UK Edition
Brexit promised to ‘take back control’. Now foreign nationals are arriving in their droves
The number of work, study and other visas issued has increased by 83 per cent to 1,115,099 in the 12 months to June
Few would have imagined when Boris Johnson pledged to take back control of the UK’s borders that two years later Britain would be allowing in record numbers of foreign workers, students and families.
His ending of free movement through Brexit has significantly reduced the numbers of EU citizens migrating to the UK but they have been replaced by a doubling in non-EU workers and a huge increase in overseas students, both bringing with them families and children.
It has been fuelled by the NHS, businesses and other services plugging shortages, universities targeting overseas students to compensate for caps on home tuition fees and record numbers of humanitarian visas for Ukrainians, Hong Kongers and Afghans.
The consequence, according to the latest Home Office figures, is that the number of work, study and other visas issued to foreign nationals has increased by 83 per cent to 1,115,099 in the 12 months to June and is up 70 per cent on 2019 pre-pandemic, pre-Brexit levels.
That comes on top of the 6.7 million applications by EU citizens already in the UK who have applied for settled status, of which 6.5 million have been concluded, according to Thursday's data.
It is not surprising that John Hayes, a former Home Office minister and the chairman of the Tory Common Sense group, believes the next prime minister - Liz Truss or Rishi Sunak - must prioritise “clamping down” on both legal and illegal migration before the next election.
“I would like to see all of these figures drastically reduced. That is what my constituents expected when we voted to take back control. It isn’t just about borders but migration was a critical element of that. By the next election, we must do so,” he said.
So how did Mr Johnson’s pledge to take back control result in the highest number of visas being issued since 2005, when modern records began, and potentially the largest number since the Second World War?
Unlike his predecessor Theresa May, the Prime Minister scrapped targets designed to keep net migration below 100,000 a year and instead adopted a significantly more liberalised approach to post-Brexit immigration.
While tough on “illegal” migration - as illustrated by plans to send Channel migrants on a one-way ticket to Rwanda - he has relaxed rules for foreign skilled migrants and students with sponsored jobs or university places in the UK.
Work visas almost double in a year
The number of work visas has nearly doubled in a year, from 170,500 to 331,000 and is up 79 per cent on pre-pandemic levels. One factor is that migrant EU workers now require visas with the end of free movement, but they only account for 10 per cent of the total.
Instead, the rise has been largely fuelled by non-EU migrants seeking employment in the UK, led by India (up from 45,600 to 111,000 in a year), Philippines (doubling to 21,900) and Nigeria (doubling to 17,500).
The implementation of a points-based immigration system has opened up half of all jobs in the UK to foreign workers, by lowering salary and skill thresholds for migrants. Previously, employers also had to prove a British worker could not be recruited to fill a vacancy before looking abroad.
The number of professions that qualify for skilled visas has been significantly expanded to include jobs such as chef, bricklayer, electrician, welder, health and care worker, while the Government also removed caps on most visa routes.
This has not, however, solved shortages in some industries such as hospitality and construction as many of the non-EU workers are higher skilled, according to Oxford University’s Migration Observatory. Lower skilled health and seasonal agriculture sectors have benefited from bespoke Government schemes.
But vacancies in pubs, bars and hotels have nearly doubled to 193,000 since Summer 2019 because the workers they need such as waiters and waitresses fall under the salary threshold for skilled jobs and have not been deemed shortage areas by the Government.
Overseas student visas are up by 72 per cent in a year from 286,000 to a record 492,000, with India overtaking China for the first time with 118,000 versus 115,000 for its Asian counterpart in the year to June.
Driven by universities’ recruiting campaigns, it has been further fuelled by the Government’s decision to relax the rules to let foreign students work in the UK for up to two years after graduation. More than 66,000 extensions to stay were granted on this new graduate route in the year to June.
Most marked was the jump in “other” visas including Ukrainians, Hong Kongers and relatives of EU citizens living in the UK, which more than doubled from 95,264 to 250,258 in a year, a jump of 162 per cent.
“There is no longer a focus on reducing the overall number of migrants coming to the UK. That is a given within the policy design,” said one immigration expert. Instead, they said the Government was sending a “message of control” by focusing on illegal migration or asylum.
However, the data on Thursday show that even on that front, the number of asylum applications has risen by 77 per cent since 2019 to 63,089, its highest level for two decades since 2003. Three quarters (76 per cent) are being granted, the biggest proportion for three decades since 1990.
The UK also only forcibly returned 21 asylum seekers to “safe third countries” in the 18 months since Brexit came into effect as the EU has so far refused to renegotiate returns agreements to replace the pre-Brexit Dublin accord.
Madeleine Sumption, the director of the Migration Observatory, said: “I don’t think the post-Brexit migration rules will turn us into a low migration country. If it changes, it will be by a relatively small margin and the UK will still have substantial levels of immigration by international standards.”