Home Office figures show how vital immigration is to the economy
The Home Office immigration system statistics for 2023 tell a different story to the one that dominates the political discourse.
While government commentary and policy has focused on illegal migration via small boats, the largest driver of rising immigration is people coming to work, primarily in a health and care sector that would not function without them.
Some 616,000 work visas were issued in 2023, 337,240 to “primary applicants”, up 26% on 2022 and a staggering 250% rise on pre-pandemic levels, with a further 279,131 to their dependants, an increase of 81%.
Health and social care visas were the largest driver of the increase, the number almost doubling in a year to 146,477, with more than 100,000 of these granted to carers.
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This expansion is the consequence of a deliberate policy decision in 2021 to make up a post-COVID, post-Brexit shortfall in staff.
With preferential status removed from European Union candidates, east Asia and west and southern Africa are the primary source of care workers.
More than 18,000 came from India, with 7,000 from Bangladesh and Pakistan respectively. A further 18,000 came from Nigeria, 15,000 from Zimbabwe and 10,000 from Ghana.
Applications for skilled work visas in other sectors were broadly flat, perhaps reflecting a cooling labour market in a flatlining economy that has almost a million job vacancies and 2.5 million workers classified as long-term sick.
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Home Secretary James Cleverly has moved to cut numbers, banning care workers from bringing dependents, a change that may force recruiters to spread the net even wider to fill holes in British care homes.
The minimum salary threshold for skilled worker visas is also rising to £38,700 a year, up more than 50% and now more than the average salary, but such is the acute challenge of the NHS, health and care employers are exempt from paying the new figure.
One area where the government can point to falling immigration is among students but that will be no cause for celebration in higher education, where overseas candidates underwrite the cost of the domestic population.
Student visa applications fell 5% to 616,000, reflecting a more competitive international market and a tightening of rules from this year, which will see only postgraduates able to bring family members with them.
There was also a small decrease in the number of temporary visas granted to season workers in agriculture, who now overwhelmingly come from central Asia, but that was offset by a rise in youth mobility visas granted to under-30s from 12 eligible countries including Canada, Australia, New Zealand and South Korea.
From health and care to agriculture and education, cutting immigration will come at a price.
Business
Vivergo: How US-UK trade deal could bring about collapse of huge renewable energy plant in Hull
The smell of yeast still hangs in the air at the Vivergo plant in Hull but the machines have fallen quiet.
More than 100 lorries usually pass through here each day, carrying 3,000 tonnes of wheat. It is milled, fermented and distilled. The final product is bioethanol, a renewable fuel that is then blended into E10 petrol.
This is a vast operation. It took several years to build, with considerable investment, but it is on the verge of closing down. Management and staff are holding out for a last-minute reprieve from the government but time is running out.
It’s been a turbulent journey. The plant was already being annihilated by US rivals, losing about £3m a month. Vivergo and Ensus, based in Teesside, blamed regulations that enable US companies to earn double subsidies.
They were pushing for regulatory change but then a killer blow: The US-UK trade deal, which allows 1.4 billion litres of American ethanol into the UK tariff-free (down from 19%).
“We’ve effectively given the whole of the UK market to the US producers,” said Ben Hackett, managing director at Vivergo.
“If we were to have the same support that the US industry has, if we could use genetically modified crops, we wouldn’t need that tariff. We would be able to compete. If we had the same energy costs. We wouldn’t need those tariffs.”
The government has the weekend to come up with a plan that could keep the business running. If it fails, Vivergo will begin issuing redundancy notices to its 160 staff.
Ben Hackett
It’s a devastating prospect for workers, many of them live in Hull and are nervous about alternative opportunities in the area.
Mike Walsh, a logistics manager who has been working at the plant for 14 years, said: “It’s not a great place to be at the moment. It’s a very well paid, very high-skilled role and they’ve (Vivergo) given everybody an opportunity in an area that doesn’t pay that well…. The jobs market isn’t as good as what people would like. So it does impact the local economy.”
He called on the government to “help us, save us, give this industry a future”.
His colleague Claire Wood, lead productions engineer, said: “I moved here after a career in oil and gas for 10 years, partly because I want to be part of the transition to renewable fuels. I can see so much potential here and it’s absolutely devastating to know that this place might be closed very, very shortly and that all that potential just goes away.”
Thousands more could be affected. Haulage companies may have to lay off truck drivers and farmers could also suffer a blow.
Vivergo makes bioethanol using wheat. That wheat is bought from farms from Yorkshire and Lincolnshire.
Claire Wood
The National Farmers Union has sounded the alarm, saying: “Biofuels are extremely important for the crops sector, and their domestic demand of up to two million tonnes can be very important to balance supply and demand and to produce up to one million tonnes of animal feed as a by-product.”
Another bioproduct is carbon dioxide. The gas can be captured and used to put the fizz in drinks or injected into packaging to preserve food.
If Vivergo and Ensus were to go, Britain would lose as much as 80% of its output of carbon dioxide. Supplies are already tight across Europe, meaning this decision could compound shortages across a range of sectors, from meat-packing to healthcare.
The industry is calling on the government to help. Vivergo says it needs temporary financial support but that the government must create a regulatory and commercial environment in which it can thrive.
It says rules that award double subsidies to companies that use waste product in their bioethanol must be changed. At present, these rules are being used by US companies that make ethanol from Uldr – a by-product of processing corn. They argue this is not a genuine waste product.
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Another option is to grow the market. Industry leaders are calling on ministers to increase the mandated renewable fuel content in petrol from 10% to 15% and for an expansion into aviation fuels. That would allow British companies to carve out a space.
The government has been locked in talks with the company since June.
It said: “We will continue to take proactive steps to address the long-standing challenges it faces and remain committed to a way forward that protects supply chains, jobs and livelihoods.”
However, the time for talking is almost over.
Mr Hackett said he had no idea how the government would respond but he was firm with his stance, saying: “In times of global uncertainty, losing that energy certainty and supply from the UK is a problem.
“I think what they’re missing out on is the future growth agenda. We’re the foundation on which the green industrial strategy can be built. We make bioethanol that today decarbonises transport. Tomorrow it will decarbonise marine. It will decarbonise aviation.”
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