There was a huge fall in legal immigration into the UK in 2020 because of the Covid pandemic and Brexit, newly released figures show.
Date from the Office for National Statistics showed that only 34,000 more people moved to the UK last year than emigrated, down from net migration of 271,000 in 2019.
The long-term international migration figures for 2020 show total immigration fell by more than 50%: for the year ending December 2020 it was estimated to be 267,000. In 2019 the figure was 593,000 and in 2018 it was 538,000.
Emigration also fell in 2020, but to a lesser extent than for immigration; an estimated 234,000 people left the UK to live abroad in 2020, compared with 300,000 people in 2019.
Net migration in 2020 for EU nationals was negative, with 94,000 more EU nationals leaving the UK than arriving, but the ONS said this was not evidence of a “mass exodus”.
Yash Dubal, director of immigration and visa specialists A Y & J Solicitors, said that the first lockdown between March and June last year contributed to a period of extensive negative net migration.
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“In the second quarter of 2020, the ONS estimates that net migration was minus 58,000, which is unprecedented. The most logical explanation for this is that it was a result of thousands of UK-based overseas workers returning to their home nations,” he said.
“Brexit also contributed to this vast exodus from the UK – with 95,000 EU citizens leaving the UK in the second quarter of 2020 alone.”
Although the figures will provide little grounds for optimism for businesses hit by skills shortages, Dubal said demand for UK visas had grown: “The figures show that while overall there is a considerable reduction in UK immigration, there is still considerable demand for UK visas from outside the EU. Migrants from India, Africa and the Middle East are taking advantage of the new UK points-based immigration system. There has been even more of an upswing in demand in the second half of this year as international travel has started to open up.”
New visa routes
However, earlier this week, it emerged that one of the UK government’s new visa routes for the “brightest and the best” had received zero applicants while temporary schemes to entice HGV drivers to work in the country had failed to attract candidates in anything like the numbers needed.
At the end of September 2021 the government signalled it would not set up any further temporary visa schemes, only to add a visa for abbatoir workers in mid-October.
The ONS emphasised that there was a fair degree of uncertainty about its figures, partly because during the worst of the pandemic it had to suspend its International Passenger Survey at airports and ports. Also, unlike most European countries, the UK does not have a system of identity cards or compulsory registration for residents that would make it easy to check migration flows.
ONS statistician Jay Lindop said: “Although there is no evidence of an exodus from the UK in 2020, global travel restrictions meant the movement of people was limited, with all data sources suggesting migration fell to the lowest level seen for many years.”
Asylum seekers
As the UK debates issues around asylum seekers after the deaths of at least 27 people who died in the English Channel on 24 November, it should be underlined that ONS figures do not include those who enter the UK as refugees.
There were 37,562 asylum applications in the year to September – an 18% increase on the previous year and the highest figure in nearly 20 years. People from Eritrea, Iran, Iraq and Syria, all of which have very high acceptance rates for asylum in the UK, accounted for the majority of migrants. The figures were, however, lower than those in France which received 31,000 applicants in the third quarter of 2021 alone.
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Asylum seekers can generally only apply for work in the UK if their claim takes more than a year for an initial decision and if any delay to their claim was the fault of the government. But in September, justice secretary Dominic Raab raised the possibility that more employment opportunities being extended to asylum seekers.
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