Is Keir Starmer right to claim immigration increased ‘four-fold’ under the Conservatives?

In an interview with GB News following his speech at Labour’s party conference, the Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer wrongly claimed immigration had increased “four-fold” in five years under the Conservatives.

While estimated net migration (the number of people migrating to the UK minus the number emigrating) did roughly quadruple from 216,000 in June 2018 to its peak of 906,000 in June 2023, immigration (the number of people migrating to the UK) did not.

Over this period, the Office for National Statistics estimates immigration increased from 757,000 to 1,320,000—meaning while it almost doubled in five years, it didn’t increase anywhere near “four-fold”.

We’ve not found any other period since current records began in 2012 in which immigration increased by anywhere close to four-fold in five years.

Given that Mr Starmer was responding to a question about “legal net migration” numbers, it seems likely he meant to refer to net migration rather than immigration in his answer.

But this isn’t the first time we’ve seen Mr Starmer appear to confuse net migration and immigration figures. We contacted Number 10 asking Mr Starmer to correct a similar claim he made at Prime Minister’s Questions earlier this year, but received no response.

If a politician makes an inaccurate claim on broadcast media they should take responsibility for ensuring it is appropriately corrected, and make efforts to ensure the correction is publicly available to anyone who might have heard the claim.