NON-EU immigration is highest since 1975

Surge in overseas students from China and India fuels increase while numbers arriving from Europe fall

THE number of non-eu migrants coming to the UK is at its highest since records began nearly 50 years ago, official figures show.

Immigration last year from non-eu countries rose to 404,000, the highest since 1975 when the Office for National Statistics started collecting data on the citizenship of migrants. Net migration from outside the EU – the balance between the number of people entering and leaving the country – was also at its highest level since 1975, at 282,000, having gradually risen since 2013.

It means the number of non-eu migrants coming to the UK to study or work has surpassed the previous peak of 265,000 in 2004, during the Tony Blair years when immigration was supercharged by the opening of the borders to workers from Eastern Europe.

By contrast, net migration by EU citizens into the UK fell to 49,000 in the year ending December 2019, its lowest for more than a decade, and down from a peak of 200,000 in the years before the EU referendum in 2016, according to yesterday’s ONS data. The non-eu increase has been fuelled largely by a surge in overseas students from China and India after the Government scrapped the cap on universities’ student numbers in 2015-16 as tuition fees were raised to £9,250 a year for UK undergraduates.

Nearly 120,000 Chinese students are enrolled in UK universities, a figure that has increased 20 per cent in the past year, while the number of Indian students nearly doubled to 37,450 last year.

Jay Lindop, director of the Centre for International Migration at the ONS, said: “Overall migration levels have remained broadly stable in recent years, but new patterns have emerged for EU and non-eu migrants since 2016.

“For the year ending December 2019, non-eu migration was at the highest level we have seen, driven by a rise in students from China and India, while the numbers arriving from EU countries for work has steadily fallen.”

The ONS data showed net migration was at 270,000, the highest level for a calendar year since 2015, supplying a strong labour and international student market.

Britain’s immigration is, however, facing transformation from the fallout from the pandemic, Boris Johnson’s ending of EU free movement and the introduction of a points-based system for potential entrants.

Oxford University’s migration observatory said the new system – putting EU and non-eu migrants on the same footing – would make entry easier for skilled non-eu entrants. This is due to the lowering of the salary threshold to £25,600, the removal of the cap on them and the removal of the restriction to graduate-level jobs.

“It means numbers of non-eu migrants could rise further, although obviously the Covid-19 situation is likely to affect that, at least in the short term,” said Rob Mcneil, the observatory’s deputy director.

“Even once we emerge from the immediate health crisis, economic and social disruption in the migration system is likely to continue.”

Kevin Foster, the immigration minister, said the new points-based system would “attract the people we need to drive our economy forward and lay the foundation for a high wage, high skill, high productivity economy”.