Meanwhile, 2,500 people applied for a skilled visa in December, down from about 6,000 a month in the boom between 2022 and 24.
In the family category, 5,300 people applied to bring partners and children to Britain in December, from a monthly peak of 12,700 in April 2024.
Bowes’s calculations endorse the Government’s confidence. According to his forecasts, the past two years of policy changes will cut the number of immigrants this year by a net 210,000 from a baseline of 2024.
But there is another, more mathematical reason why net migration is falling so quickly. If you import a large number of people on time-limited visas, then eventually emigration will increase as those visas expire.
“People who are going to leave tend to leave within five years, and two to three years is pretty standard,” says Sumption.
“So what happens is, we have a period of high immigration that is followed a couple of years later by a period of high emigration.”
But this natural ebb from the Boriswave will end before the next election in 2029. So Sumption, and many others, expect to see “upward pressure” on net migration before too long.
Still, there might be ways that Britain could nevertheless stay at or near the goal of declining immigration.
Would-be skilled migrants might remain discouraged by Britain’s tight labour market and sluggish economy.
And on the emigration side of the ledger, the exodus of British nationals might continue.
Net migration of UK citizens is almost always negative. But recently adjusted official estimates suggest the outflow is at the highest level in at least 30 years.
This has prompted concern that Britons are being lured to countries with lower taxes or stronger economies, like Dubai or Australia, while being replaced by arriving low-skilled migrants.
There is some evidence, though, that much of this outflow comprises former migrants returning to their home countries, such as Poland, Romania and Bangladesh, having acquired a British passport.
If the numbers do start to track back up, though, then Shabana Mahmood, the Home Secretary, may yet need to tighten the screws again.
And if or when she does, those dire economic warnings – which infamously stayed Johnson’s hand five years ago – will become more shrill. Should she listen?
Economic impacts
Immigration certainly fuels economic growth: add more consumers and workers, and you get more GDP. But it only becomes critical to the economy if birth rates are low or falling, and/or workers’ productivity is low or falling.
Since that’s the situation Britain finds itself in, recent net migration has probably accounted for between 0.4 and 0.6 percentage points of the country’s annual economic growth, says Paul Dales, the chief UK economist at Capital Economics.
Drop to net zero migration, and if nothing else changes, then that chunk of growth could fall away.
Yet even as growth slows, inflationary pressures could theoretically build. Cutting back the supply of cheap migrant labour could push up wages. Businesses would pass this on as higher prices, which could lead to higher interest rates.
But this looks a lot less likely in Britain’s current labour market, where businesses aren’t hiring. Demand for workers is falling at the same time as supply, which could keep things more in balance.
Pubs, cafes, caterers and shops traditionally use a lot of migrant labour – but MAC chairman Bell says he’s no longer hearing the former litany of complaints about a worker shortage.
“They’re not recruiting in the same way,” he says. “Hospitality is probably shrinking at the margin. I think the sectors that are most exposed historically to migration will actually be all right, in the sense that they’re going to recruit more domestically.”
Paul, a Brighton pub landlord, isn’t so sure. “You should try getting a young English person to work in a pub kitchen – it ain’t easy,” he says.
When he can’t find someone with experience, he says he sometimes tries to give young Britons a break. But they don’t always seem to want to come off benefits.
“I offered one a job, and he said he didn’t want to work at night – in a pub! Another told me there was no way they would inspect and clean the toilets as part of the normal duties of a bar shift.”
Bell does worry about some pockets of the economy, particularly those that rely on what he calls “mid-skill-level jobs”, such as electricians and welders. Sectors like manufacturing and construction could feel a pinch from the Government’s restrictive policies.
Rico Wojtulewicz, the head of policy at the National Federation of Builders, says that while construction is “not overly reliant” on immigration, it is still “quite a vital issue”.
Even simple regulatory changes can leave builders suddenly needing a more skilled class of workers. “And then the question is, where are the skilled workers? Unfortunately, the answer can be, they are not in the UK,” he says.
‘Building would grind to a halt’
He paints a stark picture. Under net zero migration, the construction sector “would literally grind to a halt”. “There would just be no companies doing any work,” he says.
That would be a tough political pill to swallow, especially for a Government with a target of building 1.5 million homes by the end of this parliament.
The other sector imperilled by net zero migration is social care. Grappling with more than 100,000 unfilled vacancies, care homes are now barred from recruiting offshore. And they’re already fretting about the end of the transition period in 2028.
“I do worry where we’re going to get staff from,” says Robert Kilgour, the chairman of Renaissance Care, which operates 19 care homes across Scotland.
“I do worry that the trickle of care home closures that have occurred of late is in danger of turning into a flood of closures.”
Martin Green, the chief executive of Care England, echoes Paul the publican’s concern that the native workforce doesn’t always have the requisite skills.
“One of the things that overseas recruitment did very effectively was it provided staff in areas where it was nearly impossible to recruit from the local population,” he says.
The government has steered the social-care conundrum into a commission, headed by peer and policy tsar Baroness Casey, that won’t issue a final report until 2028. Ultimately, wages may have to rise, as will the cost of providing social care.
Higher taxes, more debt?
That’s not the only cost the Exchequer may stumble into.
There may be some positives. Net emigration may ease demand for public services, such as GPs and school places. That could save the government money, though it may also bring politically unpopular closures and amalgamations.
Another bonus would be easing rents and house prices. Rental growth and migration move in close concert. This might soften the demand for welfare and subsidies in the housing sector.
