Is migration really about to halve?

Could our current record levels of immigration be a flash in the pan, a statistical spike brought about by the confluence of several exceptional factors? After the figure for the twelve months to June 2022 came in at 606,000 net and more than one million gross, that would be a comforting notion for those who believe that mass immigration on this scale is feeding multiple social pathologies, from housing shortages to collapsing cultural cohesion.

So perhaps we should rejoice at the news that two of our leading universities have put their seal upon a report suggesting that 2022’s net migration is not the shape of things to come but the product of several one-off factors which are likely to unwind in the years ahead. In a joint report by the Migration Observatory at Oxford University and the Centre for Economic Performance at the London School of Economics, it is predicted that net migration will settle at around 300,000 annually.