A crackdown on immigrants bringing in dependents has resulted in a more than third decrease in the number of international workers and students arriving to the UK.
In comparison to the same period last year, the number of skilled worker, study, and health and care visas issued decreased by 34.1% to 262,000 in the first half of this year. In June of this year, it decreased by 48% from June of the previous year.
They are the biggest drops since the pandemic with the three groups making up the majority of migration to the UK and accounting for a total of 1.13 million visas last year when dependants are added. The number of dependants fell by 36.1 per cent in the first six months of this year from 179,700 to 114,900.
The figures, released by the Home Office, suggest immigration is on course to fall by 300,000 following measures including bans on foreign workers and students bringing dependants, increases in the skilled worker salary threshold from £26,200 to £38,700, and curbing shortage occupation visa schemes.
Net migration currently stands at 685,000 for the year ending December 2023, down from a record high of 764,000 in the previous year.
The fall in foreign visas stems from measures introduced by Rishi Sunak, who pledged to go further in his manifesto by imposing an annual cap on immigration, with the aim to reduce it in each of the next five years.
Sir Keir Starmer has pledged to reduce net migration, but has not put any figure on it. Next week’s King’s Speech is expected to set out measures to reduce British companies’ reliance on foreign labour, and boost training and recruitment of domestic UK workers.
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Under the plans, bosses who break employment law – for example by failing to pay their staff the minimum wage – will be banned from hiring workers from abroad. Training will also be linked to immigration, so sectors applying for foreign worker visas must first train British workers to do the jobs.
Labour is expected to continue with the legal migration measures introduced by the Conservatives, although there is pressure for relaxation of visa controls from some within its ranks
‘Make this easier again’
Sir Patrick Vallance, the new science minister, said on Wednesday that there was an opportunity to make it easier for people to move to the UK to contribute to the science sector.
He cited specifically the cost of visas as something that “needs to be looked at”, but also suggested that rules around dependants should be re-examined.
“We know there’s an impact of the difficulty of some of those schemes and so that means that there is an opportunity there to try and make this easier again, for people who do come in to (make) contributions to scientific knowledge creation and indeed, to companies,” he said.
“So we have just got to be realistic as to how we do that, but we need to be as competitive as other countries in terms of attracting that power.”
James Cleverly, the shadow home secretary, said: “As home secretary, I changed the rules to deliver the largest ever cut to migration. Labour opposed these measures, despite their claims that they want to bring the numbers down.
“We’ve seen my changes deliver a 48 per cent fall in visa applications compared with June last year, but this progress is already under threat with Labour. Just yesterday a minister was already advocating for relaxing visa rules from the EU.
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