NET migration hit a whopping 728,000 in the past year as Britain’s population continued to soar.
And the year before that it stood at a monster 906,000 after bungled initial estimates were today revised up.
Net migration hit a whopping 728,000 as Britain’s population soaredPA
In the 12 months from June 2023-24, some 1.2million arrived in the UK, and 479,000 left.
It means net migration – which includes mainly legal but also illegal routes – stands at 728,000.
The 2022-23 figures have been updated from the original ONS estimate of 740,000 to an eye-watering 906,000.
It means there has been a 20 per cent reduction in 12 months largely due to measures imposed by the last Tory government.
They include a ban on care workers bringing family to the UK, and also a higher salary threshold for foreign employees.
But today’s stark figures will spark calls for even tougher border controls after net migration was around a city the size of Nottingham.
And government spending on asylum seekers stood at £5.38billion last year, up from £3.95 billion.
Tory leader Kemi Badenoch got ahead of the shock stats today vowing to get tougher on immigration.
Vowing to “tell the truth on immigration,” she used her first major speech as Tory leader to warn: “This country is not a dormitory or a hotel, it is our home.”
She pledged a “strict” cap on arrivals with visas only doled out to those who “will make a substantial and clear overall contribution”.
And the Opposition chief promised to review Britain’s membership of the European Court of Human Rights and its basis in UK law.
Both policies mark a hardening in her position since she ran for the leadership and were adopted by her rival Robert Jenrick.
Taking aim at Labour and her Conservative governments on immigration, she attacked the “failure of politics over the last thirty years” to “gloss over it or make it a fringe issue”.
She also took aim at Home Office civil servants who would “much rather be working in a charity, helping people with asylum” than controlling borders.
Ms Badenoch said: “Millions want to come here, but we as politicians have to do right by the citizens of this country, before anyone else.
“Our country cannot sustain the numbers we have seen. We are reducing the quality of life for people already here.
“Because immigration is at a pace too fast to maintain public services, and at a rate, where it is next to impossible to integrate those from radically different cultures.”
She vowed to tighten citizenship and settlement criteria so a British part is “earned not an automatic right”.
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