Net migration from EU at lowest level since 2013

Net migration from the EU to the UK has fallen to its lowest level in nearly five years, official figures show.

An estimated 101,000 more people from the bloc arrived than left in 2017, according to the first data for a full calendar year since the Brexit vote.

It is the lowest for any 12-month period since the year to March 2013, when it stood at 95,000.

Overall net migration, the difference between the numbers of people arriving and departing for at least 12 months and including nonEU nationals, was around 282,000 in 2017.

This was up by 33,000 on the previous year, but statisticians attributed the rise to an “unusual pattern” in estimates of non-EU student immigration for 2016 which research indicates was an “anomaly”.

Immigration figures published since the EU referendum have sparked claims of a “Brexodus” – though commentators pointed out more people are still coming to live in the UK than departing.

While net migration has fallen from record levels of around a third of a million in 2015 and 2016, it is still well above the government’s target of less than 100,000.

The latest Office for National Statistics migration report shows a decrease in EU citizens coming to the UK ‘looking for work’, down 33% from 55,000 in 2016 to 37,000 last year.

Emigration of EU nationals went up by a fifth year-on-year, with an estimated outflow of 139,000 in 2017.

Net migration from eight eastern European countries that joined the EU in 2004 – Poland, Lithuania, Czech Republic, Hungary, Slovakia, Slovenia, Estonia and Latvia – fell from 42,000 in the year prior to the referendum to 6,000 in 2017.

Net migration from 14 longer-term member states such as Germany, Italy, Spain and France, has almost halved since the vote, falling from 84,000 in the 12 months to June 2016 to 46,000 last year

An estimated 40,000 more Romanians and Bulgarians migrated to the UK than left last year – the joint lowest net migration figure for the two countries since the year to September 2014.

Non-EU net migration was estimated at 227,000 last year, more than twice the figure for the EU.

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