UK immigration has seen a trend over the last 30 years

Immigration into the UK is, arguably, the standout social and demographic change of the 21st Century and also one of the biggest and most transparent political failings, when you compare rhetoric to reality.

Whatever your own view about immigration, the trends over the last generation are worth a look.

For the last 30 years, the number of people migrating to the UK has been greater than the number emigrating, every single year.

In the 30 years before the mid 1990s, net migration, the number arriving minus the number leaving, bobbed up and down but was broadly balanced. In other words, net migration was zero.

But from 1994 onwards, it began to climb, jumping during Labour’s time in office in the early 2000s – and doing so by more than they publicly estimated when the EU expanded and the UK didn’t impose any limits on those who could move here.

By the time the Conservative and Liberal Democrat coalition government came to power in 2010, it had become a sufficiently potent political issue that the Tories promised to “take steps to take net migration back to the levels of the 1990s – tens of thousands a year, not hundreds of thousands.”

They failed.

“Over the last 25 years, both immigration and emigration have increased to historically high levels, with immigration exceeding emigration by more than 100,000 in every year between 1998 and 2020,” a research paper from the House of Commons Library notes.

In other words, the numbers remained historically high.

Immigration became a key issue for many in the EU referendum in 2016.

Brexit, once it was eventually delivered, meant political leaders could no longer blame anyone else for immigration. Freedom of movement with EU member states ended.

The government at Westminster would have all the levers necessary, if they were willing to use them, to control who was allowed to come to the UK.

In 2021, a new immigration policy was set out.

There were changes to the criteria needed for work visas, in what was widely described as a points based system.

The net migration figures shot up, despite the demands of many, expressed at the time of the EU referendum. for the opposite to happen.

In the year to June 2023, net migration was 906,000.

In the year to June 2024, it was 728,000.

A week on Thursday, the latest data will be published.

It will likely show a significant fall in the calendar year 2024, as we already know there was a dramatic fall in visas granted last year.

All of this is the context for what we are seeing the government now set out.

Before the week is out, expect to hear more from ministers about illegal immigration.

For now the focus is on legal immigration.

Both fall within what senior figures see as one of their three pillars, a trio of priorities: secure borders – alongside the health service and more money in people’s pockets.

The current net migration numbers are “beyond unsustainable”, one senior government figure told me.

Put simply, there is a political imperative to get the numbers down and they hope they have found a way to do it that helps people feel better off, rather than having a negative economic impact.

So expect, for instance, that the most prized immigrants – the most highly skilled and the most high earning – will be able to secure permanent residence much quicker than others.

The White Paper is the work of the last six or seven months.

Ministers hope to deliver some things quickly – cutting by 50,000 the number of lower skilled and care workers coming to the UK pretty much straight away.

Other plans are expected to be set out in an immigration bill at the next King’s Speech.

The aim is that by the time the next general election is close, in 2028 or 2029, the Prime Minister can point to a trend which bucks what we have seen so far this century.

His credibility, and that of the Conservatives, Reform UK and others will be shaped by how successful or otherwise he is.