Net migration has soared to a record high of 330,000, prompting a government minister to accuse businesses of being too reliant on foreign workers.
Migrants flocked to the UK in record numbers in the past year seeking work as the economy continued to recover, according to official figures published yesterday. In the year to March, 330,000 more people arrived in the UK than left, breaking the record set in 2005.
The figure is a blow for the prime minister, who promised to cut net migration to below 100,000 a year by the last general election and has since repeated the pledge.
James Brokenshire, the immigration minister, admitted that the figures were deeply disappointing but then criticised companies. “With nearly 100,000 non-EU students remaining in the UK at the end of their courses and British business still overly reliant on foreign workers in a number of sectors, there is much more to do,” he said.
Seamus Nevin, head of employment and skills policy at the Institute of Directors, accused successive governments of having failed to deliver an adequate education system. “It is imperative we fix this, but until that has been achieved, many businesses will need access to international skills,” he said.
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“Other countries welcome top talent. Britain makes it difficult and artificially expensive for students to enter and stay, and now the minister has called for them to be ejected.
“The idea appears to be that rather than encouraging the best international talent to stay here we train them up and immediately kick them out, so it is our competitors who benefit. This is an abrupt departure from the government’s expressed claim to be ‘business friendly’.”
Overall immigration by those staying more than a year rose by 84,000 to a record 636,000 to the end of March as a large number took advantage of the economic recovery. It was driven by a record 269,000 EU citizens arriving, including an almost doubling in the number of Romanians and Bulgarians to 53,000.
Almost 300,000 people came to work in the year to the end of March, up 65,000 on the previous year, the Office for National Statistics figures showed. The overall figure included statistically significant increases in immigration for work by EU citizens and non-EU citizens alike. Six out of ten EU citizens coming to work said they had a definite job offer.
Campaigners for lower immigration said that action had to be taken to reduce migration from the EU. Lord Green of Deddington, the chairman of Migration Watch UK, said: “Net migration at one third of a million a year is clearly unsustainable.”
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MPs warned that the failure of the government to cut net immigration to under 100,000 was damaging public faith in its ability to tackle the problem.
Keith Vaz, chairman of the parliamentary home affairs committee, said: “These record-breaking figures are shocking. Only one month ago Theresa May told the home affairs committee that net migration of under 100,000 was her target. This is clearly not going to happen. Broken promises on migration do not build confidence with the public. We need a radically different approach.”
Frank Field, the chairman of the Commons work and pensions select committee, said it was fundamental that the prime minister secured physical control of the border as a red line in renegotiating the UK’s position in the EU.
The scale of migration for jobs was disclosed by separate figures on the number of national insurance numbers issued to migrants.
In the year to June, 917,000 national insurance numbers were issued to overseas nationals, up 62 per cent in a year. The number issued to EU citizens rose by two thirds to 697,000. There were 25,771 asylum applications in the year to June, an increase of 10 per cent.
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Business warned the government against action to reduce skilled migration. Mark Hilton, the director of immigration policy at London First, said: “The government mustn’t use this record figure as another excuse to limit the sort of positive immigration that grows our economy. Our world-beating industries need access to talent and skills from around the world in order to remain global leaders.”
John Hawksworth, PwC’s chief economist, said that without the inflow of workers the UK economy could not have grown so fast. He added: “As most migrants have come to work, they are also paying taxes and making a positive net contribution to the public finances.”