New developments and new data,
covering work in progress and
future plans for Home Office
Migration Statistics
Presented by: Chris Kershaw and Amy Everton
Migration Statistics – Migration and Border Analysis
21 September 2016
What we do (1)
Sponsorship (CoS/CAS)
Arrivals
Visas
Extensions
Settlement
Citizenship
Asylum
Detention
Enforced and
voluntary returns
Work
Study
Family
What we do (2)
Other functions
• Ad hoc analysis
• Data development
• Briefing
• Providing evidence for policy
• Collaborating with ONS, OGDs
• General enquiries
Additional products
• Migrant Journey report
• Eurostat data
• Exit checks data quality report
• PQ & FOI responses
4
Significant media coverage
Long-term trends in student
immigration In YE March 2016:
• Non-EU long term study immigrants in YE Mar 2016 down 17% (-23k, stat sig) to 111,000
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Th
ousands
Visas Long-term visas (1 year+, main applicants) IPS estimates of non-EU immigration
6
Estimates of non-EU study immigration show a
fall, but visa numbers rose for Russell Group
and Chinese
Study-related sponsored visa applications Non-EU visas to study (Tier 4) were
down 12,000 (-5%) to 205,000 in YE
June 2016
University-sponsored study visa
applications fell -2% to 163,338:
But this includes a 5% increase for
Russell Group universities.
There was an 8% fall for the Further
Education sector to 15,848.
Chinese nationals had the highest number
of student visas granted at 70,194 (+3%,
+1,908 from previous year); also increases
for United States (+3%, +425) and
Egyptian (+29%, +372) nationals
Falls for: Nigerians (-21%, -2,307), Iraqi
(-76%, -2,117) and Libyan (-74%, -1,836).
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Universities
Further education
English Language schools
Independent schools
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100,000
150,000
200,000
250,000
300,000
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Work visas
Long-term work visas
Non-EU immigration for work (IPS)
In year ending March 2016:
ONS estimate 71,000 non-EU citizens immigrated for work (+6k; +9% not significant)
In year ending June 2016:
Total work-related visas granted down 1% to 166,544
• Tier 2 skilled work visas up +1% to 94,000 (of which 54,000 went to Indian nationals)
• Tier 1 visas down -43% to 5,000 (mostly Tier 1 Investor and Tier 1 General dependants,
following closure of Tier 1 General route)
• Tier 1 Exceptional talent: up 107 to 198 (out of 1000 places on offer)
Non-EU work migration trends
8
Increases for family visas and EEA family
permits, but fall for dependants on other visas
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Family visas Other dependant visas Non-EU immigration to accompany/join (IPS)
In YE June 2016:
• Family visas up (+10%; +3,646) to 38,805
• Dependants accompanying people on other visas were down (-13%; -10,043) to 65,514
• EEA family permits up (+17%; +4,747) to 32,850
In YE March 2016 ONS estimates show no change in non-EU coming to accompany/join
compared to year ending Mar 2015.
9
Total passenger arrivals rose including for
Chinese and Indian visitors
In YE June 2016, total passenger arrivals increased by 4% to a record 125 million, including 0.3m more
non-EEA arrivals (up 2% to 15 million)
US citizens comprise 29% of non-EEA visitor arrivals.
Visitor visas granted down 1% to 1.90 million. Excluding Kuwaiti visa waiver nationals, the total
increased by 1% to 1.82 million.
For visa-nationals, large increases for:
• China (up 64,758; +18% to 432,251)
• India (up 19,836; +6% to 376,499)
Largest decrease in visitor visas granted to Russians (-35,056; -27% to 94,874)
0.00
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Millions Issued Applications
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UK Citizenship applications
Rise in total ahead
of fee increase in
April 2016
Rise in EU application ahead of 12 Nov 2015 rule
change requiring applicants to provide a UKVI issued
document certifying permanent residence.
In Feb 2016, David Cameron announced the Brexit referendum date. In
the run up to the referendum, more EU nationals may have decided to
acquire documents confirming their permanent right of residence
The non-EU numbers, largely non-EEA sponsored
family members, have not increased nearly as much
Documents certifying permanent residence
Knowledge of language and life
requirements changed from October
2013 causing surge in 2013 Q4 figures
Influence of EU referendum?
11
Migrant Journey reports on how migrants progress
through the immigration system
Migration & Border Analysis
Immigration status after 5 years for 2009 visas
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Family Skilled work (with a potential path to
settlement)
Temporary work (not leading to
settlement)
Study Dependants joining or accompanying
Th
ou
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nd
s
expired leave to remain in the UK
valid leave to remain in the UK
granted settlement
12
EU comparisons (inc. dependants)
EU countries receiving most asylum applications, year ending June 2016
Including dependants, the total
number of asylum applications to
the European Union in the year
ending June 2016 was an estimated
1.5 million, an increase of 86%
compared to the year ending June
2015 (800,000).
Figures based on data supplied by the individual countries to the Intergovernmental Consultations
on Migration, Asylum and Refugees (IGC), UNHCR and Eurostat. Where a figure is unavailable for
a given month, estimates based on the average of the last 3 months available.
182,000
44,000
47,000
85,000
86,000
104,000
131,000
149,000
665,000
0 100,000 200,000 300,000 400,000 500,000 600,000 700,000
Other
United Kingdom
Netherlands
Austria
France
Italy
Hungary
Sweden
Germany
• The UK had 8th highest number of asylum applications in EU; 7th in year ending June 2015 • UK ranked 16th in terms of asylum applicants per head of resident population.
Asylum applications (main applicants)
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2001 2003 2005 2007 2009 2011 2013 2015
Th
ousands
In YE June 2016 asylum
applications increased by 41%,
from 25,919 in YE June 2015 to
36,465.
Rank in YE June 2016 Applications
YE June 2015
Applications
YE June 2016
Grant rates
based on
initial
decisions (YE June 2015)
1 (4) Iran 2,052 4,910 40%
2 (10) Iraq 847 3,199 12%
3 (2) Pakistan 2,313 2,992 16%
4 (1) Eritrea 3,540 2,790 48%
5 (7) Afghanistan 1,337 2,690 35%
6 (3) Syria 2,157 2,563 87%
7 (5) Sudan 1,798 2,512 86%
8 (11) Bangladesh 731 1,735 7%
9 (6) Albania 1,529 1,535 24%
10 (12) India 695 1,407 1%
Note: Initial decisions and number of grants do not necessarily relate
to applications made in the same period.
Asylum applications received in UK, 2001-2015
Recent developments
• Migrant Journey report (2009 cohort)
• Breakdown of people resettled under Syrian
Vulnerable Persons Resettlement Scheme by local
authority
• New breakdowns of returns statistics
• New topic briefing on arrivals and visitors
• Exit Checks report on coverage, completeness and
matching
Ongoing
• Work with ONS on reconciling sources
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14
Revised definitions of returns
OFFICIAL SENSITIVE - STATISTICS
Migration & Border Analysis
Enforced returns (including returns from detention)
(1) Enforced removals includes enforced removals from detention and non-detained enforced removals.
(2) Other returns from detention relate to those returns occurring either from detention or up to 2 days after leaving
detention AND where it had been established that a person has breached UK immigration laws and / or have no valid
leave to remain in the UK.
Year ending
June 2015
Year ending
June 2016 Change
Percentage
change
Total enforced returns Includes enforced removals from detention, non-
detained enforced removals and other returns from
detention where the Home Office will have been
required to facilitate or monitor the return. This new
grouping has been created to reflect the likely level of
enforcement activity that led to these returns.
14,093 12,846 -1,247 -9%
Total enforced removals (1) 12,631 11,311 -1,320 -10%
Enforced removals from detention 11,117 9,641 -1,476 -13%
Non-detained enforced removals 1,514 1,670 156 10%
Other returns from detention (2) 1,462 1,535 73 5%
15
Syrian Vulnerable Persons Resettlement Scheme
(VPRS) An additional 2,682 people were granted Humanitarian Protection under the Syrian VPRS in YE June 2016
(2,898 since the scheme began). Of these,
• Half (49%) were under 18 years old
• Half (49%) were female
Published for the first time in May 2016:
Between October 2015 and June 2016, 2,646 people were resettled in 118 local authorities
• 33% (862) were resettled in Scotland and 4% (97) in London
• LAs resettling the highest numbers were Coventry (125), Gateshead (107) and Edinburgh (83)
Since the crisis began in 2011, we have granted asylum or other forms of protection to 7,148 Syrian
nationals (including dependants).
Rank Local Authority
Number resettled
under Syrian VPRS
1 Coventry 125
2 Gateshead 107
3 Edinburgh 83
4 Renfrewshire 80
5 Leeds 79
6 Glasgow 72
7 Newcastle upon Tyne 72
8 Nottingham 62
9 Argyll and Bute 58
10 Armagh, Banbridge and Craigavon 57
0 100 200 300 400 500 600 700 800 900 1000
North West
East of England
London
Wales
East Midlands
Northern Ireland
South West
South East
Yorkshire and The Humber
West Midlands
North East
Scotland
Changes to Detention tables
16
As at 30 June 2016, the longest length
of time a person had been currently
detained for was 1,156 days.
Ranking Number of days Gender
1 1,156 M
2 1,149 M
3 1,025 M
4 806 M
5 780 F
6 753 M
7 724 M
8 723 M
9 723 M
10 710 M
11 702 M
12 650 M
13 646 M
14 643 M
15 641 M
16 641 M
17 638 M
18 618 M
19 609 M
20 601 M
Top 20 longest lengths of detention of people in detention by gender, as
at end of June 2016
New arrivals and visitors topic
17
35,700
Work Study Short-term
study
Family Visitor Persons in-
transit
Passengers
returning (1)
Other
171 185 306 22 9,440 1,190 3,510 462
United States 2,718 29%
Australia 795 8%
Canada 718 8%
India 501 5%
China 482 5%
Other 4,226 45%
Top 5 non-EEA visitor arrival nationalities and proportion of total
Total: 123,300
Passenger arrivals, 2015 (thousands)
British citizens
72,400
Non-EEA
15,300
Other EEA and Swiss
Top 5 visitor arrival
nationalities account for over half of all visitor arrivals
New presentation in the arrivals and
visitors topic
18
Top 10 non-EEA visitor arrivals, 2015
United States
Australia
Canada
Exit checks – first report
19
• Extra exit checks data
was required from
carriers from April 2015
• Primarily designed for
operational purposes
• An initial report
describes the system in
terms of coverage/
completeness/
matching
• Very good progress has
been made in rolling out
the system
Still need further work to appraise data quality and not provide
an overall measure of net migration nor can it replace IPS
Exit checks - coverage
• Coverage is a measure of how many ‘in-scope’
routes can provide Advanced Passenger
Information (API) or Travel Document Information
(TDI)
• Coverage is 100% for outbound routes and 87%
inbound (but supplemented by passport swipes)
• But doesn’t include CTA routes, General Aviation
or General Maritime
• Coverage isn’t completeness, not all data for
‘covered’ routes is submitted by carriers.
20
Exit checks – Common Travel Area
(CTA)
• There are no direct estimates of the CTA gap as
there are no routine border checks on CTA routes
• There are significant flows of passengers from
Ireland
• For example, 1.7 million passengers from Dublin
to non-EEA airports in 2015, with 316,000 to New
York
• Passenger numbers don’t break down by
nationality or indicate whether a traveller had been
in the UK
21
Exit checks – Common Travel Area
(CTA)
• The IPS estimates that in 2015 there were 354,000
non-EU nationals, who are also non-EU residents,
travelling from Great Britain to the Republic of
Ireland
• About half of these were US nationals
• Many will have returned to the UK
• To set in context there were 15.2 million
admissions to the UK of non-EEA nationals in 2015
• And 4.7 million admission were US nationals
22
Exit checks – general aviation
• General aviation (small private planes) accounts
for around 90,000 per year, with 3 to 4 people per
flight
• Most will be UK or EEA nationals
• But there are more then 100 million travellers to
the UK departing the UK by air per year
23
Exit checks – completeness information
• Completeness of aviation data as measured by
flights providing any API information is now very
high at 98.8% inbound and 98.7% outbound
• But this doesn’t mean data for all passengers is
present
• Statistical measures for maritime and rail are still in
very early stages of development
• Given 15.3 million non-EEA admissions per year
even very high completeness can generate
appreciable numbers of false positives
24
Exit checks - matching
• Matching for API for ‘visa nationals’ to immigration
system data stands around 90%
• Some degree of attrition can be expected
• For example, dual nationals, historic settlement
cases, lost/expired passports, residency cards
issued under EU law, diplomats or merchant
seamen
• But can also have failures in matching (e.g. with
rates a little lower for Chinese where linguistic
complexity may apply)
25
Future developments
• A consultation is being considered on what we currently
produce and could produce
• This needs to take into account the context of what is
produced more generally as part of ONS reporting
• We plan to again produce a Migrant Journey report
(including a 2010 cohort) to look at how migrants status in
the immigration system changes over time
• Need to consider robustness of data in considering any
future reporting of exit checks
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Contacts & future events [email protected]
[email protected] (asylum/enforcement,
quarterly publication)
[email protected] (managed migration)
For general enquiries
Migration Statistics JISCMAIL list
https://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/cgi-
bin/webadmin?A0=MIGRATION-STATS
Next MSUF conference planned for September 2017
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