Press Story

With today's net migration figures showing immigration still at over three times the government’s target, IPPR are calling on Theresa May to:

Scrap the net migration target in favour of specific targets for high-skilled and low skilled workers;
Remove international students from the net migration target;
Protect vulnerable sectors of the economy, like hospitality and food processing, that rely on EU workers, which would suffer if there is a sudden decline in labour.

Phoebe Griffith, associate director migration, integration and communities at IPPR, said:

“They say the definition of madness is repeating the same thing and expecting a different result. Yet the Government continue to stand by a net migration target that neither the public nor many ministers have confidence in.

“The public said they wanted to take back control on immigration, but Theresa May and Amber Rudd can’t get to grips with the issue with such a blunt measure.

“Having a net migration target is like having a target for the number of sunny days in a year; it’s not going to change the weather by itself.

“The Government need to set individual targets for high-skilled and low-skilled migrants, and design policy to balance public concerns with the needs of different sectors of our economy.”

The UK has had annual net migration of over 300,000 for the past six quarters. During this time some sectors have become heavily reliant on a temporary workforce from the EU.

However, it is worth noting that the ONS migration figures released today only cover the quarter up to 31^st March, so the stats will not give a full picture of the impact of the Brexit vote. They also do not include temporary EU migrants coming to work or study for less than a year.

The Government is faced with hard choices on freedom of movement and the single market as it approaches Brexit negotiations. IPPR believe that greater clarity is needed as early as possible. We have laid out six options on different levels of freedom of movement: visa restrictions, labour market restrictions, partial labour market restrictions, an emergency brake, and freedom of movement for workers compared to the current status quo of full freedom of movement.