Keir Starmer press convention LIVE: Prime Minister manufacturers file web migration figures a ‘completely different order of failure’ as he vows to drive down numbers arriving in UK

Analysis on the net migration data by David Barrett, The Daily Mail’s Home Affairs Editor.

by David Barrett

The most important question in the wake of today’s immigration data is this – how do you lose more than 300,000 people?

The Office for National Statistics (ONS) dropped a bombshell into the already heated debate about migration, as it admitted its earlier figures were way, way out.

In sweeping revisions to figures it published just six months ago, the agency said that over the last three years net migration was 307,000 higher than previously thought.

Net migration across 2021, 2022 and last year was, in fact, more than 2.2million rather than the 1.9million its estimates suggested in May.

Within those three years, net migration peaked at 906,000 in the 12-month period to June last year, which was 166,000 higher than previously thought, the ONS admitted.

• Read the full piece by David Barrett here

The Prime Minister vowed to get a grip on Britain’s spiralling immigration numbers today after shock official figures showed a record number of 906,000 people migrated to the UK last year.

Speaking at a hastily arranged press conference inside Downing Street, Sir Keir Starmer attacked the previous Conservative government for what he described a ‘complete loss of control’ before insisting he would turn it around.

Here’s the five key takeaways from his address:

• Sir Keir Starmer accused the Conservatives of running an ‘experiment in open borders’ as he described the party’s time in government as ‘a different order of failure’
• The Prime Minister vowed to publish a white paper imminently which will set out a plan to reduce immigration that could include reforming the points-based system and cracking down on visa abuse.
• He insisted ‘hard graft’ was the only way to bring down numbers and vowed to introduce a skills agenda so businesses would no longer have an ‘overreliance’ on foreign workers
• Sir Keir announced a new deal with Iraq would help tackle the problem of people smugglers ‘upstream’ in what he described as a ‘world first’ security arrangement to protect Britain’s borders
• He defended the Office for National Statistic’s (ONS) revision of 2023 figures and added he would not place an “arbitrary cap” on net migration

The Prime Minister hailed what he described as a ‘world first’ after the UK and Iraq reached a new security agreement

The arrangement involves greater intelligence sharing between the countries and more operations to step up prosecutions of people smugglers.

Sir Keir said it will see Iraqi authorities given funding to tackle the problem ‘upstream’.

Watch him discuss the deal below:

Keir Starmer admitted he must bring down immigration today after shock figures showed the annual record has been smashed again.

The PM insisted Britain can no longer be a ‘soft touch’ after huge revisions to official data showed net inflows were 906,000 in the year to June 2023.

The level for the 12 months to June this year was 728,000 higher than those leaving the country. In itself that was almost as much as the previous long-term immigration record.

But the bar has been dramatically shifted upwards by the Office for National Statistics, with net migration for the year to June 2023 now thought to have been 166,000 above the initial estimate of 740,000.

A similar revision has been made for net migration in the year to December 2023, which was initially believed to be 685,000 and is now put at 866,000, an increase of 181,000.

• Read the full story by our political editor James Tapsfield here

The Tories and Labour have been tooling up for a battle over immigration figures for weeks.

But when the ONS dropped its update today they took everyone by surprise.

A fall had been widely expected – and openly predicted yesterday by Kemi Badenoch, who pointed to Conservative curbs on students and bringing families.

But the statistics body detonated a bomb by effectively ripping up its estimates for previous years, declaring a monster new peak of 906,000 in the year to June 2023.

Closeted in No10, Keir Starmer and his closest aides quickly spied an opportunity to hang the migration crisis firmly around the necks of his political rivals.

At his hastily-arranged press conference this afternoon, the PM duly did so – painting himself as the man to fix the problems caused by successive Tory premiers.

Significantly he also brought up Brexit, saying it had been subverted by previous government loosening border rules outside the EU.

It is a tactic Labour has also tried over the country’s finances, lashing out at a ‘black hole’ in the books.

But the issue for Sir Keir is that he is now the one in charge, and he has yet to spell out a clear plan. Voters are unlikely to be in a forgiving mood come the next election if he fails to keep his solemn pledge to get legal immigration ‘under control’.

The Prime Minister has finished his Downing Street address.

Stick with us as we bring you up to speed with the latest developments plus analysis from his press conference.

Sir Keir Starmer has told how he wants to make it easier for businesses to hire British workers by helping them to develop skills to avoid an ‘overreliance’ on recruiting from abroad.

We want to support employers. Of course we do. We want to grow the economy, and I don’t want to make it more difficult for businesses. But at the same time, and as I’ve said to them previously, they have to be involved in ensuring we’ve got the skills we need in this country, in the places that we need them.

That will come partly by devolving skills, getting more employers and local representatives involved in the skills strategies that we need. And so, you know, it is right that we have the skills available to people who live here, the opportunities that they want to develop their working lives and give the employers the skills that they need near them for the jobs that they need doing.

The Prime Minister defended the Office for National Statistic’s (ONS) revision of 2023 migration figures, and said it was the migration figures themselves and not how they are calculated which was the problem.

Asked if a total rethink was needed in how migration figures are calculated, Sir Keir Starmer said:

I think it is really important that we resist the temptation to see the problem in these figures as lying with the ONS, because these are the revised figures.

They are there for all to see. What is shocking about them is not that they have been revised. What is shocking about them is the sheer figures.

You have to double take when you see an increase of 184,000 to 906,000 in four years.

Starmer said ‘hard graft’ was the only way to drive down net migration.

Facing questions from broadcasters, the Prime Minister said:

This sort of increase is unprecedented. It is off the scale what has happened in four short years.

The way to get it down is the hard graft, not the gimmicks but the hard graft of driving it own on the skills agenda, migration advisory committee, making sure we are cracking down on employers that are breaking the rules.

The Prime Minister earlier described the situation as ‘really stark’, and claimed numbers had quadrupled since 2019.

This isn’t immigration that has gone up by a few thousand. This is policy under the last government that has driven immigration up to record levels, a complete loss of control.

The Prime Minister declined to set a cap on net migration when asked by journalists at his Downing Street press conference.

Look, I want to see immigration come down significantly and I said that before the election, I said that during the election, I’ll say it again here today. So that means bearing down on the influences that have driven it up this high.

We had a supposed cap in place for the best part of a decade and it didn’t have any meaningful impact so I don’t think setting an arbitrary cap, which is what previous governments have done, is the way forward. But do I want it significantly to reduce? Yes, I do, and that’s what our plan will achieve.

The Prime Minister is now taking questions from journalists and was asked about whether the UK has become ‘addicted’ to immigration.

What is clear from these figures is really stark and I think should shock all of us. Because the net migration figures in 2019 were 184,000 and then on the figures we’ve now got today, four years later, literally four years later, 906,000. Four times as many.

This isn’t immigration that’s gone up by a few thousand. This is a policy under the last government that has driven immigration up to record levels, a complete loss of control. And that is why we’ve set out the measures I listed in the words I just said in relation to the action we are taking.

Here’s our live stream of the Prime Minister’s press conference

Sir Keir Starmer said the Government would reform the points-based system and crack down on abuse of visa routes.

For far too long, we’ve been casual about malpractice in our labour market, which sends a clear signal overseas that we’re a soft touch.

Well, no more – our rules will be enforced.

Any employers who refuse to play ball, they’ll be banned from hiring overseas labour.

The Prime Minister said the economy under the previous Conservative government had become ‘hopelessly reliant’ on foreign workers.

He said the key to reducing migration numbers was to improve the economy, claiming the vast majority of those who came to the UK ‘did so to plug gaps in our workforce’.

Sir Keir Starmer has said the Government will immediately publish a white paper aimed at reducing immigration.

He insists bringing the numbers down it won’t be quick or easy but ‘we will turn it around’.

The Prime Minister has begun his address to the nation describing the immigration figures as a ‘different order of failure’.

He begins the speech by accusing the Conservatives of ‘running an open borders experiment’ during their time in office.

He said his Labour government is ready to turn the page.

We’re expecting the Prime Minister any moment now.

His press conference was expected to take place at 3pm but has been delayed.

Official figures on net migration to the UK were released earlier today.

Here’s what you need to know:

• The UK’s net immigration record has been smashed again with 906,000 now thought to have been added to the population in a single year
• The number released by the Office for National Statistics is 166,000 above the initial estimate of 740,000
• The cost of the UK’s asylum system has risen to £5 billion, the highest level of spending on record and up by more than a third in a year, according to separate Home Office data
• Some 25,244 migrants have arrived on Channel boats in the year to September, slightly ahead of the figures for 2023
• Some 66 per cent of small boats arrivals who received an initial decision in the year ending September were granted asylum. That was down from 86 per cent in the previous 12 months
• The number of asylum seekers being housed temporarily in UK hotels was 35,651 at the end of September – up from 29,585 at the end of June despite the Labour government pledging to stop using the facilities

Nigel Farage called the migration statistics released this morning “horrendous”.

The Reform UK leader held a press conference reacting to the new figures.

Horrendous if you want to get a GP appointment, horrendous if you want to travel around Britain’s motorways, horrendous if you want your kids or grandkids to ever get a foot onto the housing ladder.

Horrendous in terms of producing very disjointed societies and communities.

And you might have noticed, the quicker the population rises, the poorer the average family in Britain becomes.

The scale of the inflows – with the peak roughly equivalent to adding two cities the same size as Leicester in a year – immediately sparked a fresh political row.

Numbers from outside the EU have exploded since 2021, after the Brexit deal took effect.

The five biggest sources of immigration have been India, Nigeria, Pakistan, China and Zimbabwe.

In the year to June 2023, 268,000 arrivals came from India alone.

Kemi Badenoch used a major speech last night to insist the Tories would not allow Britain to be treated like a ‘hotel’ for migrants.

But Labour claimed it is ‘clearing up the mess’ left by the former government.

The UK’s net immigration record has been smashed again with 906,000 now thought to have been added to the population in a single year.

Huge revisions to official data show the extraordinary mark was hit in the year to June 2023 – and the figures remain at historically unprecedented levels.

Official data covering the 12 months to June this year show long-term immigration was 728,000 higher than those leaving the country. In itself that was almost as much as the previous record.

But the bar has been dramatically shifted upwards by the Office for National Statistics, with net migration for the year to June 2023 now thought to have been 166,000 above the initial estimate of 740,000.

• Read the full story here

Keir Starmer has called a press conference at Downing Street after new figures revealed net migration to the UK hit a record 906,000 in 2023.

Office for National Statistics (ONS) figures indicated the measure for the difference between the number of people arriving and leaving the country reached the higher than previously thought peak in the 12 months to June last year, after being revised up 166,000 from the initial estimate of 740,000.

The estimates, covering the previous Conservative government’s administration prior to the general election, have since dropped by 20% and stood at 728,000 in the latest period for the year to June 2024.

Meanwhile, the cost of the UK’s asylum system has risen to £5 billion, the highest level of spending on record and up by more than a third in a year, according to separate Home Office data published at the same time.