Labour’s pledges on migration, one year in: the data

by Mihnea Cuibus

 

After one year in government, has Labour made significant progress towards its pledges on migration? In this piece, we examine five such pledges – to bring down net migration, reduce reliance on overseas workers, tackle smuggling gangs, clear the asylum backlog, and accelerate the removal of people without legal status in the UK.

Both net migration and the number of foreign workers coming to the UK declined sharply in Labour’s first year in office. These trends are in line with the government’s commitments but are driven by policies introduced by the previous government, which led to a sharp increase in net migration, followed by a sharp decline. Returns and deportations have increased under the current government. By contrast, there has been no progress in reducing the number of people arriving by small boat. The asylum backlog of people awaiting initial decisions has declined but the number of people in hotels has not, largely due to a new asylum appeals backlog in the courts.

The impact of many of Labour’s new policies on migration remains to be seen. Key measures – such as those announced in the Immigration White Paper, or those contained in the Border Security, Asylum, and Immigration Bill – are yet to be implemented.

The data allow us to track general progress towards key pledges, though they do not always tell us everything we might want to know. For example, it is often difficult to determine the impact of specific policies by looking at the overall data. In addition, the government’s success or failure in relation to some of its broader aims cannot be assessed at all using public data. This commentary explains what the data do and do not tell us about the Labour government’s progress towards its goals.

Pledge 1: Bringing down net migration

Net migration – the number of people immigrating to the UK minus the number leaving the country – reached record levels after Brexit. The ONS revised its estimates upwards several times, with its latest figures showing a peak of 906,000 in the year ending 30 June 2023.

Net migration fell sharply in 2024, to 431,000 – 52% lower than its peak. However, numbers remain substantially higher than the levels seen in the 2010s.

Figure 1

Net migration was expected to decline from 2024 onwards, regardless of the change in government or any new policies. This is for two main reasons. First, immigration has declined following the introduction of visa restrictions by the previous government. In 2024, the number of visas issued for work and study fell by 56% and 14%, respectively. This sharp decline was possible because net migration under the previous government had been so high. Second, more former international students are emigrating following a boom in arrivals between 2021 and 2023, although student emigration is not as high as expected because a higher share stayed in the UK.

The government has maintained the restrictions introduced by the Conservatives in the first half of 2024. That includes the ban on partners and children of care workers and most overseas students, increasing the general skilled worker salary threshold from £26,200 to £38,700, and abolishing the 20% going rate discount for migrants working in shortage occupations. Planned increases to the £29,000 threshold for family migrants remain frozen pending a final decision by the government, after the Migration Advisory Committee (MAC) published its review of the issue in early June 2025.

The government published a White Paper on immigration in May 2025, setting out several policy changes – including the closure of the Skilled Worker route for social care, the introduction of more stringent English language requirements for migrants and their dependants, and longer residence requirements for some visa holders before they can apply for settlement . The Home Office estimated these measures would eventually result in around 100,000 fewer visas being granted each year. However, many of the policy details are yet to be fully set out, and the ultimate impact on net migration remains unclear .

In one sense, the data show that Labour has made progress towards fulfilling its promise to lower net migration. Official numbers will reveal if net migration continues to fall in the coming years from its still relatively high levels. So far, declining numbers do not result from the current government’s policies. In addition, the numbers alone do not tell us much about the impacts of net migration, which depend in large part on who is migrating, not just how many.

Pledge 2: Reducing reliance on overseas workers

Labour has said that UK employers should reduce their reliance on overseas workers, and that too many work visas have been issued in recent years. Most of the growth in work migration after 2021 came from the health and care industry – particularly after care workers were added to the shortage occupation list in 2022.

In response to the increases, the Conservative government introduced restrictions in early 2024 – a rise in the minimum income threshold for Skilled Worker visas, a ban on care workers bringing their partners and children to the UK, and increased scrutiny of employers applying to sponsor care workers’ visas. These were maintained by Labour.

The government announced further restrictions on work migration in the White Paper . The care worker route will close to new applicants coming from overseas, though people will still be able to switch into it from within the UK until 2028, if they have a visa with the right to work. The Skilled Worker route will be largely reserved for graduate jobs, and adult dependants of work migrants will face language requirements for the first time. Middle-skilled jobs in industries like construction will only qualify for temporary visas under restricted conditions, with no right to bring dependants. The first set of changes contained in the White Paper – including the closure of the care route, the raising of skill thresholds for Skilled Worker visas, and the introduction of a new temporary shortage list for other occupations – will come into force on 22 July. Other details are yet to be announced.

In addition to the restrictions, the government pledged to improve training and reduce demand for overseas workers by linking policies on immigration and skills. The MAC has been tasked to collaborate with Skills England and other institutions on labour market policies, review demand for overseas visas in key sectors, and proactively monitor sectors which experience skill shortages. However, it is not clear whether or how these measures will affect the number of people coming to the UK. Even if the government succeeds in improving domestic skills, this will not automatically translate into fewer migrants, as the MAC has pointed out .

Skilled Worker visa grants fell by 60% in 2024 compared to the year before, and numbers somewhat stabilised in the first quarter of 2025. The overall decline in 2024 was mostly driven by an 81% fall in Health and Care visa grants, though other visa issuances on the route also fell in the second half of the year. This likely reflects the combined impact of the new restrictions, as well as operational changes in the Home Office to scrutinise sponsorship applications in the care sector more carefully and step up enforcement against employers who break the law.

Official data will tell us whether work visa numbers continue to decline. However, it will be difficult to assess whether domestic skills initiatives are having an impact, or whether any future declines result from the government’s new policies.

Figure 2

Another way for overseas workers to move into the UK labour market is through the Graduate Visa, which currently allows international students to work in the country for two or three years after graduation. This became more significant as the number of international students rose sharply and more of them chose to stay after their studies. The government will retain the Graduate route, though the length of the visa will be reduced from 24 to 18 months for non-PhD graduates.

The government has also said it will reduce the exploitation of migrants on work visas, including by removing sponsor licenses from employers who violate employment law. There is evidence that the exploitation of migrants on work visas has been widespread, although it is inherently difficult to quantify its scale or track changes over time.

Pledge 3: Reducing small boat arrivals by cracking down on smuggling networks

The number of people crossing the Channel increased significantly in the first year of Labour government – there were around 42,000 arrivals in the year ending 30 June 2025, 34% more than the year before and close to the record levels reached in 2022. Small boat arrivals make up around 3-4% of overall immigration.

In the last few years, numbers have fluctuated up and down for many reasons and it is hard to disentangle the causes. The Home Office suggested that a period of unexpectedly calm weather in the Channel led to more crossings in recent months – however, there is no evidence that weather conditions affect the number of crossings over longer periods, rather than simply determining their timing in the short run.

Labour and the Conservatives both agree that small boat arrivals should be sharply reduced but there are major differences between their approaches. The previous government’s flagship policy on small boats was the Rwanda scheme , which aimed to relocate people who arrived in the UK without authorisation to the East African country.

The Labour government cancelled the Rwanda scheme and promised to reduce crossings by tackling criminal smuggling networks. It established a Border Security Command to coordinate investigations, committed to increase staffing, and introduced a new Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill to give UK authorities expanded powers, such as the ability to search people and seize their belongings more easily.

The government has also increased cooperation with international partners – it says that it has increased the number of British officers stationed on the European mainland. Similar to the previous government, it has signed deals with origin and transit countries (e.g. Iraq and Serbia ) to tackle transnational gangs. Reports in June 2025 claimed the French government was close to agreeing to change its law to allow police to intercept migrant boats within 300m of its shores.

The government is also negotiating a returns agreement with France – this would allow it to return some people who arrived by small boat, in exchange for accepting the same number of asylum seekers from France, such as those with family ties in the UK. However, details remain unclear, and other EU countries have expressed their opposition to a bilateral deal. As with the Rwanda scheme, the goal would be to deter people from crossing the Channel in the first place. This deterrent effect would likely depend on the number of people being returned – significant deterrence may require a large number of people arriving by small boat to be sent back to France.

While we have official data on how small boat crossings change, it is very difficult to attribute any increase or decrease to specific government policies. Many external factors can influence arrivals more than government policy. These include social and economic developments in countries of origin, and developments in smuggling networks.

Figure 3

Pledge 4: Clearing the asylum backlog

Another concern for the Labour government is the UK’s backlog of asylum applications. The backlog comes at a cost to both asylum seekers, who face uncertainty and are not allowed to work, and the government, which saw its spending on support and accommodation for asylum seekers rise sharply. Several factors explain the large backlog, including more applications and slow decision-making in the Home Office. The previous government responded by streamlining procedures and hiring additional caseworkers, which initially led to a sharp rise in the number of initial decisions.

The initial decision backlog stood at around 79,000 applications at the end of March 2025 – approximately 8% lower than when Labour entered government nine months earlier. The backlog started falling in 2023, though this stalled in 2024 – the backlog actually increased slightly in the third quarter of the year before restarting its decline.

The government attributed these trends to the Illegal Migration Act, which prevented people who arrived without authorisation after 7 March 2023 from being granted any kind of legal status. In practice, this prevented many applications submitted after this date from being processed, and led to a sharp decline in initial decisions. The processing of applications restarted in July 2024 after the new Home Secretary issued a statutory instrument repealing that part of the Act.

However, initial decisions are not the only point in the asylum system where delays take place. An additional appeals backlog has grown rapidly in the courts – around 51,000 asylum applications were waiting for a decision on their appeal at the end of March 2025, 53% more than at the end of June 2024. The number of refusals on asylum applications increased in recent years as a result of more initial decisions and a lower grant rate, driving the growth in appeals.

Largely as a result of the appeals backlog, the number of asylum seekers receiving support increased slightly from the end of June 2024 to the end of March 2025, from 101,000 to 107,000. The number of people in asylum hotels was also up slightly over this period, and stood at just over 32,000 at the end of March.

Figure 4

The government has not offered a timeline for its goal of clearing the asylum backlog, nor a definition of what it means to have cleared it. There will always be at least some pending decisions, because of new applications entering the system.

Pledge 5: Increasing returns

Labour has pledged to remove more people who have no legal status in the UK. Total returns fell sharply between 2010 and 2020, though recent increases have partially reversed this decline. In 2024, around 34,000 people were returned from the UK – the highest level since 2017. Returns were up 18% in the first nine months of Labour government compared to the same period a year before. However, numbers remain significantly lower than a decade ago.

It is not clear exactly why returns declined in the 2010s before partly recovering since. Several factors are likely to have played a role in the decline, including increased legal challenges, lower budgets for enforcement, and fewer people being refused visas in-country. Similarly, the increase in returns is likely to have been at least in part driven by higher resources and increased immigration in recent years, both legal and unauthorised (for more details, see the Migration Observatory commentary, Deportation and removal: what is driving the numbers? ). While returns have increased, it is difficult to know how much of this increase results from Labour’s activities in office and how much is just a continuation of the existing trend we saw under the previous government.

Labour promised to create a specialised enforcement unit with more than 1,000 staff, maintain Conservative plans to increase detention spaces , set up support programmes in 11 countries to support the reintegration of returnees, and negotiate new return deals with countries of origin. The latter will build on several agreements concluded by the previous government in recent years.

As explained above, the government is also negotiating a bilateral returns deal with France to cover some people who arrive in the UK by small boat. In addition, the Prime Minister announced in May 2025 that the government wanted to set up “return hubs” in third countries, where people who received a final negative decision on their asylum application in the UK could be sent. It remains unclear which countries might agree to host these hubs, how the scheme would operate in practice, or how many people it might apply to.

Figure 5

The number of returns alone does not tell us everything about how effective government policy is at removing people with no legal status. For example, some types of returns are more cost-effective than others. In particular, voluntary returns are both cheaper and considered more humane than enforced removals.

Returns do not result only from government policy: UK voluntary returns statistics include people who leave with no contact with the authorities (e.g. a person who overstays their visa by a couple of months and then leaves the country of their own accord would be counted as a return). These independent returns made up an average of 40% of all returns from 2018 to 2024.

Finally, it is difficult to know what a ‘high’ or ‘low’ number of removals is. The size of the unauthorised population is not known, and there are official statistics on only one sub-group: refused asylum seekers. As a result, we do not know what share of people without legal status are removed, go on to receive legal residence rights, or remain in the UK without status.

 

Thanks to David Goodhart for comments on an earlier draft. All errors remain our own.