Net migration falling, latest figures expected to show, as Tories claim it is due to their visa rule changes – UK politics live | Politics
Tories say a drop in net migration figures would be due to their visa changes
Good morning. The latest immigration figures are out this morning, but the political debate about them has already started. They are expected to show net migration figures falling, and the Conservatives say that is because of decisions they took before the general election. They are referring to the sweeping changes to visa rules announced by James Cleverly in December last year. Kemi Badenoch deployed this line at the start of her speech on immigration yesterday, saying:
Tomorrow, immigration figures will be released that should show a drop in net migration. This is because of the changes we made in the last year of the Conservative government.
But she said she did not expect the numbers to fall by enough.
The figures we saw for 2023 were astonishing. They highlighted a big problem we must be honest about. Even if we see a decline in tomorrow’s data, the fact is immigration, both legal and illegal, is too high.
Chris Philp, the shadow home secretary, has been giving interviews this morning saying much the same thing. Seema Malhotra, the Home Office minister, has been putting the counter case on behalf of the government. She told BBC Breakfast this morning that the government wants to see net migration fall, but she would not say by how much. She also said it was important to tackle the causes of high migration.
We want to see net migration coming down, but we have to do so in a way that is tackling the causes of net migration, because if much of net migration has been driven by recruiting workers from overseas, you also have to look at what the impact on the economy would be.
Here is the agenda for the day.
9.30am: Immigration figures publishing the period up to June 2024 are published by the Office for National Statistics. The Home Office is also publishing its latest figures relating to asylum applications.
9.30am: Lisa Nandy, the culture secretary, takes questions in the Commons.
11.30am: Downing Street holds a lobby briefing.
11.30am: Nigel Farage, the Reform UK leader, is holding a press conference with the four other Reform UK MPs and the party chair, Zia Yusuf.
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This is from Tim Bale, the politics professor and expert on the modern Conservative party. He believes the “party in the media”, as he calls it (aka the Tory press) is an integral part of the Conservative political operation, and he says they like Kemi Badenoch’s immigration speech yesterday.
For a more critical take on the speech, it’s worth reading the FT commentator Stephen Bush on Bluesky. Here are some of his comments.
On Badenoch saying there has not been enough research into the costs and benefits of immigration
Putting to one side the non-trivial objection of ‘this is not true’. Yes, some of Sunak’s issues were ‘being an incumbent when inflation has spiked and the public services are on their knees’. But some were just being in this particular auction with Nigel Farage. Why will it work better for Kemi?
On the speech generally
Just as a matter of ‘actually being able to keep and make credible promises on immigration’, it is bonkers to start your leadership’s Big Political Rethinking with immigration, because you need to have a sense of how many people you actually think you *need* to keep public services running first.
Reducing immigration is a spending commitment, ultimately.
On Badenoch promising to cap net migration numbers.
A bold approach to return to the promise that destroyed a century-long advantage over Labour on immigration.
Government figures reckon the latest annual net migration figure will be around 500,000, Sam Blewett says in his London Playbook briefing for Politico.
Government officials and the Tories both reckon the ballpark provisional figure will be somewhere around 500,000, well down from that record high of 745,000 in 2022. There will be those who argue the latest figure is massive pretty much whatever it is — but if Starmer is serious about bringing down the numbers, he can thank a suite of measures that would have been much more unpalatable for a left-leaning party to have introduced.
The last big set of migration figures came out in May, and they showed long-term net migration at 685,000 in the year ending December 2023. Figures out this time last year showed net migration at 745,000 in the year to December 2022
Tories say a drop in net migration figures would be due to their visa changes
Good morning. The latest immigration figures are out this morning, but the political debate about them has already started. They are expected to show net migration figures falling, and the Conservatives say that is because of decisions they took before the general election. They are referring to the sweeping changes to visa rules announced by James Cleverly in December last year. Kemi Badenoch deployed this line at the start of her speech on immigration yesterday, saying:
Tomorrow, immigration figures will be released that should show a drop in net migration. This is because of the changes we made in the last year of the Conservative government.
But she said she did not expect the numbers to fall by enough.
The figures we saw for 2023 were astonishing. They highlighted a big problem we must be honest about. Even if we see a decline in tomorrow’s data, the fact is immigration, both legal and illegal, is too high.
Chris Philp, the shadow home secretary, has been giving interviews this morning saying much the same thing. Seema Malhotra, the Home Office minister, has been putting the counter case on behalf of the government. She told BBC Breakfast this morning that the government wants to see net migration fall, but she would not say by how much. She also said it was important to tackle the causes of high migration.
We want to see net migration coming down, but we have to do so in a way that is tackling the causes of net migration, because if much of net migration has been driven by recruiting workers from overseas, you also have to look at what the impact on the economy would be.
Here is the agenda for the day.
9.30am: Immigration figures publishing the period up to June 2024 are published by the Office for National Statistics. The Home Office is also publishing its latest figures relating to asylum applications.
9.30am: Lisa Nandy, the culture secretary, takes questions in the Commons.
11.30am: Downing Street holds a lobby briefing.
11.30am: Nigel Farage, the Reform UK leader, is holding a press conference with the four other Reform UK MPs and the party chair, Zia Yusuf.
If you want to contact me, please post a message below the line or message me on social media. I can’t read all the messages BTL, but if you put “Andrew” in a message aimed at me, I am more likely to see it because I search for posts containing that word.
If you want to flag something up urgently, it is best to use social media. You can reach me on Bluesky at @andrewsparrowgdn. The Guardian has given up posting from its official accounts on X but individual Guardian journalists are there, I have still have my account, and if you message me there at @AndrewSparrow, I will see it and respond if necessary.
I find it very helpful when readers point out mistakes, even minor typos. No error is too small to correct. And I find your questions very interesting too. I can’t promise to reply to them all, but I will try to reply to as many as I can, either BTL or sometimes in the blog.
