Fact check: Migration to the UK has fallen in each month since January 2024
Year-on-year net migration numbers are lower now than they were in the same period last year.
In a speech on immigration on Monday May 12, Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer said “inward migration is already falling with this Government”.
Sir Keir also said: “Until in 2023, (net migration) reached nearly one million, which is about the population of Birmingham, our second largest city”.
Evaluation
The statistics the Prime Minister used show migration to the UK fell in each of the 10 months that data is available for since the last general election when compared to the same month a year earlier. However, year-on-year migration had already been falling before Sir Keir became Prime Minister last July.
When comparing the figures month-on-month, the number of people migrating to the UK has risen on several occasions since the last election. Month-on-month changes do not take into account the fact that immigration is highly seasonal – most noticeably at the start of term time when students arrive.
Net migration was 866,000 in 2023, but had earlier peaked at 906,000 in the year to June 2023. Both figures are lower than Birmingham’s population which was 1,166,049 according to the latest official data.
The facts
When asked by the PA news agency which figures the Prime Minster had used for his claim, the Home Office said he had utilised the “monthly entry clearance visa application” data series, the latest version of which goes up to April 2025.
That data includes monthly applications for a series of different visas for entry to the UK. The visas included are the skilled worker, health and care worker, sponsored study, seasonal worker, youth mobility scheme and family visas.
By adding together all these different visas it shows that year-on-year the numbers have fallen in each month since Labour formed a Government last July. The highest year-on-year reduction was 57% in October 2024 and the lowest was 17% in April 2025.
When looking at the data month-on-month the story is somewhat different. Compared to the month before, immigration rose in July, August, November, and December 2024, as well as in March and April 2025.
However, because immigration figures are very seasonal – with big spikes in the autumn as students arrive in the UK to take up their studies – the month-on-month data is less revealing than the year-on-year comparisons.
A larger caveat to the Prime Minister’s claim is that numbers had already been falling for months before the election. The data shows that migration fell in each of the months between January 2024 and June 2024.
In June 2024 – the last month before the election – numbers were down by 45% compared with the same month a year earlier.
In January 2024 the previous government made it so that most students were no longer able to bring dependants. In February 2024 the immigration health surcharge was increased, a month later new care worker and senior care worker applications were made ineligible to bring dependants. In April 2024 the salary threshold was increased and the immigration salary list reformed. Sir Keir was not elected as Prime Minister until July 2024.
Birmingham
The population of Birmingham was 1,144,900 in the 2021 census and the Office for National Statistics’s most recent data estimated that in mid-2023 the population was 1,166,049. This counts the city of Birmingham and not the urban area – which is considerably larger.
In 2023 – that is to say the year ending in December 2023 – net migration was 866,000. Net migration reached its peak in the year to June 2023 when it hit 906,000.
Links
YouTube – In full: Starmer vows to reduce immigration ‘significantly’ but refuses to set cap (archived audio, downloads as MP3 file)
