British Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak, is under pressure to adopt more radical measures to slash immigration after the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) said his conservative policies would not reduce migrant flows to pre-pandemic levels before 2027.

The OBR said an extra 150,000 migrants would arrive in the next five years including 410,000 net migration in the run-up to the election next year. In total, immigration would add an estimated 1.5 million people to the population by 2028-29.

The budget watchdogs also refers to the 150 percent increase in work visas, issued in particular to foreign health and social workers.

As net migration to the United Kingdom has hit a new record high, Sunak is expected to present further proposals to reduce the risk next week, which could include curbs on foreign health and care workers. He is also expected to announce an increase in the minimum wage needed to hire foreign workers and could make it harder for companies to fill vacancies from abroad.

Also, according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS), the surge is said to be fuelled by 1.2 million migrants granted visas primarily from outside the European Union (EU).

According to the ONS, the revised figures reveal that in the year to December 22, migration is estimated to have hit a record 745,000. Previous estimate for the year to December 2022 had been 606,000, but the ONS has since revised this upwards in light of “unexpected patterns” in the behaviour of migrants.

The new figures also reveal that net migration to the UK stood at a provisional 672,000 in the year to June 2023, up from 607,000 in the previous 12 months. The June 2023 figure is nearly three times the pre-Brexit average of 200,000 to 250,000 a year and blows apart the Government’s 2019 manifesto pledge to bring down the overall rate of net migration from its then level of 226,000.

The surge has been fuelled by 1.2 million migrants granted visas primarily from outside the EU to enter the UK to study, work or escape conflict or oppression. The ONS estimated that 508,000 people emigrated.

The figures will intensify pressure on Rishi Sunak to introduce radical new measures to reduce the number of workers and their dependents being granted visas to live and work in the UK.

In a curious move, however, the government is considering banning health and care workers from bringing in dependents or restricting them to one per visa, increasing the minimum salary threshold that foreign workers must earn to qualify for a work visa from £26,200 to more than £30,000 and scrapping pay discounts for foreign staff in shortage occupations.

The figures come just a day after the budget watchdog warned the Prime Minister that his policies would not reduce net migration to its pre-pandemic levels before 2027.

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