Net Migration Figures

Lord Coaker Excerpts

Thursday 25th May 2023 Lords Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Migration and Borders (Lord Murray of Blidworth) (Con)]

My Lords, I shall now repeat an Answer given to an Urgent Question in another place. The Answer is as follows:

“Net migration to the UK is far too high. That was already clear from the previous set of official data. The ONS has today amended its previous published estimate of net migration for the year ending June 2022 to 606,000. The statistics published today show that net migration has flatlined since then. In the year ending December 2022, they show that net migration remains at an estimated 606,000. These particularly high figures are partly due to temporary and exceptional factors, such as the UK’s Ukraine and Hong Kong BNO schemes. Last year, 200,000 Ukrainians and 150,000 Hong Kong British overseas nationals made use of routes to life or time in the United Kingdom. Those schemes command broad support from the British public, and we were right to introduce them.

This Government remain committed to reducing overall net migration to sustainable levels. That is a solemn promise we made to the British public in our manifesto, and we are unwavering in our determination to deliver it. This week, we announced steps to tackle the substantial rise in the number of student dependants coming to the UK. The package of measures will ensure that we can reduce migration while continuing to benefit from the skills and resources our economy needs, because universities should be in the education business, not the immigration business. We expect this package to have a tangible impact on net migration. Taken together with the easing of temporary factors, such as our exceptional humanitarian offers, we expect net migration to fall to pre-pandemic levels in the medium term.

The public rightly expect us to control our borders, whether that is stopping the boats and addressing illegal migration or ensuring that levels of legal migration do not place undue pressure on public services, housing supply or integration. The Government are taking decisive action on both counts. Under the points-based system that we introduced post Brexit, we can control immigration; we must and we will.”

[Lord Coaker (Lab)]

My Lords, net migration figures are at a record high, despite promises in every Conservative manifesto since 2010 to reduce these figures, with the 2019 manifesto pledging that overall numbers would come down. Despite the Minister’s Statement, it has clearly gone wrong and is not working. Would it not be a start to tackle the doubling of work visas? Would it not be a start to end the unfair wage discount in the immigration system, which is undercutting UK wages and exploiting migrant workers? Why allow a civil engineer from Spain, for example, to be paid a 20% lower salary than the going rate for a British civil engineer? Why do the Government not tackle migration by barring employers and companies from recruiting foreign workers unless they are paid the going rate? Would that not be a start to tackling the migration problem?

[Lord Murray of Blidworth (Con)]

Clearly, the increase in net migration has been the result of global events, such as the world recovery from the Covid-19 pandemic, and international events, as I outlined in the Statement, including the policy changes introduced as part of the new immigration system at the end of EU freedom of movement. All have had an impact on migration. The Migration Advisory Committee agrees that the discount available to employers employing foreign workers under the skilled worker route is a sensible solution for occupations where there are shortages, at least in the short term. However, no occupation should be on the shortage occupation list for ever. Sectors must therefore present a realistic strategy for ending their reliance on migration before such jobs can be added to the shortage occupation list, and present compelling evidence that they should remain.