Net migration to the UK fell considerably in 2020 by almost 90% due to the impact of Covid-19 and Brexit, new figures have revealed.
The Office for National Statistics released provisional estimates on Thursday indicating that long-term international migration continued to add to the UK population in 2020, but to a much smaller extent than in previous years.
Around 34,000 more people moved to the UK than left in 2020 - this is an 88% decrease compared with the same period a year earlier and the lowest on record since 1993.
Net migration for EU nationals was negative, with 94,000 more EU nationals estimated to have left the UK than to have arrived.
Similarly to the previous two years, the majority of those who emigrated in 2020 were EU nationals. An estimated 146,000 EU nationals left the UK in 2020 while only 20,000 immigrated, compared with 131,000 for the same period in 2019.
The impact of Brexit on migration will be difficult to disentangle from the effects of the coronavirus pandemic.
Coronavirus impacted people's ability to migrate to other countries with governments around the world introduced policies and restrictions in response and air travel to and from the UK dropped by 95% in the early months. As a result, UK immigration and emigration patterns were very different to past trends.
And, while the UK left the EU on January 31 2020, it was in a "transition period" until December 31 2020, so the extent and nature of the impact of Brexit upon people's migration decisions during 2020 is currently unknown.
But figures show immigration was much lower in 2020 than in previous years, an estimated 268,000 people immigrated to the UK during 2020, compared with 592,000 people in 2019.
Emigration also fell but to a lesser extent than for immigration; an estimated 234,000 people left the UK to live abroad in 2020, compared with 300,000 people in 2019.
Jay Lindop, Director of the Centre for International Migration, Office for National Statistics, said: “Although there is no evidence of an exodus from the UK in 2020, global travel restrictions meant the movement of people was limited, with all data sources suggesting migration fell to the lowest level seen for many years.
"These are our best current estimates for international migration over this period, however, they are modelled figures based on experimental research and subject to a high level of uncertainty.
"These figures will be updated further early next year as we bring together new sources of data to give the best picture of international migration.”
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here