New record as 300,000 EU workers enter UK in a year

Migration rises by 16pc in huge blow to government hopes to reduce it to the ‘tens of thousands’

THE number of European Union workers in Britain has soared by the highest annual figure since records began in 1997.

The Office for National Statistics (ONS) said an extra 300,000 EU nationals came to this country for work in the last 12 months, bringing the total to 2.1 million. Among the figures, it emerged: The number of Romanian and Bulgarian workers in Britain has topped 200,000 for the first time, with 219,000 now working here compared with just 2,000 in 1997.

Workers from the eight former communist countries which joined the EU in 2004, including Poland, reached 982,000 – up 200,000 in just two years and another record.

The sharpest rise was among countries from the 14 “old” EU states such as Spain, Italy and Greece, with an increase of almost 19 per cent year-onyear to 881,000 – another record.

The overall total of 2.1 million represents a rise of 16 per cent in a year, and will be a devastating blow to the Government as it struggles to cut net migration to fewer than 100,000 a year.

It came the day after David Cameron, the Prime Minister, launched his EU renegotiation with a keynote speech in London and by sending a letter to Donald Tusk, president of the European Council, setting out areas for reform.

Mr Cameron said Europe needed to work with Britain to reduce “very high” levels of immigration into the EU.

The new figures will provide further evidence of how the EU’s free move- ment rules affect Britain’s ability to control its borders.

Ministers have renewed their commitment to cut net migration – the difference between those arriving and those emigrating – to the “tens of thousands”.

Lord Green of Deddington, the chairman of MigrationWatch, said: “This is the largest ever increase in the number of EU workers in Britain.

“It underlines the need for treaty change so we can have some prospect of bringing numbers under control.”

The ONS data showed that, over 10 years, the total number of EU workers has jumped 130 per cent from 916,000.

Over the same period the number of Romanians and Bulgarians has jumped more than seven-fold from 27,000, and the number of “old Europe” workers has risen by 40 per cent.

In terms of Poles and citizens of the seven other countries which joined the EU in May 2004, there were 64,000 working in Britain just before their accession to the union, meaning there has been a 14-fold increase to the 982,000 figure in the latest statistics. The previous highest annual increase in EU workers was 225,000 in 2008.

The number of immigrants working in Britain who were born outside the EU rose only marginally.

There was a 1.2 per cent year-on-year increase, or 36,000 people, to bring the non-EU total to 2.97 million. Out of that figure, the number with foreign nationality was only 1.2 million, meaning a large number had become naturalised British citizens.

In February last year a report by the University of Oxford’s Migration Observatory said nearly six out of 10 Romanian and Bulgarian immigrants living in Britain claimed they were self-employed, allowing them full access to the welfare state.

Its analysis showed 59.1 per cent of the workers said they were freelance, compared with just 14 per cent of the native UK population.