Britain faces net migration of 224,000 in 2023

IMMIGRATION is set to soar despite Rishi Sunak’s pledge to reduce the numbers entering the country.

Net migration into Britain is set to be much higher than previously expected by the middle of the decade, the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) said.

This is partly because post-Brexit visa rules are more generous than predicted.

In March the OBR forecast that 136,000 more people would arrive than leave the UK in 2023, a figure that was expected to decline only slightly to 129,000 in 2026.

But yesterday, in its assessment of Chancellor Jeremy Hunt’s Autumn Statement, it said net migration will be 224,000 next year and ‘settle at 205,000 a year from 2026 onwards’.

It could cause a headache for the Prime Minister, who said at the G20 summit this week he wanted to get migration down as record numbers cross the Channel illegally. Home Secretary Suella Braverman wants to get net migration down to the tens of thousands.

OBR chairman Richard Hughes said visa statistics suggested ‘the post-Brexit migration regime is leading to a higher steady- state level of migration than expected’. He added: ‘For that reason, we’ve revised the steady- state level of migration in our forecasts.’

The OBR said higher migration would give a modest economic boost to overall UK growth of 0.1 per cent.