UK Immigration News

The UK's shadow Home Secretary, Yvette Cooper, has called on the Coalition government to immediately remove students from the official migration statistics. Ms Cooper said that including all migrants in the immigration statistics was 'deeply damaging to our economy'.

During a wide-ranging speech on immigration at the Institute for Public Policy Research, a left-leaning London think tank, Ms Cooper said that the current government's treatment of the immigration figures is not in Britain's interests.

Yet another parliamentary committee has criticised the UK's Coalition government for its rhetoric on immigration.

The House of Lords Science and Technology Committee published a report on International Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) students on 11th April 2014 which warns that the number of STEM students studying in the UK has fallen considerably since 2010, when the UK's current Coalition government came to power.

The UK's Office for National Statistics says that it underestimated the true extent of immigration from Eastern Europe between 2001 and 2011 by about 350,000. It says that the error occurred because the ONS estimate was based on misleading data from the International Passenger Survey.

The ONS has recently completed a review of immigration from the EU particularly after 2004 when eight new nations joined the European Union. It found that the statistics only used data from major airports rather than from all airports in the UK.

The British government has announced that, from July, immigrants from the EU will not be able to claim child benefit for their first three months in the country. In addition, unemployed EU immigrants who do not speak English will be forced to take language classes or face losing their unemployment benefits.

The UK's Home Office is under pressure to reduce the net immigration total but the figure is rising. To help reverse the trend, the Home Secretary Theresa May is rumoured to be considering a small change to the Tier 2 (Intra Company Transfer) (Short Term) visa which will, on paper, reduce the number of immigrants in the country by 19,000. But, in reality, there will be the same number of migrants as before.

A report by a UK parliamentary committee has warned that the UK's Coalition government is harming the UK's standing in the world because of the changes it has made to the visa system.

A report from the Select Committee on Soft Power says that changes to the Tier 4 student visa in particular are damaging the UK's reputation. The tone of the UK's debate on immigration too, diminishes the country in the eyes of people around the world. The government should also do its best to ensure that visa applicants receive a good service.