More than a million foreign nationals were offered visas to live in the UK last year to March, Home Office figures show.
The number of work visas handed out jumped 50 per cent beyond pre-pandemic levels to more than 277,000, including a 66 per cent jump in skilled worker visas.
Sponsored study visas – which allow students to come here for a number of years – soared to nearly 467,000, up 58 per cent on the number seen in the year before Covid hit. Chinese students accounted for a quarter of all sponsored study visas.
The Home Office also granted nearly 302,000 family visas.
Meanwhile, more than 15,000 people were granted refugee status and tens of thousands more were allowed to come to Britain under humanitarian programmes such as one for Hong Kong residents.
The Hong Kong scheme, called the British National (Overseas) passport, was set up in early 2021 in response to growing concerns over Beijing’s crackdown on democracy in the former colony. It has now had more than 123,000 applications.
Alp Mehmet, chairman of Migration Watch UK which campaigns for tougher border controls, said: ‘These astonishing figures show around a million overseas nationals being granted entry to live in the UK in the past year or so.
‘This is a huge increase on the year prior to the pandemic and possibly points to the highest annual immigration ever seen.
‘Such a huge number of arrivals can only add to strains on housing and services, put further pressure on schools and the NHS and worsen our congestion woes.’
Red Wall MPs have written to Home Secretary Priti Patel saying the high level of immigration ‘undeniably undermines’ Brexit promises.
A Home Office spokesman said: ‘The Government has delivered on its promise to the British people to take back control of our immigration system.
‘As we move out of the pandemic these statistics show our global points-based system is working.
‘We are bringing in the skilled workers the UK needs including thousands of NHS doctors and nurses through the health and care visa.
‘We have also helped thousands of people through our generous safe and legal routes including those fleeing Putin’s war in Ukraine, refugees from Afghanistan and our BN(O) Hong Kong route.’
It has also been revealed that the number of asylum claims made in the UK have climbed to its highest in nearly two decades, while the backlog of cases waiting to be determined continues to soar
In contrast, there has been a significant decline in EU nationals seeking to live in the UK, with the ONS revealing that net migration to the UK from the EU is negative with 12,000 more people leaving than arriving in the year to June 2021.
That was against a net increase of 24,000 in the previous year, which included six months of movement before Brexit took place and nine before Covid travel restrictions came into effect in March 2020.
Overall migration to the UK fell from 260,000 to 239,000, spurred by an increase in immigration from outside the EU.
However, the ONS cautioned that Covid meant it had to change its methods of obtaining data.
Jay Lindop, director of its Centre for International Migration, said: ‘The 12 months to June 2021 was a period when migration behaviour was impacted by the restrictions imposed to manage the coronavirus pandemic as well as ongoing changes in migration policy following Brexit.
Bringing together the best sources of data we have available, our latest estimates of net migration suggest that around 239,000 more people came to the UK than left, driven by non-EU immigration.
‘Due to the data collection challenges posed by the pandemic, we’ve used new, experimental, methods to produce the numbers and these will be finessed over the coming months as more data becomes available, including census numbers.
‘While the figures give a snapshot of migration during the pandemic, they should not be compared with historic trends and are subject to change.’
Previous data, collected differently, has also shown a fall in EU migration in the second quarter of 2019 and 2020. But prior to that the last time it was a negative figure was 1991, when the EU was much smaller.
Before Brexit, the strong demand in Britain’s labour market – where wages rose by an annual 7 per centin the first quarter – would encourage more people into work and bring in EU workers where needed.
But over the past two years the number of EU nationals working in Britain has fallen by 211,000 while the number of non-EU nationals rose by 182,000. And hiring from abroad has become tougher as almost all foreign workers now require a visa and filling vacancies quickly with those with the right skills became more challenging.
Michael Saunders, a BoE policymaker, said Brexit could be ‘limiting the extent to which domestic capacity strains and specific skill shortages can be eased through imports and inward migration’.
It was also revealed that the number of asylum claims made in the UK has climbed to its highest in nearly two decades, while the backlog of cases waiting to be determined continues to soar.
There were 55,146 asylum applications in the UK in the year to March 2022 – the highest number for any 12-month period since the year to September 2003, when the total stood at 61,343.
The number of applications from lone migrant children is also at its highest level for any 12-month period since records began in 2006. Some 4,081 applications from unaccompanied asylum-seeking children (UASC) were made in the year to March 2022.
The increase in applications was ‘likely linked in part to the easing of global travel restrictions that were in place due to the Covid-19 pandemic, and to a sharp increase in small boat arrivals to the UK’, the Home Office report said.
At the end of March 2022, there were 109,735 people awaiting an initial decision on their case, 66 per cent higher than the previous year when 66,185 people were waiting.
This is more than double the number in March 2020 when the coronavirus pandemic began (51,906) and is a new all-time high since current records began in June 2010.
The figures come as the Home Office announced it was setting up an action group to look at how to speed up the processing of asylum claims in a bid to increase the number of decisions made on cases on a weekly basis.
A total of 15,451 people were granted protection in the year to March 2022, up 79% on the previous year (8,635) but below the 20,295 in 2019.
Three-quarters (75 per cent) of all initial decisions in the year ending March 2022 were grants, which is ‘substantially higher than previous years’, and the highest rate in more than 30 years, since 82 per cent in 1990, according to the Home Office.
Meanwhile, 2,761 people were deported from the UK in 2021 – 62 per cent fewer than in 2019 before the pandemic. The vast majority of enforced returns were for foreign criminals, most of which were EU nationals.
A Home Office spokeswoman said the department had ‘helped thousands of people through our generous safe and legal routes including those fleeing Putin’s war in Ukraine, refugees from Afghanistan and our BN(O) Hong Kong route.
‘And as we bring the Nationality and Borders Act into practice, we are working urgently to speed up processing of claims, including via a new asylum action group.’
