Migration falls by 25% as East Europeans head home

Brexit boost for PM’s vow to reduce levels to ‘tens of thousands’

NET migration fell dramatically last year as European workers began to head for home, official figures showed yesterday.

The level of net migration – the number of immigrants minus the number of emigrants – has dropped by a quarter, the Office for National Statistics reported.

And in a sign that the Brexit vote is having an effect, net migration was 248,000 in 2016, down from 335,000 in the 12 months to the end of June 2016 – the month of the referendum.

Some 250,000 are estimated to have arrived from the EU last year, with 55,000 looking for a job.

A key reason for the fall in net migration was a slump in numbers arriving from Eastern European countries that joined the EU in 2004, when the gates for them to work in Britain were opened.

The so- called EU8 are Poland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Slovakia, the Czech Republic, Hungary and Slovenia.

While the number of Eastern European workers coming to Britain fell to 48,000 in 2016, thousands also left. The ONS said that com- pared to 2015, there was a ‘significant increase in the estimated number of non-British citizens going home to live, from 29,000 to 52,000 in 2016’.

It added: ‘This increase was largely accounted for by EU citizens going home to live, an increase of 21,000 to 43,000.’

The level of net migration from the EU8 was just 5,000 – a record low since 2004.

The spectacular fall in immigration and leap in emigration since the Brexit vote will hand hope to Theresa May that her pledge to cut net migration to the tens of thou- sands, repeated in the Tory manifesto last week, can be achieved.

But there were warnings from migration experts that levels remain too high. Alp Mehmet, of the Migration Watch UK group, said: ‘This reduction in net migration is welcome but it is still running at a quarter of a million a year – a level that would have once have been dismissed as incredible... This is not a situation that can be allowed to slide.

‘A strong focus by the next government on reducing immigration will be essential if the growing strains on our public services and society are to be relieved.’ The ONS report showed that during 2016 an estimated 588,000 immigrants came into the country and 339,000 people left to live abroad. The 588,000 figure is down from a peak of 650,000 in the 12 months ending last June.

It said that Eastern European citizens ‘have partly driven the changes with a fall in immigration, down 25,000 to 48,000, and a rise in emigration, up 16,000 to 43,000 in 2016.’

Of all EU migrants last year, 27 per cent were from Romania and Bulgaria. Migrants continue to make up most of the growth in employment.

Over the past year the number of workers swelled by 385,000, of whom 45 per cent were EU nationals and 9 per cent from non-EU countries.

Separate data covering the issuing of National Insurance numbers appears to confirm falling immigration pressure.

In the 12 months to March this year, there were 593,000 NI numbers issued to EU citizens, down 6 per cent on the previous 12 months. NI numbers must be taken out by anyone who wants to work legally or claim benefits in Britain.

Home Secretary Amber Rudd told the BBC: ‘We are determined to make sure that we do continue to reduce overall net migration, but also continue to attract the brightest and the best and support our economy.’

Dr Carlos Vargas-Silva, acting director of the Oxford- based Migration Observatory, said: ‘While public opinion in the UK has supported reductions in immigration for many years, achieving these sorts of cuts is difficult in practice.

‘It seems unlikely that we will see net migration in the tens of thousands in the near future without either an economic downturn, or a new set of much more restrictive immigration policies.’