Net migration to the UK falls by 20% – as previous year’s figure revised to almost a million
Net migration to the UK has fallen by 20% from a record 906,000 the year before, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) has said.
The latest net migration figure – the difference between people coming to live in and leaving the UK – stands at an estimated 728,000 in the year to June 2024.
A total of 1.2 million people are estimated to have arrived in the UK in the year ending June 2024, while 414,000 left.
Net migration for the previous year, to June 2023, has been revised upwards by 166,000 to 906,000, making it the new highest year on record instead of 2022.
ONS director Mary Gregory said the fall in the latest year was “driven by declining numbers of dependants on study visas coming from outside the EU”.
She said the first six months of 2024 saw a decrease in the number of people arriving on work visas partly due to the salary threshold rising substantially.
There was a 19% drop in student visas in the year to September 2024 – when the university year begins – compared with the previous year.
There was a 33% decrease in worker visas in that time.
The previous Conservative government changed the rules so since January, most students have not been allowed to bring dependents with them, with exceptions only for those studying at PhD level.
In March, further changes were introduced by the Tories barring care workers and senior care workers from sponsoring dependents on the health and care worker visa.
Rishi Sunak’s Tory administration also raised the minimum salary requirement for the skilled worker visa from £26,200 to £38,700 in April, making it more difficult to obtain.
Asylum spending at record high
Home Office figures also released today show government spending on asylum in the UK reached £5.38bn in the year to April 2024 – up 36% from £3.95bn in the previous year and the highest level of spending on record.
At the end of September 2024, there were 97,170 asylum cases (relating to 133,409 people) awaiting an initial decision, which is 22% fewer than the year before, but 13% higher than at the end of the previous quarter.
The latest net migration figures, from July 2023 to June 2024, cover the Conservatives’ last year in office, with Labour winning the election at the beginning of July.
The data comes a day after new Tory leader Kemi Badenoch admitted her party had failed on migration.
“We got this wrong. I more than understand the public anger on this issue, I share it,” she said on Wednesday.
Asylum spending is at a record high. Pic: PA
Conservatives say drop is due to their policies
Former Conservative home secretary James Cleverly said: “Today’s migration figures are the first to show the impact of the changes that I brought in as home secretary.
“Numbers are still too high, but we see the first significant downward trend in years. Changes that Labour opposed and haven’t fully implemented.”
Suella Braverman, the Tory home secretary before Mr Cleverly, also claimed credit for the drop in net migration, saying it “is a result of the changes I fought for and introduced in May 2023”.
“That’s when we started to turn the tide,” she said.
“But 1.2 million arrivals a year is still too high. This is unsustainable and why we need radical change.”
Labour said the latest migration figures showed the government had started the “hard graft” of tackling the issue, and was “cleaning up the Conservatives’ mess”.
A party spokesman said: “In their own words, the Tories broke the immigration system.
“On their watch, net migration quadrupled in four years to a record high of nearly one million, despite saying they’d lower it to 100,000.
“They are an open borders party who lied time and again to the public. This is the chaos Labour inherited and any crowing from the Tories should be seen in that light.”
Former home secretary James Cleverly said the numbers showed Tory policy was working. Pic: AP
41% drop in study or work visas
Figures for net migration in 2022 were also revised, increasing from 607,000 to 754,000, while 2021 changed from 221,000 to 254,000.
The revisions are due to the ONS continuing to review its net migration figures as more complete data becomes available, as well as improving how it estimates the migration behaviour of people arriving in the UK from outside the EU.
The latest figures show a small increase in emigration, but the fall was mostly attributed to a decrease in immigration.
Those entering the UK as dependents of people on work or study visas dropped by 41% for each.
Main applicants for work visas decreased by 7%, while main applicants for study visas dropped by 9%.
The ONS said the fall in net migration was also driven by a rise in long-term emigration – people leaving the UK – particularly of those who came to the country on study visas.
“This is likely a consequence of the large number of students who came to the UK post-pandemic now reaching the end of their courses,” it said.
Representatives of the Bitcoin Policy Institute (BPI), a nonprofit Bitcoin advocacy organization, warned that US lawmakers have not included a de minimis tax exemption for Bitcoin transactions below a certain threshold.
“De Minimis tax legislation may be limited to only stablecoins, leaving everyday Bitcoin transactions without an exemption,” Conner Brown, BPI’s head of strategy, said on X, adding that the decision to exclude Bitcoin (BTC) is a “severe mistake.”
In July, Wyoming Senator Cynthia Lummis introduced a bill proposing a de minimis tax exemption for crypto transactions of $300 or less, with a $5,000 annual limit on tax-free transactions and sales.
The bill proposal also included tax exemptions for digital assets used for charitable donations and tax deferment for crypto earned through mining proof-of-work (PoW) protocols or staking to secure blockchain networks.
Allowing a tax exemption for small Bitcoin transactions would increase its use as a medium of exchange rather than just as a store of value asset, allowing a new financial system built on a Bitcoin standard, BTC advocates say.
The discussion around de minimis tax exemptions has also raised questions about whether such relief should apply to stablecoins, which are designed to maintain a stable value.
“Why would you even need a De Minimis tax exemption for stablecoins,” Marty Bent, founder of media company Truth for The Commoner (TFTC), wrote on X. “They don’t change in value. This is nonsensical.”
Cointelegraph reached out to BPI about the proposed legislation, but had not received a response at time of publication.
Related: Japan’s new crypto tax could wake ‘sleeping giant’ of retail investors
Bitcoin is gaining value, but it isn’t being used as peer-to-peer electronic cash
The Bitcoin white paper, authored by its pseudonymous creator Satoshi Nakamoto in 2019, describes Bitcoin as a “peer-to-peer electronic cash system.”
However, relatively high transaction fees, average block times of about 10 minutes, and capital gains taxes on Bitcoin stifle BTC’s use as a payment method for goods and services.
Many Bitcoin investors choose to hold BTC for the long term, sometimes borrowing fiat currency against their BTC holdings to pay expenses and fund everyday purchases.
The Bitcoin Lightning Network is a second-layer protocol designed for BTC payments, which works by locking a specific amount of BTC in a payment channel between two or more people.
Users connected through a payment channel can conduct multiple transactions offchain, with only the final net balance recorded on the Bitcoin ledger for settlement once the channel is closed.
This makes Bitcoin transactions faster and cheaper, as the users in the payment channel do not have to wait for new blocks to be mined or pay a network fee for each transaction between parties in the channel.
Magazine: The one thing these 6 global crypto hubs all have in common…
A US court is once again being asked to weigh in on maximal extractable value practices after a judge allowed new evidence to be added to a class-action lawsuit tied to a memecoin platform.
The judge granted a motion to amend and refile to include new evidence a class-action lawsuit against memecoin launch platform Pump.fun, the maximal extractable value (MEV) infrastructure company Jito Labs, the Solana Foundation, which is the nonprofit organization behind the Solana ecosystem, and others.
The motion said over 5,000 pieces of evidence in the form of internal chat logs were submitted by a “confidential informant” in September that were previously unavailable. The filing said:
“Plaintiffs assert that the logs contain contemporaneous discussions among Pump.fun, Solana Labs, Jito Labs, and others concerning the alleged scheme, and that they materially clarify the enterprise’s management, coordination, and communications.”
The lawsuit, originally filed in July, alleges that the Pump.fun platform deliberately misled retail investors by marketing memecoin launches as “fair,” but engaged in a scheme with Solana validators to front-run retail participants through maximal extractable value (MEV).
Maximal extractable value is a technique that involves reordering transactions within a block to maximize profit for MEV arbitrageurs and validators.
The plaintiffs allege that Pump.fun used MEV techniques to give insiders preferential access to new tokens at a low value, which were then pumped and dumped onto retail participants, who were used as exit liquidity by insiders.
Cointelegraph reached out to Burwick Law, the legal firm representing the plaintiffs, as well as Pump.fun, Jito Labs and the Solana Foundation, but did not receive any responses by the time of publication.
The lawsuit could set a precedent for MEV cases in the United States, as the ethics of the practice continue to be debated within the crypto industry and legal bodies struggle to define proper regulations about the highly technical subject.
Related: Pump.fun co-founder denies $436M cash out, claims it was ‘treasury management’
The MEV bot trial leaves questions unanswered
Anton and James Peraire-Bueno, the brothers accused of using a MEV trading bot to make millions of dollars in profit, went to trial in November in the US.
Prosecutors argued that the brothers tricked victims out of their funds, but defense attorneys said that they were executing a legitimate trading strategy and did not do anything illegal.
The jury struggled to reach a verdict in the case, and several jurors requested additional information to clarify the complexities surrounding the technical specifics of blockchain technology.
The case ended in a mistrial after the jury was deadlocked and failed to reach a verdict, highlighting the complexity of adjudicating legal disputes surrounding the application of nascent financial technology.
Magazine: Meet the onchain crypto detectives fighting crime better than the cops
Reports a female MSP had a secret recording device planted in her office by a member of her own staff are “completely and utterly unacceptable”, SNP leader John Swinney has said.
Scottish parliament officials are investigating the alleged bugging incident by a man, which is said to have taken place in 2023 at Holyrood.
The Scotsman newspaper reported the staffer is still involved with the SNP and moved on to work with a male MP after the issue came to light.
Sky News has yet to independently verify the details, but one senior party source with knowledge of events has said it is “100% true”.
The source alleges “the SNP did nothing; indeed he simply got moved and continued to be promoted by very senior members of executive”.
It is suggested the female MSP, who has not been publicly named, is liked, rated and respected by her colleagues.
The Scottish parliament building in Edinburgh. Pic: PA
First Minister Mr Swinney was stopped by reporters in Edinburgh on Thursday where he said he was “not familiar with all of the details… but that type of conduct is completely and utterly unacceptable”.
“Individuals are entitled to operate in an open and transparent environment that shouldn’t be subjected to that kind of behaviour,” he concluded.
Read more from Sky News:
Millions could see council elections delayed again
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MPs and MSPs employ staff directly, rather than the political party.
Sky sources confirmed the victims of the incident had to get counselling in the aftermath before suggesting the SNP “definitely has a woman problem”.
The source claims it is “not a one-off incident”, adding: “Women are habitually treated differently.”
An SNP spokesperson said: “The SNP has no involvement in the employment processes of parliamentarians. That is a confidential matter between elected members, employees, and Scottish parliament authorities.
“The reports outline a very traumatic situation for those involved and nobody should ever have to experience fear or harassment for doing their job.”
Scottish Labour deputy leader Jackie Baillie said: “These jaw-dropping revelations pose serious questions for the SNP top brass.
“It appears a grave breach of privacy and potentially criminal behaviour has been swept under the carpet by the SNP.
“Once again it looks like the SNP chose to close ranks and protect their own, rather than dealing with serious misconduct head-on.”
A spokesperson for the Scottish parliament said: “Each MSP is an employer in their own right and is responsible for managing staff welfare issues and employment disputes.
“Complaints about staff conduct are investigated by an independent adviser, and it is for the member to act on their findings accordingly.
“As a matter of standard practice, we do not comment upon or confirm any individual cases.”
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