Migration too high says Sunak, as total hits record level

We'll be wrapping up our live coverage shortly. But before we go, here's some of the key takeaways from today's migration figures.

• UK net migration reached a record annual level of 606,000 in 2022
• This was 164,000 people more than in 2021, though 2022's figure is slightly less than predicted
• About 114,000 arrivals to the UK were from Ukraine and about 52,000 were from Hong Kong
• Prime Minister Rishi Sunak says migration numbers are too high and he wants to "bring them down", but he denies that immigration is out of control
• Labour's shadow home secretary Yvette Cooper says the government has "no plan and no grip on immigration"

Some other figures of note:

• Afghans made up the largest proportion of "small boat" arrivals to the UK in the first three months of 2023, Home Office data shows. But the flow of Albanians via that route seems to have stopped
• Asylum applications were included in this year's migration estimates for the first time. There were 76,000 applicants in 2022
• The number of people waiting for asylum claims to be processed rose by 6,500 to 172,000

Arthur Torrington, co-founder and director of the Windrush Foundation, came to the UK from Guyana in the 1960s as a teenager.

Earlier, he spoke to the BBC Radio 4's World at One programme about his experience arriving in the UK.

Asked about whether he felt welcomed, Torrington said: "In a sense yes, and in a sense no."

"There was an atmosphere of unwelcome, and not wanting to welcome anyone coming from the Caribbean" - but he said that, because he and others knew they were British and had passports, "we knew that we belonged".

During the same discussion, comedian Sajeela Kershi - who came to the UK in the 1980s from Pakistan - said "outrageous things were said when we were younger".

"It's sad for me to see the same negative connotations around immigrants that we had back in the day," she adds.

While the backlog of asylum applications is growing - with increasing numbers of people stuck in the system - the speed at which the Home Office is processing cases has risen recently, government figures suggest.

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Between July and September 2022, there were about 26,500 applications for asylum, the highest for at least eight years.

Of these about 5,500 applications were processed within six months. This was double the share processed at the same speed in the previous quarter.

One possibility is an increase in staffing levels at the Home Office is having an effect. The number of people working on asylum cases has risen rapidly in a year, at nearly 1,300 in March 2023, compared to nearly 800 a year before.

As we reported earlier, Immigration Minister Robert Jenrick said immigration had "flatlined" since the middle of 2022.

We've just updated this chart with quarterly data - you can see slight recent dips in arrivals and net migration.

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The Office for National Statistics says 90,000 people from Hong Kong have now come to the UK on British National (Overseas) visas between the scheme’s introduction in 2021 and the end of last year.

Of those, 52,000 came in 2022.

The route was introduced after China passed a wide-ranging new security law for Hong Kong, which makes it easier to punish protesters and reduces the city's autonomy.

An estimated 5.4 million Hong Kong residents and their dependants are eligible to move to Britain for five years and then apply for full citizenship.

The new arrivals have settled right across the UK, from London to Manchester to Glasgow.

According to the Home Office, the majority of BNO visa holders are educated to degree level or higher.

With many of the visa holders being highly skilled, the government estimates they could contribute a net benefit to the economy of between £2.4bn and £2.9bn over the next five years.

In 2010 - the year the Conservatives came to power - David Cameron made a pledge during the general election campaign to get net migration below 100,000 a year.

The Conservative manifestos in 2015 and 2017 said they would bring annual net migration into the tens of thousands, not hundreds of thousands.

That target was not reached and it was abandoned in the 2019 manifesto. The 2019 manifesto said: “There will be fewer lower-skilled migrants and overall numbers will come down.”

In October 2022, Home Secretary Suella Braverman said it would be the “ultimate aspiration” to get the net migration figure down below 100,000.

But in an interview with GB News, Rishi Sunak said he was “not going to put an arbitrary number on it” when asked about Braverman’s pledge.

Labour have not had a net migration target. In November 2022, Keir Starmer called for the British economy to be weaned off "immigration dependency" - but has repeatedly declined to give a net migration target.

The prime minister was on ITV's This Morning today, where he was asked about the net migration figures.

"Numbers are too high, it's as simple as that," he said. "And I want to bring them down."

When asked whether immigration was out of control, Sunak said: "Well, no, I think the numbers are just too high."

The prime minister made similar comments in Japan last weekend, when he was interviewed by our political editor Chris Mason. Watch the exchange below:

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Underneath the headline net migration figure of 606,000 - an annual record for the UK - here are some figures you may have missed...

• Some 1.2 million people arrived in the UK in 2022 and about 557,000 emigrated
• British nationals made up 92,000 of the emigrants
• About 114,000 arrivals were from Ukraine about 52,000 from Hong Kong
• The number of asylum seekers waiting for a decision has risen to 172,758
• Home Office figures show 37,948 people were removed from the UK in 2022 - the lowest number on record, with the exception of years during the pandemic
• Afghans made up the largest proportion of "small boat" arrivals to the UK in the first three months of 2023, Home Office data shows - making up 898 people out of a 3,793 total
• But the flow of Albanians via that route seems to have stopped. After more than 12,000 arrived in 2022, only 28 made the crossing between January and March this year
• For the first time, asylum applications were included in this year's migration figures - there were 76,000 applicants in 2022

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Britain launched the Hong Kong British National Overseas visa scheme back in January 2021, in response to Beijing's imposition of the Hong Kong National Security Law.

With the introduction of political crimes that could see convicts imprisoned for life, people look for places that provides more liberty - and the UK is one such destination.

Of the 1.2m migrants to the UK in 2022, Hong Kongers made up 52,000, according to the Office for National Statistics.

With the colonial connection, especially the economic prosperity in the final days of British rule, moving to the UK seems to be a natural choice.

Setting all cultural differences and affordability aside, at least we use the same type of plugs, we all drive on the left, and the schooling hierarchy was identical until a decade ago.

The visa scheme has been infuriating for Beijing from day one. In its most recent comments, the Hong Kong commissioner's office of China's foreign ministry called it a disgrace.

While there is no way to predict the trend of migrating to the UK, recent high-profile moves by broadcasters, academics and alike suggest this will carry on for a while.

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Answering an urgent question in the House of Commons, Immigration Minister Robert Jenrick earlier told MPs: “The statistics published today indicate that net migration has flatlined since [June 2022].”

But we’ve been talking about migration being at record levels - so what is going on?

The level of migration in the whole of 2022 was the highest for any calendar year, at 606,000.

But the Office for National Statistics (ONS) has now told us that migration actually reached 606,000 in the 12 months to the end of June 2022.

That means that migration has been continuing at these record levels for another six months until the end of the year, so the figure for the whole of 2022 is the same as the figure for the year to the end of June 2022.

And that is why the minister said it was “flatlining”: it was no higher in December than it was in June.

In Nigeria, inflation is currently above 20% and food inflation is even higher. For many middle class young professionals, making ends meet feels increasingly difficult.

They’re now looking to skill up to get better jobs - and thousands of them have turned to British universities. Recent data showed sharp increases in the number of Nigerians coming to the UK to study.

The students hope a degree from a foreign university will make them more employable either at home or abroad.

This exodus is particularly acute in the medical field, where many professionals are attracted to the UK’s higher salaries and access to world-class hospitals.

This week’s news that some foreign students won’t be able to bring relatives with them has been met with frustration from many Nigerians.

Given foreign students and their dependants don’t have access to public funds in the UK - and have to pay a surcharge to use the NHS - there’s confusion as to why they’re being targeted.

It’s not yet clear what impact the move will have on the number of Nigerians who decide to study in the UK. But anecdotally, some are saying they may consider choosing countries that are openly courting foreign students, including Canada and Germany.

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Downing Street has insisted the government is focused on reducing the number of people waiting for their asylum claims to be processed, after latest figures showed a rise of 6,500 to more than 172,000.

The prime minister’s official spokesperson said they were taking measures - such as doubling the number of case workers - but they would "take time to bed in".

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• Net migration has reached a record annual level, with the UK adding 606,000 people in 2022
• This was 164,000 people more than 2021's net migration rise
• Some 1.2 million people arrived in the UK last year, and about 557,000 emigrated
• The numbers are "too high", Prime Minister Rishi Sunak says, but he denies it's out of control

• Labour's shadow home secretary Yvette Cooper, meanwhile, says the government has "no grip on immigration"
• Separately, the asylum seeker backlog has risen again to more than 172,000

We just heard from Willian, who says it's hard to get a visa to move to the UK. Even so, these two callers to 5 Live's Nicky Campbell think immigration is too high.

Kelvin in Dorking, Surrey, believes the migration figures show the government "need to grow a backbone" and deal with inflation, asylum seekers and immigration.

He says there is a finite amount of money in the government's coffers from taxpayers and "we can't keep taking people in without the funds to look after them".

"I don't think it's fair on the taxpayer to keep funding all this immigration the way it is," he says, "especially when you look at the state of the country and the state of our roads."

David on the Isle of Dogs, London, agrees with Kelvin, saying "nobody builds 600,000 new homes, jobs or school places" for the immigrants coming to the UK.

"Therefore, when people are coming in, they drag on the services," he says, "and that's no fault of theirs, it's our fault because we don't plan immigration."

Today's figures show 1.2m people came to the UK in 2022, with 557,000 leaving, leading to net migration of 606,000.

But a caller on 5 Live's Nicky Campbell says moving to the UK is not straightforward.

Willian is originally from Cuba, but has been living in Huntly, Aberdeenshire, for 20 years.

He has British citizenship and works as a chef. His wife and two children also live and work in the UK.

He'd like to bring his 69-year-old mother to the UK, but is finding the immigration process "hard".

"The paperwork is amazing," he says, "you have to practically tell all your life.

"My mother last week went to the British embassy in Cuba and they said no - at the moment, we don't know why they say no, we have to appeal to the British government," he adds.

Earlier we covered the exchange between Immigration Minister Robert Jenrick and Labour's Yvette Cooper.

Jenrick also took questions from other MPs. Here are some of his key quotes:

• On asylum seekers: “The numbers published today show that the UK is one of the world’s leading countries for humanitarian visa routes”
• On high net migration: “I worry that that is placing intolerable pressure on public services, on housing supply and on our ability as a country to integrate new arrivals”
• On migrant workers: “We want British employers to focus… on training British workers to fill these vacancies”
• On student visas: “What we do want to see is universities focusing on teaching and not on inadvertently creating a backdoor to immigration status here”

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Some more reaction to this morning's record net migration figures, this time from former UKIP leader and Brexit campaigner Nigel Farage.

He describes the figures as "a total breach of trust between voters and this government".

"All the government will do is to give us more lies," he adds.

As we reported this morning, the Conservatives have consistently promised lower immigration since being elected in 2010.