Net migration to the UK last year was 20% lower than previously thought, according to revised figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS).
The figure, the difference between those entering and leaving the country, has been revised downwards by 86,000 people and now stands at 345,000 who will arrive in the country in 2024.
The driving factor for the change is that more British citizens are believed to have emigrated by 2024 than initially recorded, with 100,000 fewer now thought to be living in the UK.
The new figures make little change to the overall estimate of net migration to the UK between 2021 and 2024, falling slightly from 2.6 million people to 2.5 million in the revised report.
It comes after the government announced new proposals aimed at reforming the asylum system, including regular reviews of asylum status and limitations on migrants’ rights to claim benefits.
The ONS has been rebuilding the system used to produce official migration estimates since 2020. Before the pandemic, statisticians asked a small number of passengers at airports and ports about their travel plans and used those answers to calculate how many arrivals might arrive to stay.
But the results obtained with this method were “implausibly low” for British citizens, according to Dr Madeleine Sumption, director of the Migration Observatory think tank.
ONS officials said the new figures are based on how often people appear on tax and benefit records, providing a more accurate and active reflection of migrants’ activities in the UK.
Based on that method, the ONS now believes that 257,000 British citizens left the UK in 2024, while 143,000 Britons living abroad returned. That means net British emigration – the difference between departures and arrivals – is 114,000 people, instead of its initial estimate of 17,000.
Dr. Sumption warns that these figures are “not yet definitive” because they do not measure when someone enters or leaves the country. That can cause problems if someone stays in the country but disappears from tax and welfare data because they live off their savings.
Using that method, that person would be counted as an emigrant, distorting migration figures. The ONS has stopped using this method to measure migration to the EU and instead uses visa and border data shared by the Home Office.
Data obtained under the old system estimated that there were 96,000 fewer EU citizens in the UK at the end of 2024, but the new system has revised that estimate downwards to 69,000.
On Monday, Home Minister Shabana Mahmood announced sweeping changes to the asylum system, which she called “out of control and unfair.”
Speaking in the House of Commons, Mahmood said: “If we fail to address this crisis, we will draw more people down a path that begins with anger and ends in hate.”
