The number of professions eligible for qualified visas has been significantly expanded to include jobs such as cook, bricklayer, electrician, welder, health and medical worker, while the government has removed the ceilings for most visa routes.
The largest recipients of work visas are Indians (87,000), Ukraine (21,000), the Philippines (16,000), Nigeria (15,000) and the United States (11,000). EU citizens, who are now required to have visas to come and stay in the UK, make up just six percent of applications. France topped the table with 5,000.
There is a sharp decline in EU citizens who want to live in the UK, with the National Statistics Office (ONS) saying that net migration to the UK from the EU is negative, with 12,000 more people leaving than arriving.
Significant jump in visas outside the EU
Most notable was the jump in “other” visas, including for Hong Kong and relatives of EU citizens living in the UK, which almost tripled from 71,829 to 196,772, a jump of 173 percent.
This includes 28,000 visas for Ukrainians fleeing the Russian invasion, 87,000 British National Overseas (BNO) visas to Hong Kong and 52,000 family permits to establish the EU.
Robert McNeill, deputy director of the Oxford University Migration Observatory, said the essence of the increase was the government’s decision to abandon the commitment of the Theresa May and David Cameron administrations to set targets for net migration.
“There is no longer a focus on reducing the total number of migrants coming to the UK. This is a given in the framework of policy design, “he said.
“What we see as a result is that in order to send a message of control to the government, it is largely focusing on policies to stop the arrival of boats or the repression of asylum.
However, even on this front, the number of asylum applications increased by 44.9% to 65,008 out of 44,484.
The share of asylum seekers who received a positive decision on their application reached 75 percent in the year ending March 2022, the highest of 82 percent in 1990.
The number of people awaiting a decision on their application for asylum in the United Kingdom has also increased by more than 300 percent in four years.
A total of 109,735 asylum seekers were awaiting a decision at the end of March 2022, more than double more than two years earlier and more than 27,256 – 303% increase – in March 2018.
The growing number of asylum applications follows a record number of migrants crossing the English Channel in small boats, with 9,327 arriving this year, almost three times the number of migrants arriving at that time last year.
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