Net migration fell by almost 50% in 2024 to 431,000, ONS says – UK politics live | Politics
Net migration fell by almost 50% in 2024 to 431,000, ONS says
Net migration fell by almost 50% in 2024, compared to the previous year, the Office for National Statistics has said.
In a report out this morning, it says:
Long-term net migration is down by almost 50%. The number of people immigrating minus the number of people emigrating is provisionally estimated to be 431,000 in year ending (YE) December 2024, compared with 860,000 a year earlier.
This change is driven by a decrease in immigration from non-EU+ nationals, where we are seeing reductions in people arriving on work- and study-related visas, and an increase in emigration over the 12 months to December 2024, especially people leaving who originally came on study visas once pandemic travel restrictions to the UK were eased.
The provisional estimate for total long-term immigration for YE December 2024 is 948,000, a decrease of almost a third from the revised YE December 2023 estimate of 1,326,000 and the first time it has been below 1 million since YE March 2022.
The provisional estimate for total long-term emigration for YE December 2024 is 517,000, an increase of around 11% compared with the previous year (466,000). Emigration is now at a similar level to YE June 2017.
Key events
Shabana Mahmood gives statement to MPs on sentencing review
'Extremely high' asylum initial refusal rates leaving people 'trapped in limbo', charity says
Asylum claims hit record high of 109,000 in year ending March 2025, Home Office figures show
Tories says it is 'outrageous' ministers won't reveal teachers pay award figure to MPs this morning, but will publish it later
High court starts hearing over injunction blocking Chagos Islands deal
Tories must ‘get moving’ on new policies or face crisis, says Robert Jenrick
How SNP using WFPs issue in Hamilton byelection, where Labour worries about coming 3rd behind Reform
Former Tory home secretary James Cleverly says net migration halved because of his visa policies, not Labour's
How polling shows public were expecting net migration to rise, not fall
Net migration fell by almost 50% in 2024 to 431,000, ONS says
High court judge blocks UK from concluding Chagos Islands deal
Tories accuse Labour of ‘decriminalising crimes’ as plans to reduce sentencing announced
Shabana Mahmood gives statement to MPs on sentencing review
Shabana Mahmood, the justice secretary, is making a statement to MPs now about the findings of the sentencing review, and the government’s response to it. (See 9.24am.)
She started by pointing out that a year ago today Rishi Sunak called the general election. She said that Sunak called the election then because the prisons were full, and he was about to have to implement an early release scheme.
'Extremely high' asylum initial refusal rates leaving people 'trapped in limbo', charity says
The Home Office report on asylum figures also reveals that the proportion of claims being granted at initial decison has fallen below 50%. The rate was 61% in the year ending March 2024, but fell to 49% in the year ending March 2025.
Commenting on these figures, Louise Calvey, executive director at Asylum Matters, a charity, said this means refusal rates are “extremely high”. She went on:
The problem becomes extremely clear once you dig into the figures: for example, we’ve seen over 4,000 refusals of Afghan nationals in the last six months under this government, up from just over 700 in the last six months. People fleeing from a country that is quite clearly unsafe, with obvious protection needs, are being refused at huge rates.
The government appears to be trying to clear the backlog with fast refusals, but when almost half of refused claims are granted on appeal, it seems shoddy and rushed decision making is leaving people who could be getting on with rebuilding their lives trapped in limbo, banned from working, often trapped in hotels, while simply shifting the backlog figures into a different column on a spreadsheet.
Asylum claims hit record high of 109,000 in year ending March 2025, Home Office figures show
Asylum claims were at a record level in the year ending March 2025, reaching 109,000, according to Home Office figures published today.
The Home Office says:
-109,000 people claimed asylum in the year ending March 2025, relating to 85,000 cases, 17% more than in the year ending March 2024 and higher than the previous recorded peak of 103,000 in 2002
-the number of people claiming asylum has almost doubled since 2021
-in 2024, just under a third of asylum seekers had arrived in the UK on a small boat and slightly more than a third had travelled to the UK on a visa
-in 2024 the UK received the fifth largest number of asylum seekers in the EU+, after Germany, Spain, Italy and France
Asylum figures Photograph: Home Office
Tories says it is 'outrageous' ministers won't reveal teachers pay award figure to MPs this morning, but will publish it later
Catherine McKinnell, an education minister, has told MPs that the government will announce the pay award for teachers in England this afternoon. It will be announced in the form of a written statement. McKinnell said:
This afternoon we will announce the teachers pay award, which will be the earliest announcement for a decade, because we understand the importance of giving schools certainty, giving them time to plan their budgets and ensuring they can recruit and retain the expert teachers our children need. The secretary of state’s written ministerial statement will be coming out this afternoon.
She was responding to an urgent question tabled by the shadow education secretary, Laura Trott, who said it was “outrageous” that ministers were not willing to reveal the pay award figure in the chamber this morning. She said:
This is absolutely outrageous. It is astonishing that we’ve had to summon the government to the benches today and they can’t even tell us what pay rise they’re going to get and whether it’s going to be funded. That is not allowing us to scrutinise this in this house.
All of this in the final two weeks that headteachers up and down the country have to decide whether to make teachers redundant in time for September. In fact, sadly, many schools will have already made a difficult decision to let good teachers go. These are job losses on her watch due to her inability to provide schools with the clarity that they need.
Priti Patel, the shadow foreign secretary, has posted a message on social media claiming that the injunction blocking the Chagos Islands deal is a “humiliation” for Keir Starmer.
Labour’s Chagos Surrender Deal is bad for our defence and security interests, bad for British taxpayers and bad for British Chagossians. Today’s legal intervention is a humiliation for Keir Starmer and David Lammy.
High court starts hearing over injunction blocking Chagos Islands deal
A high court hearing over a last-minute block on the government from concluding its deal on the Chagos Islands has begun, PA Media reports. PA says the hearing at the Royal Courts of Justice in central London, before Mr Justice Chamberlain, began shortly after 10.35am. The hearing comes after an injunction was granted by a different judge at 2.25am.
David Lammy, the foreign secretary, has posted a message on social media condemning the killing of two Israeli embassy staff in Washington. He said:
Horrified by the killing of two Israeli Embassy staff in DC.
We condemn this appalling, antisemitic crime.
Our thoughts are with the victims, their families and colleagues at this awful time.
Tories must ‘get moving’ on new policies or face crisis, says Robert Jenrick
The Conservative party needs to “get moving” with new policies or risk being cut adrift in a social media-informed world where people make up their minds quickly, Robert Jenrick has said. Peter Walker has the story.
How SNP using WFPs issue in Hamilton byelection, where Labour worries about coming 3rd behind Reform
Libby Brooks
Libby Brooks is the Guardian’s Scotland correspondent.
Keir Starmer as yet unspecified U-turn on winter fuel payment (WFP) came on the same day at the Scottish Labour candidate for the crucial Hamilton byelection admitted that the issue was coming up regularly on the doorstep and two days after first minister and SNP leader John Swinney confirmed that a universal pension age winter heating payment of at least £100 will be introduced for Scottish pensioners from St Andrew’s day, 30 November.
In Scotland, the winter fuel payment was replaced with the pension age winter heating payment (PAWHP) last year, as part of the devolution of welfare powers, and the Scottish government announced it would reintroduce universal payments last November, in a bid to outstrip Labour ahead of the Holyrood elections.
Under the Scottish government’s plans for the winter, every pensioner household will receive £100, and some will receive £200 or £300 depending on their age and means, with around one million pensioners are expected to benefit.
Labour canvassers in Hamilton – where there is panic that the party might be pushed into third place by Reform – says that winter fuel is coming up constantly with voters angry at Starmer and Rachel Reeves as they struggle to get traction on more local issues.
This morning on BBC Radio Scotland, the Scottish government’s social justice secretary Shirley-Anne Somerville said:
Pensioners elsewhere in the UK are still worrying about whether they’re going to get this winter fuel payment or not, while Scotland’s pensioners don’t have to.”
Your payments will arrive because the Scottish government already stepped in and we didn’t wait for Labour to flip-flop and finally change its mind.
She added that her government was still waiting to see the details of the announcement and who it will apply to before confirming where the Barnet consequentials from it will go.
Former Tory home secretary James Cleverly says net migration halved because of his visa policies, not Labour's
The Conservatives are taking the credit for the near-50% fall in net migration. They say it is the changes to visa rules that they introduced that brought the numbers down.
This is from Chris Philp, the shadow home secretary.
Net migration has halved - dropped by 430,000 - in 2024 compared to 2023
This is thanks to measures put in place by the last Conservative Government
But it is still far too high and needs to go down further.
That is why we need a binding annual immigration cap, set by Parliament - at much, much lower levels
But when we Conservatives tabled that plan, Labour voted against it last week and again yesterday
The ONS says confirms that changes to visa rules introduced by the last government have been a key factor. (See 9.40am.)
James Cleverly, the home secretary who introduced those visa changes, has posted this on social media.
This drop is because of the visa rule changes that I put in place.
Labour will try to claim credit for these figures but they criticised me at the time, and have failed to fully implement the changes.
How polling shows public were expecting net migration to rise, not fall
British Future, a thinktank that covers race, identity and migration, commissioned polling carried out at the start of May that asked people, among other things, if they expected net migration to go up or down when the next ONS figures came out. Most people thought the headline rate would rise, and only 10% said they expected it to fall.
Polling for British Future by Focaldata, carried out in early May Photograph: British Future
Sunder Katwala, director of the thinktank, says that, even though this reducation is largely a result of the measures introduced by the last Conservative government, the fact that people will be surprised may give Keir Starmer the chance to be more pragmatic. In a statement he says:
This significant fall in net migration will surprise 90% of the public, who expected numbers to keep going up.
So Keir Starmer is in the unusual position for a PM of having exceeded expectations on immigration – though largely by not cancelling measures introduced by his predecessors.
That gives him an opportunity to take a more pragmatic approach, managing the pressures and keeping the gains of immigration – rather than competing in a political auction over which party can pretend to eliminate it.
Here is the Home Office report on people arriving in the UK irregularly in the year ending in March 2025. Most of these were people arriving on small boats.
This chart shows the most common nationalities of people arriving irregularly.
Most common nationalities of people arriving in UK irregularly Photograph: Home Office
The Home Office has also released a whole raft of data relating to immigration, asylum, resettlement and returns. The various tables and reports are all here. I will post the highlights shortly.
This is from the Migration Observatory, a migration thinktank based at Oxford University, on the ONS figures. They don’t normally get this excited about anything …
Blimey. Long term net migration down by almost 50% to 431,000. Massive decline - we’ve expected this for a while...
Here is the chart from the ONS report showing what has happened to net migration.
Net migration figures Photograph: ONS
Commenting on the net migration figures (see 9.38am), Mary Gregory, director of population statistics at the Office for National Statistics, said:
Our provisional estimates show net migration has almost halved compared with the previous year, driven by falling numbers of people coming to work and study, particularly student dependants. This follows policy changes brought in restricting visa applications.
There has also been an increase in emigration over the 12 months to December 2024, especially people leaving who originally came on study visas once pandemic travel restrictions to the UK were eased.
Net migration fell by almost 50% in 2024 to 431,000, ONS says
Net migration fell by almost 50% in 2024, compared to the previous year, the Office for National Statistics has said.
In a report out this morning, it says:
Long-term net migration is down by almost 50%. The number of people immigrating minus the number of people emigrating is provisionally estimated to be 431,000 in year ending (YE) December 2024, compared with 860,000 a year earlier.
This change is driven by a decrease in immigration from non-EU+ nationals, where we are seeing reductions in people arriving on work- and study-related visas, and an increase in emigration over the 12 months to December 2024, especially people leaving who originally came on study visas once pandemic travel restrictions to the UK were eased.
The provisional estimate for total long-term immigration for YE December 2024 is 948,000, a decrease of almost a third from the revised YE December 2023 estimate of 1,326,000 and the first time it has been below 1 million since YE March 2022.
The provisional estimate for total long-term emigration for YE December 2024 is 517,000, an increase of around 11% compared with the previous year (466,000). Emigration is now at a similar level to YE June 2017.
High court judge blocks UK from concluding Chagos Islands deal
A high court judge has blocked the UK government from concluding its deal to hand over the Chagos Islands with an injunction granted in the early hours of this morning, Eleni Courea reports.
Tories accuse Labour of ‘decriminalising crimes’ as plans to reduce sentencing announced
Good morning. Shabana Mahmood, the justice secretary, is today announcing plans intended to reduce the amount of time offenders spend in jail. It is not a surprise – the main proposals have been on the table for some time – but it is still a big change from the way governments of all parties have run penal policy over the past few decades. Britain jails more people than most other countries in western Europe and recently sentences have been getting longer.
Average length of custodial sentences Photograph: Gauke review
Mahmood appointed David Gauke, the liberal-minded former Tory justice secretary, to carry out a review of sentencing policy and his final report is out this morning. He has also published a report on history and trends in sentencing. Later Mahmood will give a statement to MPs where she will say which of the recommendations she is accepting. As Rajeev Syal reports in his overnight preview story, the answer is most of them.
Government sources said [Mahmood] is expected to accept the review’s key measures including that well-behaved prisoners should be released on tag after serving a third of their sentences.
She has also accepted that those who have committed serious sexual or violent crimes could be freed to serve their sentence in the community after they have served half of their sentence.
One of Gauke’s suggestions – that the most dangerous offenders should be allowed to apply for parole earlier if they earn “credits” – has been dismissed by sources close to the justice secretary.
And here is Rajeev’s summary of the main points from the report.
Among the main recommendations, Gauke, the former Conservative justice secretary, said the government should:
-Ensure custodial sentences under 12 months are only used in exceptional circumstances.
-Extend suspended sentences to up to three years and encourage greater use of deferred sentences for low-risk offenders.
-Give courts greater flexibility to use fines and ancillary orders like travel, driving and football bans.
-Allow probation officers to adjust the level of supervision based on risk and compliance with licence conditions.
-Expand specialist domestic abuse courts to improve support for victims.
-Expand tagging for all perpetrators of violence against women and girls.
-Improve training for practitioners and the judiciary on violence against women and girls.
-Change the statutory purposes of sentencing so judges and magistrates must consider protecting victims as much as they consider punishment and rehabilitation when passing sentences.
Gauke has called for the need to increase funding and resources for the probation service, including expanding the availability of electronic monitoring equipment like tags, and warned that there will be a “public backlash” if money is not found.
The Conservatives are opposed to the plans. Robert Jenrick, the shadow justice secretary, said:
By scrapping short prison sentences Starmer is effectively decriminalising crimes like burglary, theft and assault. This is a gift to criminals who will be free to offend with impunity.
But Gauke has defended his plans, saying they are needed because otherwise the government will run out of space in prisons, and the criminal justice system will break down. He told the Today programme:
Nobody, I think, wants to see a repeat of [the prisoner early release scheme – an alternative means of dealing with prison overcrowding] because that is rushed, it’s unplanned, it’s unstrategic, and so on, and it’s much better to face up to the realities, recognise where we are with the prison population and set out a plan that is strategic, that is properly prepared and gives due notice to everybody, so that we do not find ourselves in that situation.
Because if you run out of prison places, then really you are putting the whole criminal justice system at risk.
Gauke also said more community sentences could provide better value for money for the taxpayer.
I think there is a point from the perspective of the taxpayer that can be missed here. Prisons are expensive. They cost £54,000-a-year for a prison place. That money can be spent very effectively in the community, both punishing offenders and helping with rehabilitation.
Here is the agenda for the day.
9.30am: Lisa Nandy, the culture secretary, takes questions in the Commons.
9.30am: The Office for National Statistics publishes immigration figures for the year ending December 2024. The Home Office is also publishing its own quarterly figures on asylum seekers, visas and resettlement.
10am: Kent county council meets for the first time since it came under Reform UK control.
10am: Matt Hancock, the former health secretary, gives evidence to the Covid inquiry as part of its test, trace and isolate module.
10.30am: Lucy Powell, the leader of the Commons, takes questions on future Commons business.
11.30am: Downing Street holds a lobby briefing.
Around 11.30am: Shabana Mahmood, the justice secretary, is expected to make a Commons statement about the Gauke review of sentencing.
Noon: John Swinney, Scotland’s first minister, takes questions from MSPs.
Here is the agenda for the day.
If you want to contact me, please post a message below the line when comments are open (normally between 10am and 3pm at the moment), 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.bsky.social. The Guardian has given up posting from its official accounts on X but individual Guardian journalists are there, I 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.
