This week saw the publication of the latest immigration statistics for the second quarter of 2026 – although you wouldn’t know it, given the lack of interest from mainstream media coverage. On the face of it, the figures contain some welcome news. Asylum claims are down. Small-boat arrivals are down. The number of asylum seekers in hotels has halved. The Home Secretary, Shabana Mahmood, tells us “this government is restoring control at our border and fairness to the migration system”.
Well, she would say that, wouldn’t she? Let’s take a closer look.
The figures published on Thursday show that 85,891 people claimed asylum in Britain in the year to June 2026, a fall of 21% on the previous year. OK, but it remains well above the levels Britain experienced for most of the two decades before 2021, when annual claims generally ranged between 22,000 and 46,000.
Nor has illegal entry become a marginal feature of the asylum system. More than half of asylum seekers in the latest year came by an illegal entry route, with 33,949 – 40 per cent of all asylum seekers – arriving by small boat. Altogether, the Home Office detected 38,086 arrivals by illegal routes in the year to June.
Then there are the hotels. The government is understandably pleased that the number of asylum seekers housed in them has fallen by half, from 32,041 to 16,021. Yet look beyond the headline and the picture is less reassuring. There are still 93,293 people receiving taxpayer-funded asylum support. More the double the number ten years ago of 42,500. As for the fall in hotel accommodation, all that is happening is that asylum seekers are shuffled into even more expensive and less secure social housing and contracted homes.
While today’s arrivals command the headlines, yesterday’s immigration is rapidly becoming permanent. The same statistical release reveals that 199,628 people were granted settlement – the right to remain permanently in Britain – in the year to June. That was up 24% in just twelve months and was the highest annual total since 2011.
This is the part of the immigration debate too often forgotten – migration is a cumulative problem, not an annual problem. A huge number of people entering Britain in one year does not magically become acceptable if half as many enter the following year. It has consequences stretching decades into the future as temporary migration feeds through into settlement, chain migration, citizenship, family formation and population growth.
Bringing numbers down from historically exceptional highs is one thing. Restoring a properly controlled, sustainable immigration system, at levels the country can absorb, is quite another.
Andy Burnham’s government is still failing to get a grip. The unacceptably high migration of the past 25 years continues to filter through into settlement, add massively to the population, radically changing the very nature of our society and creating a huge liability for future generations, potentially in the hundreds of billions of pounds.
