despite the Capital’s ‘inelastic’ housing stock, by both ‘displacement of others into nearby regions’ and by acceptance of much higher levels of crowding. However, this is not something that can be expected to continue, since as migrants ‘become better integrated economically and socially, density standards seem to converge towards those of the UK-born population’^[28]. This seems to imply that ‘displacement’ from London may be set to continue (and could perhaps increase), especially should immigration continue at the very high recent levels.

30. The process of ‘demographic divergence’ related to age (noted above) may have political impacts. The Resolution Foundation’s view is that ‘age has replaced class as the big dividing line in our politics’ and ‘has become a key driver of voting preferences’^[29]. However, as Professor Kaufmann notes, in the midst of shifting demographic patterns, ‘ethnic change is altering the basis of politics from class to ethnicity’.^[30] How these processes interact as the population transformation continues will be of prime importance for the UK during the rest of the 21st century and beyond.

Conclusion

31. The uneven impact of immigration and other demographic changes on different parts of the country – particularly on various urban and suburban areas – are multifarious and difficult to disentangle. However, it is clear that these effects have been and will continue to be profound. In 2016, Dame Louise Casey identified ‘worrying levels of segregation and socio-economic exclusion’ in different areas of the country. In her words: “As the diversity of the nation has increased [a] dynamic is… clear – people from minority groups have become both more dispersed and in some cases more concentrated and segregated.”^[31] As a striking illustration, in one school visited by Casey Report researchers, pupils believed the population of Britain to be between 50% and 90% Asian, such had been their experience up to that point.

32. Should the trends described above be allowed to continue, there is an increasing potential for the shared outlook that has long undergirded British life to weaken further – driven mainly by the huge scale of recent arrivals together with the younger age structure of most, and the higher fertility rates of some immigrant groups.^[32]

Annex A

Table A: Change in share of births to non-UK born mothers by area, (ONS).^[33]

Footnotes

1. Migration Watch UK, ‘Impact of immigration in changing the UK population’, 27 July 2021, URL: https://migrationwatchuk.org/briefing-paper/492/impact-of-imm… ation-in-changing-the-uk-population
2. The ONS and Cabinet Office employ the term “ethnic minorities” to describe all groups other than “White British”. On this definition, groups such as “White – Irish”, “White – Gypsy or Irish Traveller” and “White – Other” are classified as ethnic minorities. ONS, ‘Ethnic group, national identity and religion’, URL: https://www.ons.gov.uk/methodology/classificationsandstandards/me… nicgroupnationalidentityandreligion
3. ONS, Population estimates by ethnic group for 2016; BBC News, December 2012, URL: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-20680565 ; ONS, ‘2011 Census: Key Statistics for England and Wales, March 2011’, URL: https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/populationand… isticsforenglandandwales/2012-12-11
4. See Figure 2 in Migration Watch UK, ‘Impact of immigration in changing the UK population’, 27 July 2021, URL: https://migrationwatchuk.org/briefing-paper/492/impact-of-imm… ation-in-changing-the-uk-population
5. ONS, Table 2.06, Migrants’ destination within the UK, URL: https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/populationand… tinationororiginwithintheuktable206
6. ONS population by country of birth data from the APS, latest release January 2021, URL: https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/populationand… ngdombycountryofbirthandnationality
7. Ibid.
8. Ibid.
9. Estimates of the non-UK born resident population, derived from the APS, ONS local area migration indicators tables, last published: August 2020, URL: https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/populationand… reamigrationindicatorsunitedkingdom
10. ONS local area migration indicators.
11. ONS births data, as contained in ONS, local area migration indictors tables, latest release August 2020, URL: https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/populationand… reamigrationindicatorsunitedkingdom
12. Ibid.
13. ONS Labour Force Survey. NB These figures use the ONS definitions of ethnicity. See our first paper in this series, URL: https://migrationwatchuk.org/briefing-paper/492/impact-of-imm… ation-in-changing-the-uk-population Scotland has developed its ethnic group question independently from other parts of the UK. The question distinguished ‘White Scottish’ from ‘White Other British’ for the first time in 2001. In 2011 it identified ‘White: Polish’, ‘White: Gypsy/Traveller’, and ‘Arab’ for the first time, and made African a separate category from ‘Caribbean or Black.
14. ONS, Population estimates by ethnic group for 2016.
15. These tables are only for England and Wales. However, the 2011 census showed that the ethnic minority share of cities in Scotland were 17.9% in Edinburgh, 17.3% in Glasgow and 17.1% in Aberdeen, URL: https://www.scotlandscensus.gov.uk/census-results/at-a-glance/ethnicity/
16. ONS data tables, Long-term international migration 2.06, area of destination or origin within the UK, URL: https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/populationand… tinationororiginwithintheuktable206
17. As the ESRC Centre on Dynamics of Ethnicity (CoDe) has written, Edinburgh and Glasgow are the largest Scottish local authorities with one fifth of Scotland’s population. They house 44% of the minority population if ‘White Other British’ is excluded. A 2014 report noted that every ward in both Edinburgh and Glasgow has seen an increase in diversity (between 2001 and 2011). It added: “All of Edinburgh’s population and two thirds of Glasgow’s population live in electoral wards that are more diverse than Scotland as a whole.” However, CoDE also notes that the data shows that minorities are moving into new parts of Scotland growth has been at least as great outside each group’s ‘clustered’ wards as within them, with Chinese the only exception to this rule. CoDE, May 2014, URL: http://bemis.org.uk/docs/code-census-briefing-scotland_v2.pdf
18. Resolution Foundation, ‘Ageing, fast and slow’, October 2019, p.47, URL: https://www.resolutionfoundation.org/app/uploads/2019/10/Ageing-fast-and-slow.pdf
19. Ibid, p. 44.
20. ONS international migration data, URL: https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/populationand… lmigration/datalist?filter=datasets
21. Resolution Foundation (2019), p.46.
22. The Casey Review, 2016, p. 11, URL: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/syste… /575973/The_Casey_Review_Report.pdf; ICoCo, ‘Understanding school segregation’, March 2017, URL: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BxL3m2uvdxMea2F1X0liT2JMSG5kYjJK… esourcekey=0-S8Sal4vRVP1uc64G78kWlg
23. Casey Review, 2016. P.11
24. Ibid.
25. Department of Education, ‘Schools, pupils and their characteristics’, 29 June 2017, URL: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/syste… ile/650547/SFR28_2017_Main_Text.pdf / January 2020, URL: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statisti… ol-pupils-and-their-characteristics
26. Resolution Foundation (2019), quoted in BBC briefing on housing, 2021. P. 56. URL: http://news.files.bbci.co.uk/include/newsspec/pdfs/bbc-briefing-housing-newsspec-26534.pdf
27. Eric Kaufmann, Whiteshift, (Allen Lane, 2018).
28. Ian Gordon, ‘Development, displacement and.or densification in the London region’, in Kochan, Ben, ed. (2014) Migration and London’s growth: final report of LSE London’s HEIF 5 project on Migration and the Transformation of London. LSE London, London, UK, p. 7, URL: http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/62150/1/Kochan_migration_and_londons_growth.pdf
29. Resolution Foundation (2019), p.52.
30. Kaufmann (2018).
31. Dame Louis Casey, ‘Review into opportunity and integration’, December 2016, URL: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/syste… /575973/The_Casey_Review_Report.pdf
32. ONS 2011 Census; BBC briefing on immigration, p. 108.
33. ONS, parents’ country of birth, latest release July 2020, URL: https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsa… rths/datasets/parentscountryofbirth; ONS, local area migration indictors, latest release: August 2020, URL: https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/populationand… reamigrationindicatorsunitedkingdom

1. The UK is already a crowded country yet our population is growing rapidly and is also being significantly changed by immigration at a much faster rate than has been generally understood. Indeed, 90% of growth since 2017 has been driven by immigration and subsequent children. Since 2001, the foreign-born share of the population has doubled to about nine million. Meanwhile, the number of those from an ethnic minority background, including ‘White Other’, has more than doubled to over 13 million; their share of the population rising from 10% to 21%. Just over one third of all births now involve at least one foreign born parent and one in three pupils in English state-funded schools are from an ethnic minority background. Furthermore, the share of the population of other ethnic backgrounds is already much larger amongst younger people than in the wider population. Unless firm action is taken to reduce the scale of immigration substantially, the nature of the country will be irrevocably changed.

Introduction

2. The UK is already a crowded country. Indeed England is nearly twice as crowded as Germany and three and a half times as crowded as France. Over the past 20 years unprecedented immigration by non-UK nationals (a net level of nearly 300,000 per year) has resulted in a rapid increase of the UK population as well as major changes to its composition. The number of foreign-born UK residents has nearly doubled from just over 4.5 million to more than nine million.^[1] High birth rates among some immigrant communities and the younger age profile of minorities have both accelerated such changes. A return to pre-pandemic levels of immigration would add still further to these changes. There has been no serious discussion of the consequences of this outlook and certainly no general public consent for it. This paper provides background for discussion of the issues that arise. Key findings are:

• The population of rose by eight million since 2001 to just over 67 million.
• The overseas-born increase since 2001 amounted to 4.5 million, doubling the total to about 9 million; increasing their share from 8% to 14%.
• Overall, the population of Great Britain made up of other ethnicities, including ‘Other White’, has risen by seven million to just over 13 million since 2001, and now accounts for 21% of the total (up from 10%). ‘Other White’ are mainly from the EU.
• ‘White British’ as a share of the total population of Great Britain has declined by ten percentage points – from 89% in 2001 to 79%.
• Just over a third of births involve at least one foreign born parent and in some parts of London nearly 80% of births are to foreign-born mothers.

Official measurement of ethnicity and definition of terms

3. The most up-to-date formal estimates of the population by ethnic group are from the 2011 Census. The England and Wales census first asked the ethnic group question in 1991, although updated estimates are available from the Annual Population Survey (APS) and Labour Force Survey (LFS).^[2] For the definitions in this paper, and other papers on this topic, we follow the 2011 definitions for both the Census^[3] and the APS^[4]. Where possible we use the ONS’s 2015 harmonised classification of ethnic groups.^[5] The definition of terms can be found at Annex A below.

Immigration is changing the UK population

4. The UK population as a whole has increased by about eight million since 2001.^[6]

Figure 1: UK population growth since 2001 (Census and ONS mid-year population estimates).millionsUK population growth since 2001Census and ONS mid-year population estimates2001200220032004200520062007200820092010201120122013201420152016201720182019202052.55557.56062.56567.5702003●

 UK population: 59

5. An average of 84% of annual population growth since 2001 has been the direct or indirect result of immigration, – that is to say immigrants themselves and the children they subsequently have in the UK (rising to about 90% or more since 2017 – see Figure 2 below).^[7]

Figure 2: Population growth driven directly or indirectly by immigration, 2001-20 (our analysis of ONS statistics).Percentage (%)Population growth driven directly or indirectly by immigration, 2001-20our analysis of ONS statisticsShare of annual population growth linked to migration, direct and indirect2001200220032004200520062007200820092010201120122013201420152016201720182019204060801002011●

 Share of annual population growth linked to migration, direct and indirect: 73.7

a) Changing components of UK population by country of birth

6. Since 2001 the foreign-born population of the UK has risen by 4.5 million, doubling to about nine million in by 2019/20. Figure 3 depicts time series data as it appears in the ONS’s population by country of birth tables.^[8]

Figure 3: Change in size of the foreign-born population of the UK – thousands (ONS).ThousandsChange in size of the foreign-born population of the UKONSOf which: EU bornOf which: Non-EU born[2001/2][2002/3][2003/4]2004200520062007200820092010201120122013201420152016201720182019[2019/20]02,5005,0007,50010,0002011●

 Of which: EU born: 2,564● Of which: Non-EU born: 5,097

Questions about the true size of the EU-born population in the UK

7. It is instructive to add the two million change in the EU-born population (referred to in Table 1 above) to the 1.2 million EU-born who were already in the country in 2001 and compare the resulting 3.2 million with the new statistics published about the EU Settlement Scheme (EUSS). The latter has now received just under 5 million applications by EEA nationals.^[9]

8. The difference appears to be largely made up of more applications from people from Romania and Bulgaria and from southern European countries such as Spain and Portugal than the ONS originally estimated to have come to or to be living in the UK. In addition, there have been about 300,000 applications to the EUSS by non-EEA nationals who are dependants of EEA nationals.

Indirect impact of immigration – Births to the non-UK born population

9. As well as the direct impact, international migration has an indirect impact on the population as it has added considerably to the number of births but far fewer to the number of deaths. 34% of births in England and Wales in 2019 involved at least one parent who was not born here. As Figure 4 below shows, the share plateaued at around 17% between the 1970s and the late 1990s but nearly doubled following New Labour’s inauguration of unprecedented mass immigration.

Figure 4: Share of births with one or more foreign-born parent, England/Wales (ONS).Share of births with one or more foreign-born parent, England/WalesONS197419761978198019821984198619881990199219941996199820002002200420062008201020122014201620180102030402001●

 Share of births with at least one non-UK born parent: 23.3

10. Since 1997, when New Labour seriously weakened a number of key immigration controls, the share of live births to non-UK born mothers has doubled from about 13% to 29%. In London, a majority of births (just under 60%) are now to non-UK born mothers, and such births now approach 80% in the London boroughs of Brent and Newham.

11. The total fertility rate (TFR) is the average number of live children that a woman would bear over her lifetime if birth rates remained constant. The graph below shows that, despite falling significantly since 2004, the non-UK born TFR remains higher than the rate for UK-born women.^[10]

Figure 5: TFR by country of birth of mother, England/Wales, 2004-19 (ONS).^[11]TFR by country of birth of mother, England/Wales, 2004-19ONSTFR (women born outside UK)TFR (women born in UK)200420052006200720082009201020112012201320142015201620172018201911.522.532013●

 TFR (women born outside UK): 2.13● TFR (women born in UK): 1.77

12. Births to non-UK born mothers have run at an average of 185,000 per year in England and Wales since 2008 (averaging 26% of a total of about 700,000 per year). Figure 6 below shows that two-thirds of births to foreign-born mothers between 2008 and 2019 were to those from outside the EU (just under 1.5 million out of 2.2 million), while there were 730,000 or so births to EU-born mothers.^[12]

Figure 6: Births to non-UK born mothers in England / Wales, 2008-19 (ONS).Births to non-UK born mothers in England / Wales, 2008-19ONSEU: 732,991Non-EU: 1,490,842EUNon-EUEUSeries 1:732,991

Ethnic change in the UK since 2001

‘White British’ population

13. The ‘White British’ population of Great Britain has fluctuated between 50 and 51 million since 2001. However, the White British share of the population of Great Britain has fallen from just under 90% in 2001 to just under 80% in 2020, as shown in Figure 7.

Figure 7: Change in the ‘White British’ share of population of Great Britain, 2001 to 2019 (ONS). There are no official time series estimates of population by ethnicity for Britain. The irregularity below arises because the APS is a sample, albeit a large one.Percentage (%)Change in the ‘White British’ share of population of Great Britain, 2001 to 2019ONS200120022003200420052006200720082009201020112012201320142015201620172018201975808590951002012●

 Share of GB population that is White British: 82.4

14. Table 1 below shows that the population of Great Britain made up of ethnicities other than ‘White British’ in 2020 was just over 13 million. In the table, the 2020 population of Great Britain is broken down by ethnic group.

Table 1: Population of Great Britain by ethnic group, 2020 (ONS).

15. Since 2001, the population of all other ethnicities has increased by 7.4 million – more than doubling from about 6 million in 2001. As a result the ethnic minority population as a share of the total, including “White Other”, increased from about 10.3% of a total population in Great Britain of 56.5 million in 2001 to just under 21% of a total population of 64.3 million in 2020.

Figure 8: Change in total ethnic minority share of population of Great Britain, including “White Other”, since 2001 (ONS). There are no official time series estimates of population by ethnicity for Britain. The irregularity below arises because the APS is a sample, albeit a large one.Percentage (%)Change in total ethnic minority share of population of Great Britain, including “White Other”,since 2001ONS20012002200320042005200620072008200920102011201220132014201520162017201820195101520252013●

 Ethnic minority population of GB population: 17.8

16. Recent LFS figures suggest a slight increase in the size of the ‘White British’ population. However, this has been challenged, and may be a result of weighting problems of the survey on which it is based. The ‘White British’ population declined slightly between the census of 2001 and 2011. It is hoped that the question will be clarified by the results of the 2021 census.

17. The ethnic minority population has, of course, been rising since the 1950s. The graph below takes a longer look at data on the size of population of other ethnicities residing in Great Britain. We have not included ‘Other Whites’ because data on groups thus described was not collected before 2001. Figure 9 shows a gradual rise since the 1950s with a significant steepening of the increase from the late 1990s.

Figure 9: Ethnic minority population not including the ‘Other White’ population, GB 1951-2020 (thousands). Office for Population, Censuses and Surveys, ONS, UK Data Service. The early part of the graph and the New Commonwealth and Pakistani (NCWP) ethnic group population estimates are from various issues of ‘Population Trends’. Information on groups termed Other White was not collected before 2001.

18. Just over half of the increase of 7.4 million in the ethnic minority population since 2001 has been linked to the arrival of those born overseas (4.4 million, or 59%). However, the charts below show a big difference between ‘Other White’ and the remaining ethnic groups.

Figures 10 and 11: Change in segments of other ethnic population, 2001-20 (ONS).Increase- ‘Other White’ population 2001-202,577,089 TotalUK Born: 468,343Non-UK Born: 2,108,746UK BornNon-UK BornUK BornValue:468,343Increase in population of other ethnicities, 2001-204,829,847 TotalNon-UK Born: 2,566,502UK Born: 2,263,345Non-UK BornUK Born

19. Between 2014 and 2019, ‘White British’ births declined from 65% of the total to 61% as a share of all live births for which ethnicity was stated in England and Wales. In numerical terms they fell by 62,000 over the same period on an annual basis (from 435,000 to just over 370,000).

20. In contrast, while the total number of births to all other ethnicities is smaller (240,000 in 2019), the share of births to all other ethnicities increased from 34% to 39% of the total, rising slightly from 231,000 in 2014 to 240,400 in 2019 (see Figures 12 below). Figure 13 meanwhile shows that the TFR for some other ethnicities has been higher than the ‘White British’ TFR (there is limited updated data on this point available for the UK).

Figure 12: Births by ethnicity, England / Wales, 2014-19 (ONS)^[13].Births by ethnicity, England / Wales, 2014-19ONSWhite BritishAll other ethnicities201420152016201720182019100,000200,000300,000400,000500,0002018●

 White British: 390,807● All other ethnicities: 238,893

Figure 13: Historical trend in TFR by main ethnic group (Dubuc and Haskey, 2010).^[14]

21. Younger age groups have much higher ethnic minority shares than older age groups.^[15] The younger average age, higher birth rate of minority populations and a continuing relatively high level of immigration mean that the White British share of the population is likely to continue to fall.

Projections

22. There has been no recent official projection but a number of academic projections in the past decade or so suggest that, on present policies, the share of the White British in the total population will continue to decline. The results of three of the most recent projections, which all include estimates for 2061, are set out in Table 2 below:

Table 2: Academic projections of the composition of the UK population in 2061.

23. A similar range of projections for Britain and EU countries have been made by Eurostat (Lanzieri 2011) and by some European academics. All the projections above expect the White British population to diminish in absolute and relative terms. The first two projections do not extend beyond 2061 but trends in all three point towards a situation in which the White British population would become a minority of the UK. However, all projections depend on the assumptions made and events could change them in either direction.

Make up of population in state-funded schools in England

24. The ethnic minority component of the age 5-16 maintained school population in England has increased from 16.8% in 2003 to about a third in 2020.^[16] In 2020, there were 8.1 million pupils in England’s state-funded primary and secondary schools. In primary schools 33.9% of these were of an ethnic minority background (other than White British), while in secondary schools this share was 32.3%.^[17]

25. The graph below shows both actual and forecast share of those who are not White British pupils in English state-funded schools. The forecast line after 2020 is based upon the average annual increase in the respective share of ethnic minority pupils from 2009-20 (0.84% for Primary Schools and just over 1% for Secondary schools).

Figure 14: Share of ethnic minority pupils in English schools (Department of Education figures on school pupils and their characteristics).^[18]Share of ethnic minority pupils in English schoolsDepartment of Education figures on school pupils and their characteristicsEthnic minority pupils- state-funded Primary SchoolsEthnic minority pupils- state-funded Secondary Schools20062007200820092010201120122013201420152016201720182019202020212022202320242025202620272028202920302031203220332034203520362037203820390102030405060

26. A further potentially important factor in population growth and change is the government’s decision to offer, with effect from 31st January 2021, up to 5.4 million people in Hong Kong who are British Nationals (Overseas) the right to enter the UK and, if they wish, to become UK citizens. The government have estimated that between 123,000 and 153,700 British Nationals (Overseas) and their dependants will come in the first year and between 258,000 and 322,400 will come over five years. It is too early to judge the outcome but the numbers could be considerable.

Conclusion

27. The combination of very high levels of immigration since 2001, the generally lower age profile of the ethnic minority population and higher birth rates among some migrant groups have set in train a rapid change in the make-up of Britain’s population which raises issues that go well beyond the previous debate about net migration.

Annex A

Definition of terms:

• White British: White English/ Welsh / Scottish / Northern Irish / British.
• Any Other White background: Persons who self-identify as White but not White British, English, Scottish. This is an aggregation of the standard groups of White Other, White Irish, and Gypsy or Irish Traveller. It also includes some of other nationalities, for example Americans and Australians.
• Asian /Asian British: Asian British / Indian / Pakistani / Bangladeshi / Chinese / Other Asian.^[19]
• Black / African / Caribbean / Black British: Black British / Black African / Black Caribbean / Other Black
• Mixed / multiple – Mixed / Multiple ethnic groups consists of White and Black Caribbean / White and Black African / White and Asian / Other Mixed
• Other ethnic group: Arab / Any other ethnic group
• Ethnic minority (or minority ethnic): The ONS and Cabinet Office employ the term “ethnic minorities” to describe all groups other than “White British”. On this definition, groups such as “White – Irish”, “White – Gypsy or Irish Traveller” and “White – Other” are classified as ethnic minorities. Where the White British group is not available – which is the case for most sources in this briefing – “ethnic minorities” refer to all groups other than “White”.^[20]

Sources and limitations of the data used in this paper

The main sources of data for this paper are the Censuses for 2011 and 2001. There is uncertainty around the 2011 Census estimates arising from both sampling and non-sampling errors as described in the 2011 Census Quality and Methodology Information report^[21]. Other data comes from the ONS’s Labour Force Survey (LFS) – a household survey whose purpose is to provide information on the UK labour market but which includes data on a variety of other variables such as ethnic group, country of birth and nationality.^[22]

Another source is the ONS’s Annual Population Survey (APS) – a continuous household survey which combines results from the LFS and the English, Welsh and Scottish Labour Force Survey boosts (thus boosting the overall sample size^[23]). The APS has the largest sample size of any annual UK household survey and enables the generation of statistics for small geographical areas. Sampling errors are smaller compared to those using other social survey designs because the APS has a single stage sample of addresses. As a result, it gives more robust estimates than the main LFS. APS datasets are produced quarterly with each dataset containing 12 months of data. There are approximately 300,000 persons per dataset.

The latter two ONS surveys provide estimates of population characteristics rather than exact measures and also omit many communal establishments apart from NHS housing and students in halls of residence. Members of the armed forces are only included if they live in private accommodation.^[24]

Footnotes

1. ONS population by country of birth figures (derived from the Annual Population Survey – APS).
2. The number of tick boxes on the questionnaire grew from nine to 18 between 1991 and 2011. It is important to note that there are some people from other ethnic groups who could (or wish to) belong under any of the ‘Other’ categories.
3. ONS, Ethnicity and National Identity in England and Wales: 2011, December 2012. URL:
4. ONS, Research report on population estimates by characteristics, August 2017, URL: https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/populationand… opulationestimatesbycharacteristics
5. ONS, Harmonised Concepts and Questions for Social Data Sources, 2015, URL: https://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/guide-method/harmonisation/primary-set… epts-and-questions/ethnic-group.pdf
6. ONS mid-year population estimates. URL: https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/populationand… ationestimates/timeseries/ukpop/pop
7. Also see Migration Watch UK paper, ‘Impact of immigration on UK population growth’, August 2018, URL: https://migrationwatchuk.org/briefing-paper/452/impact-of-immigration-on-uk-population-growth The ONS also stated in 2019 that, Once the indirect effect is included, international migration (at a net level of just under 200,000 per year) accounts for 79% of the projected UK population growth over the 10 years between mid 2018 and mid 2028, URL: https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/populationand… onalpopulationprojections/2018based NB Net migration averaged 240,000 per year (2001-19) but net migration by non-UK citizens averaged nearly 300,000 per year. ONS, LTIM figures.
8. The 2019/20 figure reflects the most recent population by country of birth statistics. However, since then the ONS have published both their RAPID-based assessments of net migration (which suggested that the International Passenger Survey had previously been underestimating immigration levels for some time) and, in July 2021, their HMRC RTI-based reweighting of the Labour Force Survey for labour market statistics which suggests that the non-UK born population has grown further and not shrunk.
9. EU settlement scheme quarterly statistics up until March 2021, published June 2021, URL: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/eu-settlement-scheme-quarterly-statistics-march-2021
10. ONS, Births by parents’ country of birth, England and Wales: 2019, URL: https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsa… scountryofbirthenglandandwales/2019
11. ONS, Parents’ country of birth, 2019, URL: https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsa… rths/datasets/parentscountryofbirth
12. ONS, Parents’ country of birth, 2019, URL: https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsa… rths/datasets/parentscountryofbirth
13. ONS birth characteristics, 2014 to 2019, URL: https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsa… rthcharacteristicsinenglandandwales
14. Dubuc Sylvie and John Haskey, “Ethnicity and fertility in the UK, in Stillwell and Van Ham, Understanding Population Trends and Processes, Volume 3: Ethnicity and Integration (2010), Chapter 13, URL: https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007%2F978-90-481-9103-1
15. Eric Kaufmann, Whiteshift, (Allen Lane, 2018).
16. Department for Education, 2013, URL: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/syste… he_effects_of_poverty_annex.pdf.pdf
17. Department of Education, ‘Schools, pupils and their characteristics’, 29 June 2017, URL: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/syste… ile/650547/SFR28_2017_Main_Text.pdf / January 2020, URL: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statisti… ol-pupils-and-their-characteristics
18. Department of Education, ‘Schools, pupils and their characteristics’, 29 June 2017, URL: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/syste… ile/650547/SFR28_2017_Main_Text.pdf / January 2020, URL: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statisti… ol-pupils-and-their-characteristics
19. NB The repositioning of Chinese tick box from Other category to Asian / Asian British category, and the introduction of the Arab category means there is a loss of comparability between 2001 and 2011 data for Chinese and other ethnic group.
20. ONS Language and Spelling – 9. Race and ethnicity. Cabinet Office Ethnicity Facts and Figures Style Guide – Writing about ethnicity; ONS, ‘Ethnic group, national identity and religion’, https://www.ons.gov.uk/methodology/classificationsandstandards/me… nicgroupnationalidentityandreligion; GSS, ‘Harmonised Concepts and Questions for Social Data Sources’, May 2015, URL: https://gss.civilservice.gov.uk/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/P3-Ethnic-Group-June-16-1.pdf
21. ONS. 2011 Census Quality and Methodology Report, URL: https://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/guide-method/census/2011/census-data/2… y-methodology-information-paper.pdf
22. The ONS states: “Each quarter’s LFS sample of 40,000 households is made up from five “waves”, each of approximately 8,000 households. Each wave is interviewed in five successive quarters, such that in any one quarter, one wave will be receiving their first interview, one wave their second and so on, with one wave receiving their fifth and final interview. Thus there is an 80 per cent overlap in the samples for each successive quarter and the sample is completely different after six quarters.”
23. In some areas of the UK the boost makes up the bulk of the APS dataset, with a smaller contribution from the main LFS. The boost has a four-year wave structure instead of the five quarter wave structure in the main LFS; after the initial interview, sampled households are interviewed three more times on an annual basis. Therefore the boost for these areas may be slower to react to a change in migration patterns than the main LFS and the speed with which the APS sample responds to changes in the household population may vary across the UK.
24. There are also a number of issues relating to comparability and coherence of the APS. If you wish to read more, please read this 2012 note by the ONS on the Annual Population Survey, URL: https://www.ons.gov.uk/employmentandlabourmarket/peopleinwork/emp… logies/annualpopulationsurveyapsqmi

1. The number of foreign nationals who need a visa but who the Home Office did not record as departing the UK on time nearly doubled from 50,000 in 2016/17 to nearly 92,000 in 2019/20. Additionally, the most recent investigation into the number of visitors from more than 50 countries who do not need a visitor visa to come here for a stay of six months, but who were not recorded as departing on time, found that they could number 250,000 a year. The Home Office (HO) previously rejected a recommendation to improve analysis of this data on what may be the largest tranche of potential overstaying. They have since evaded parliamentary questions aimed at establishing an updated figure. We have serious questions about why the HO has failed to follow recommendations from the independent borders watchdog to analyse and better understand the huge amount of data it possesses on possible overstaying by non-visa national visitors, and on whether effective action is being taken to close this large gap in immigration control, alongside effective enforcement action.

Introduction

2. Prior to Brexit, EEA nationals had free entry to the UK while non-EEA nationals were divided into two groups – those nationalities requiring a visitor visa to come here for a period of up to six months, and those that could visit for that period without prior permission. The latter, referred to as “non visa nationals,” comprised those from about 55 countries, including the USA, Japan and Brazil. This group of countries was the source of nearly ten million passenger admissions for the purpose of a visit in 2017 (nearly 3/4 of all non-EEA visits).

Potential overstaying as suggested by Exit Checks analysis

3. Each year the Home Office releases analysis looking at how many non-UK nationals who are here on either longer-term (work, study, family) visas or on visitor visas are not leaving in line with their permission to be here. This does not include “non visa nationals” ^[1] . Such releases are based upon information derived from Initial Status Analysis (ISA), a database that was built as part of the Exit Checks Programme. ISA matches inbound and outbound travel data received via the Home Office’s Semaphore system^[2] with data recorded on other Home Office immigration-related systems. According to the HO, ISA ‘combines data from Home Office systems to build travel histories that consist of an individual’s travel in or out of the country, together with data relating to their immigration status, such as periods of leave granted’. To do so, it uses data from visa applications, Advance Passenger Information, biometric details and information derived from passport examinations at the border. Although the Exit Checks Programme closed in 2016, ISA is still used to verify departures.

4. The failure to record departure may not always indicate overstaying but may be due to data matching issues or other anomalies, for example where outward travel is by the Common Travel Area. The HO has also said: ‘There is more confidence in data on visa nationals, because more information is held on them through their visa. Therefore, the quality of data matching is believed to be higher for visa nationals and so only data relating to visa nationals is included in this statistical report.’^[3] Despite this the Independent Chief Inspector of Borders (ICIBI) described those not recorded as departing as ‘probable overstayers’.^[4]

5. The latest Exit Checks analysis suggest that the percentage of visa-expiries with no initially identified departure increased from 3.7% in 2016/17 to 4.8% in 2019/20. The total annual number of visas expiring rose from 1.3 million to just under two million. This suggests that the number of people for whom no departure was recorded rose from just under 50,000 to nearly 92,000 over the past five years. The estimate set out in the bar chart below is partially corroborated by information that was revealed in a 2020 report by the National Audit Office on the topic of immigration enforcement. This said that 60,000 people whose visa had expired may have stayed on in 2018/19.^[5]

Figure 1: Visa-expiries with ‘no initially identified departure’, 2016/17-19/20. Home Office.^[6]Visa-expiries with ‘no initially identified departure’, 2016/17-19/20Home OfficeVisa expiries with (no initially identified) on-time departure2016/172017/182018/192019/2020,00040,00060,00080,000100,0002019/20●

 Visa expiries with (no initially identified) on-time departure: 91,863

6. The figures suggest that the problem of overstaying may be getting worse. If so, it may be linked to a number of deficiencies with immigration enforcement, which have been documented by ourselves, and other bodies such as the House of Commons Public Accounts Select Committee, the National Audit Office, the ICIBI, Policy Exchange and Civitas. Linked to this, there appears to be a growing perception that those who do not follow the rules are decreasingly likely to be obliged to leave or face penalties for knowingly overstaying a visa, which is a criminal offence under the Immigration Act 1971.

7. The figures above do not include potential overstayers who are from 55 or so non-visa countries nor those on long-term visitor visas.

How many non-visa national visits are there in a normal year?

8. A total of 9.6 million non-visa nationals arrived in the UK in 2017 as visitors. They accounted for 73% of the total of 13.4 million non-EEA visitors that year.^[7] Meanwhile, the ICIBI noted in 2018 that there were 10 million visa nationals and non-visa nationals recorded in ISA whose last period of leave expired between 2015 and 2017.^[8]

Does the government hold information on potential overstaying by non-visa visitors?

9. In a Parliamentary Answer of 8 February, the Minister stated that the government ‘do not currently hold any existing assured data relating to the cohort of non-visa national visitors whose permission to be in the UK has expired and there is no record of departure’.

10. The key word here may be ‘assured’. This is because we already know from the ICIBI’s March 2018 report on exit checks that data on non-visa nationals was ‘ingested’ into the ISA database.^[9] Additionally, the HO confirmed this again in August 2020 when it said: “The ISA system contains data on both visa nationals and non-visa nationals.”

What is the latest figure on non-visa visitors not recorded as departing on time?

11. The ICIBI report on exit checks, published in 2018, said that the system contained no evidence of departure for 513,088 non-visa nationals, or just over 250,000 per year, as well as 88,000 visa nationals.

12. The government have declined to give their current estimate of the number of non-visa national visitors and those on long-term visit visas who are not recorded as leaving. When asked in repeated Parliamentary Questions earlier this year about the current estimated number of non-visa nationals not recorded as leaving^[10], the government refused to release a figure. In their most recent Parliamentary Answer, published on 8 February 2021, a Home Office minister referred the questioner to the Exit Checks analysis but, as noted above, this does not contain the relevant information. The answer added the following:

“To attempt to answer the question from data we hold would require significant technical, analytical and assurance work to establish the accuracy of any data for this cohort held within the immigration system.”^[11]

13. The HO clearly has less confidence about this data than it does in the data it holds on visa nationals. However, that just makes it all the more baffling that the HO has not conducted verification in recent years, particularly since the ICIBI highlighted this issue, and recommended action to address it, back in 2018 (see paragraphs 14 and 17 below).

Findings by the ICIBI in 2018

14. The ICIBI’s report noted the data on non-visa nationals was not routinely used by the Home Office for operational purposes. There was no explanation for this. Also surprising was the revelation by the ICIBI that ‘as at 31 March 2017, no attempt had been made to contact any of the 513,088 non-visa nationals for whom ISA had no record of departure’.

15. This may point to the lack of resources for immigration enforcement or even to a lack of will on the part of the government to truly get to grips with this huge tranche of potential overstaying. It is also possible that the HO has been overwhelmed by the volume of data that it has been collecting. As at March 2017, ISA contained over 161 million data records and over 61 million “identities”.

16. The ICIBI’s report also revealed that a data gap connected with the Central Reference System – a database of all UK visa applications – created problems when trying to establish the compliance of non-visa nationals.

17. The overarching recommendation of the ICIBI report was that the Home Office should ‘re-establish the Exit Checks Programme, with appropriate Programme oversight, governance and documentation, to drive the improvements needed in data quality and completeness and to coordinate and encourage its effective operational use’. Also included was a recommendation that the Home Office extend ISA data analysis to cover non-visa nationals with no record of departure and also to visa nationals holding long-term (2, 5 and 10-year) visit visas. As the ICIBI noted, a ‘significant amount of work remained to be done to get full value’ from the Exit Checks.

Rejection by the HO of the ICIBI’s recommendation

18. However, the Home Office rejectedthis recommendation – on the following grounds: “The Exit Checks Programme closed in May 2016 having delivered its objectives. It was an implementation programme and outbound travel data which was previously not acquired is now processed routinely in line with the scope determined by the Programme.” This may be true as far as it goes, but, as noted above, it appears that data on non-visa nationals – despite being “ingested” into the ISA – has not been used on an operational basis. We would be interested to hear confirmation whether this is the case – one way or the other from the HO.

19. In explaining its rejection of the ICIBI recommendation, the HO noted that it already had a cross-departmental border movements data programme in place (established in November 2017) ‘covering the acquisition and exploitation of data about the movement of people and freight into and from the UK which addresses the operational and analytical requirements of the Department, the wider Home Office family, other Government Departments and the Office for National Statistics’.

20. However, the HO avoided referring to the ICIBI’s point about the need to incorporate processing of data on non-visa nationals, appearing to effectively concede that they would not process this data despite it perhaps accounting for 250,000 potential cases per year – and relating to by far the largest tranche of non-EEA visitors each year.

21. What is even more worrying is that, in the Parliamentary Answer from earlier this year, the Minister suggested that work to analyse, verify and use the data on non-visa nationals who were not recorded as departing did not seem to have taken place. This raises serious questions about what – if anything – is being done to address this very large potential gap in our borders and whether any enforcement action against non-visa national overstayers is in fact taking place.

Wider failures on border and immigration data

22. This situation has developed in a context that has seen the government increasingly criticised for data gaps on a range of aspects connected with measuring immigration and with failures to deliver key upgrades to digital border systems on-time and on-budget. This means data gaps at a particularly crucial moment – when the UK has left the EU, is bringing online a new immigration system and is in the midst of a global pandemic.

• In December 2020, a report by the NAO lambasted the Home Office over a failure to deliver planned upgrades to digital border systems in line with plans, at the cost of millions to the taxpayer. A planned upgrade to the index to check passengers against the watchlist at passport control was meant to be ready by March 2019. However, by December of that year, six out of the seven pilot ports were using to check fewer than 20% of passengers. In March 2020 the programme (called Border Crossing) was suspended again due to ‘technical issues’ which led to ‘system instability’. The NAO also pointed to a ‘critical gap in the use of data’ which will remain in place until 2023/24 – linked to the failure to upgrade the Semaphore system on-time.^[12]
• The UK is also in the midst of a deep and wide-ranging transition when it comes to measuring immigration, with the suspension of the system that has been in place since the 1960s (the International Passenger Survey) during the Covid pandemic and ongoing work by the ONS to replace it with measurement via administrative data. A press report suggested Britain was ‘flying blind’ on migration statistics because the monitoring of the number of people arriving and departing had ‘fallen apart’.^[13]

23. Covid struck during a period in which the government was already facing serious questions over its handling of border and immigration data. It also hit just as the UK was transitioning to a new immigration system with much looser rules as they relate to the citizens of 80% of the world’s countries. In light of this, it is a matter of real concern that the government appears to have failed so signally since 2018 to respond satisfactorily to criticism by the independent borders watchdog regarding its handling of data on what may be the largest tranche of potential overstayers.

Conclusion

24. There are serious questions about what the government does with the data it possesses on the largest tranche of potential overstaying – non-visa national visitors, who made nearly ten million visits in 2017. This comes after a great deal of taxpayer money has been spent (much of it wasted) on border data reforms from 2003 onwards. The completion of similar upgrades was deferred yet again in 2019 at the cost of £173 million.^[14] The HO should take immediate steps to analyse, verify and then deploy for operational and enforcement purposes the data that it possesses on potential overstaying by non-visa national visitors as well as those here on long-term visit visas. Ministers should also come clean with the public about the scale of this issue and make clear what action they intend to take to address it.

Footnotes

1. Home Office Exit Checks analysis, 2016 – 2020, URL: https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/migration-statistics
2. Semaphore is a 16-year-old system maintained by IBM for analysing advance passenger information provided by carriers. It stores carrier data about passenger movements into and out of the UK and provides an automated matching facility to individuals of interest to the Home Office and UK law enforcement agencies.
3. Home Office statistics on exit checks: user guide, August 2020, URL: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/home-office-statistics… tatistics-on-exit-checks-user-guide
4. Independent Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration (ICIBI), ‘Inspection of Exit Checks’, 2018, URL: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/syste… 21/An_inspection_of_exit_checks.pdf
5. National Audit Office, Immigration Enforcement, June 2020, URL: https://www.nao.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/Immigration-enforcement.pdf
6. Home Office Exit Checks analysis, 2016 – 2020.
7. Home Office visa statistics and admissions tables, URL: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/immigration-statistics-y… the-uk-each-year-including-visitors & URL: https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_d… 6056/admissions-jun-2019-tables.ods
8. ICIBI report on exit checks, p.20, URL: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/syste… 21/An_inspection_of_exit_checks.pdf
9. Figure 2 on page 19 of the ICIBI’s report, 2018.
10. Parliamentary answer, 21 January 2021, URL: https://questions-statements.parliament.uk/written-questions/detail/2021-01-08/hl11926
11. Parliamentary answer, 8 February 2021, URL: https://questions-statements.parliament.uk/written-questions/detail/2021-01-25/HL12493
12. Telegraph, December 2020, URL: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/12/09/e-border-system-spot-… s-dangerous-criminals-failed-check/
13. Mail Online, 5 February 2021, URL: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9226177/Ministers-flying… nitoring-fallen-apart-pandemic.html
14. National Audit Office, Digital Services at the Border, December 2020, URL: https://www.nao.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/Digital-Services-at-the-Border.pdf