Net migration figures referenced on Today programme don’t account for newly announced restrictions

16 May 2025

On BBC Radio 4’s Today programme on Tuesday, 13 May [2:20:40], presenter Nick Robinson challenged the home secretary Yvette Cooper on the impact of the new immigration restrictions announced by the government this week.

He said: “It’ll still be the case after all of this is done, won’t it, that net migration to this country is in the hundreds of thousands, according to the Office for National Statistics, potentially above half a million a year, even after every single one of these measures is taken”, adding shortly after: “One estimate of the total of the Office for National Statistics is 340,000, that is more than three or four times what it was when Labour left power. Another estimate comes at 525,000.”

These figures are taken from the ONS’s National Population Projections, which project how the UK’s population may change in the coming years, using long-term assumptions based on past trends.

The latest projections were published in January, and assumed that net migration will stand at 340,000 per year by mid-2028. The same month, the ONS also published an alternative projection in which net migration was higher, at 525,000. These appear to be the figures Mr Robinson was referencing. The ONS also gave a figure at the lower end of the range, of 120,000.

Crucially though, these figures were published in January 2025, and do not account for the new immigration restrictions announced by the government this week. But this wasn’t made clear by Mr Robinson, who said that the ONS figures showed that net migration could be “potentially above half a million a year, even after every single one of these measures is taken”.

The Home Office estimates that the measures unveiled on Monday could reduce net migration by between 82,000 and 113,000. But, as both the Home Office and the ONS note, net migration figures are subject to a substantial degree of uncertainty, and we can’t yet say how the government’s changes will impact future projections or forecasts.

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