Big new net migration number includes students, NHS workers and Ukrainian refugees - but is it sustainable?
Net migration has risen to 606,000 - almost the population of Glasgow - official statistics show. However, the big number is made up of other numbers, ones which both the public and politicians are largely happy with and don't want to reduce.
Thursday 25 May 2023 11:01, UK
We'll get to the big number in a bit because it is still very big.
Both Rishi Sunak and Keir Starmer want it to be smaller - even if neither will tell us what number they'd be happy with.
The problem is that the big number is made up of other numbers, ones which both the public and politicians are largely happy with and don't want to reduce.
Students represent the largest part of non-EU migration - 39%. But the fees they pay were worth around £19bn in exports in 2020, more than aerospace exports. And that was in the teeth of the pandemic - it will surely be even more valuable now.
Work visas are the next biggest chunk - and here, this is partly thanks to the skilled worker - largely for health and care. Ask the public whether they want less staffing in the NHS.
Arrivals from Ukraine, Hong Kong and Afghanistan also have widespread public support - they represented an increase in the figures but the Home Office itself does not expect permanently high numbers.
That also suggests that the big number is unusually big and not a new normal.
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Student numbers increased as the pandemic came to an end, and also because of a specific government policy - the Graduate Route, which lets students work for two years after graduating.
But the large majority of students leave at the end of their course - indeed, the ONS says some who arrived in 2021 are already starting to leave.
The high number of health and care workers too is the result of government policy, one launched in 2020 and expanded in 2022, to deal with specific shortages in the sector.
Why we still can't ignore the big number
Back to the big number - 606,000. Because - all those concerns aside - we can't ignore its sheer bigness.
Put it in context and this is - in one year - the equivalent of roughly adding the population of Glasgow to the UK. It's a useful way of thinking about the impact.
Glasgow has slightly more people - 635,130 people live there. To support them, the city has nine main hospitals, 140 primary schools and 298,847 houses.
The UK is nowhere near investing in that level of infrastructure.
Read more:
How 13 years of Tory promises to cut immigration stack up
Home Office to stop overseas students bringing family to UK
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It's not quite a like-for-like comparison: immigrants are much more likely to be aged 25-64 than people born in the UK, and they are less likely to be older than 65 and younger than 15 - which means less pressure on the NHS and less pressure on schools.
But housing is an issue. It's a neat coincidence that the number of houses in Glasgow is pretty much exactly the same as the government's annual target of 300,000 new homes - a target it has never been in danger of meeting.
There will be a lot of talk about the big number today, from every side of the political spectrum, and whether it should be higher or lower in the future.
But we should also be talking about the level of investment needed to deal with the number today.