UK Migration — A Reference for Journalists

For journalists and commentators. The combined pack: front matter, the data foundation, the comparative party analysis, and the framing articles most relevant to political coverage of migration policy. Approximately 22,000 words.

How to use this pack

This pack assembles the elements of the master document most useful for journalists, commentators, and opinion writers covering UK migration policy. It includes:

1. Front matter — executive summary, reading guide, glossary, framing transparency notes 2. Part III: Comparative Tables and Synthesis — options matrix, public opinion, international benchmarks, second-generation outcomes 3. Part V: Master Comparative Overview — how parties' positions compare on each policy axis 4. Section 19: Boriswave — the 2022-2024 ILR cohort (settlement-policy-critical) 5. Section 20: Housing — what the data does and doesn't show on social housing allocation 6. Section 21: Crime, Trust, and the Migration Debate — the most contested ground

For party-specific positions, the master document and the 9 standalone party briefings are companions to this pack.

For ideological framings (cohesion, protection, demographic, AI, capacity, emigration, sovereignty), the 7 framing articles are companions.

For all numerical claims, source keys point to the data workbook.

Executive Summary

This document is a comprehensive reference on UK migration and benefits policy as it stands in May 2026. It does not advocate a single policy direction. It lays out the evidence, the available policy options, what each major political party would do, and four parallel framings (cohesion, refugee protection, demographic, AI labour market) that select and weight the same evidence differently.

1. Net migration has fallen sharply — but the headline figure obscures three different flows. Year ending June 2025 net migration: ~204,000, down from 649,000 a year earlier (ONS provisional, November 2025). Composition: non-EU+ nationals +383,000 net, EU+ nationals −70,000 net, British nationals −109,000 net. The headline figure of 204,000 is what is left after non-EU arrivals are offset by 179,000 net departures of EU citizens and British nationals. 76% of British emigrants were aged under 35 (ONS, year ending March 2025). Most of the fall in net migration reflects measures introduced under the previous government, and the fall is real, but two-thirds of the apparent fall is also a function of British and EU emigration running at high levels — particularly young British emigration.

Where they are going is partly known, partly not. The new RAPID methodology counts British emigrants but does not yet publish destinations. Stock data (UN estimates of the 4.8 million British citizens overseas in 2024) shows just over half are in Australia (~23%), the United States, Canada, New Zealand, or Spain. Older flow data (LTIM) and recent survey/relocation-firm data suggest the dominant pattern is young Brits to Anglophone destinations for career, with rising flows to the UAE (particularly Dubai) for tax-and-career reasons among professionals and HNWIs, plus growing interest in Portugal, Thailand, and the wider Gulf.

Why they are going splits into two different stories with different evidence quality. Thread one — young Britons, the 76% under 35 — is the larger story and has reasonable evidence. Survey work (TEFL Academy, March 2026; Migration Observatory qualitative research) finds 86% of UK 18-34s saying UK wages do not reflect the cost of living, 79% reporting constant financial pressure, and primary cited motivations being career opportunity, higher wages, work-life balance, climate, and the new feasibility of cross-border remote work (a Brit can work for a London startup from Lisbon at one-third the housing cost). Thread two — HNWI/non-dom departures — is genuinely happening but the published numbers are heavily contested. The Henley & Partners "16,500 UK millionaires leaving in 2025" figure has been forensically critiqued by tax-policy.org.uk and the Tax Justice Network as marketing material rather than statistical analysis; even taking it at face value, 16,500 is 0.63% of UK millionaires, 81% of UK millionaires polled (Patriotic Millionaires UK, June 2025) say it is patriotic to pay a fair share, and 80% support a wealth tax over £10m. The cited motivations for the HNWI thread (non-dom abolition, IHT and CGT changes, ILR uncertainty) are real, but the scale is widely overstated in the press. Thread three, missing from the Henley reports and not separately broken out in ONS data, is upper-middle-class professionals (£150k–£500k earners) — a group large enough to matter for the tax base but for which destination/motivation data is essentially absent.

The Migration Observatory states explicitly: "Relatively little is known about which British citizens leave the UK, or the reasons why." The new ONS RAPID methodology (DWP tax/benefit-records-based) is classed as "official statistics in development" and figures are subject to revision.

2. Lifetime fiscal contribution varies sharply by route. MAC modelling (December 2025): Skilled Worker main applicants +£689,000 lifetime per person; Family partner route -£109,000; Health & Care Worker dependants -£67,000. These are modelled not measured figures.

3. Asylum accommodation procurement is the largest documented cost overrun. Original 10-year estimate £4.5bn; current expected total £15.3bn (3.4× original). Hotels £170/person/day vs dispersal £27/day. Three suppliers (Clearsprings, Mears, Serco) reported total profit of £383m across the AASC contracts September 2019 – August 2024 at 7% average margin (NAO May 2025; supplier-reported and unaudited).

4. Voluntary returns are 11× cheaper than enforced. £4,300/person voluntary vs £48,800/person enforced. Year ending December 2025 (Home Office, separate counts): 9,914 enforced returns; 28,004 voluntary returns (of which 10,260 assisted within the voluntary category); 18,279 port returns; 5,634 FNO returns. The categories are not summed in headline reporting because of overlap (FNO returns may also be counted as enforced or voluntary depending on mechanism).

5. Universal Credit caseload by immigration status. 8.4 million people were on Universal Credit in January 2026. DWP records 84.5% in the "CTA — UK, Ireland, Right of Abode" group, of whom 99.9% were UK citizens; 9.0% under the EU Settlement Scheme; 2.6% under ILR; 1.6% as refugees; 0.9% under limited leave; 0.6% humanitarian; 0.4% other; and 0.3% with no status recorded. This is an immigration-status table, not a nationality or visa-route table.

6. AI is currently displacing high-paid white-collar work faster than low-paid migrant-dependent sectors. King's College London October 2025 study: firms with high AI exposure cut total employment 4.5%, junior positions 5.8% (2021-2025). UK digital sector employment fell for first time in a decade in 2024. Hospitality (low AI exposure) accounted for 53% of UK job losses October 2024 – August 2025 — those losses not AI-driven.

7. Most asylum claims from current high-volume small-boat-arrival nationalities are well-founded. Sudan grant rate 96%, Eritrea 88%, Iran high. Top 5 small-boat nationalities (Eritrean 19%, Afghan 12%, Iranian 11%, Sudanese 11%, Somali 9%) include four with grant rates above 70%.

Three illustrative policy packages (Part II sets out the full options menu):

• Package A — Restoration: Asylum procurement reform, Earned Settlement implementation, Migration Fiscal Ledger publication, voluntary returns scaling, integration investment. Budget-neutral or modestly net-positive over a Parliament. Cross-partisan deliverable.
• Package B — Restriction: Numerical caps, retrospective ILR restriction, ECHR withdrawal, Removals Force expansion, NRPF expansion. High legal exposure; large up-front cost; uncertain net-fiscal outcome.
• Package C — Investment: Safe legal routes, faster asylum processing, right-to-work for asylum seekers, integration investment at Danish-model scale, regional differentiation. Higher short-term fiscal cost; better long-term integration and contribution outcomes.

• Fiscal frame (Parts I-IV): privileges contribution data; supports route-differentiated policy; favours procurement reform and Earned Settlement.
• Cohesion frame (Part V.1): privileges pace control and integration investment; supports residential dispersal and English-language requirements with support; rejects cultural-essentialist framing.
• Protection frame (Part V.2): privileges international obligations and grant-rate evidence; supports safe legal routes, faster processing, right-to-work; rejects deterrence framing.
• Demographic frame (Part V.3): privileges population structure and OBR sustainability modelling; supports continued migration at scale; rejects net-negative targets without compensating fertility policy.
• AI frame (Part V.4): privileges labour-market displacement evidence; supports adaptive sectoral planning; complicates restrictionist assumptions about automation replacing migrant labour.

The strongest cross-partisan opportunities (where every major party agrees):

• Asylum hotel exit and procurement reform
• Voluntary returns expansion at the cost differential
• Foreign National Offender removal expansion
• Smuggling-network disruption
• Migration Fiscal Ledger publication

The genuine fault lines (where parties sharply differ):

• ECHR retention vs withdrawal
• Retrospective ILR restriction
• Numerical caps on legal migration
• Asylum claim rights for new illegal entrants
• Family route conditions
• NRPF policy
• Mass deportation operations
• Integration investment scale
• Safe legal routes scale

The data in Part I is largely measured and officially published. The MAC and OBR lifetime fiscal modelling is modelled, not measured. The order-of-magnitude estimates in Part II combine cohort projections, take-up rates, and population averages; each input has wide uncertainty. The AI labour-market evidence is the most rapidly evolving body of evidence in this document and some figures will be out of date within twelve months.

The party briefings (Part III) and framing articles (Part V) are deliberately directional — written from inside specific worldviews to make the strongest version of each case. They are not neutral analyses. Parts I-IV are evidence-led but fiscally framed; they privilege fiscal-balance analysis because that is where published data is densest.

Reading Guide

Executive Summary → Part II (Options Menu) → Part V (Master Comparative) → Part IV briefing for your party → Part VI framing most relevant to your portfolio. Approximately 25,000 words.

Full Part I (Data Foundation) → Workbook for verification → Part VI (all seven framing articles) → Part II options as reference. Approximately 30,000 words plus workbook.

Executive Summary → Part V (Master Comparative) → Part IV briefings for the parties you cover → Part VI framings to understand alternative perspectives. Approximately 18,000 words.

Executive Summary → Part VI framing articles (cohesion, protection, demographic, AI, capacity, emigration, sovereignty) → selected Part IV briefings. Approximately 15,000 words.

Your party's Part IV briefing first, then comparative briefings of parties you compete with, then Part V comparative, then Part VI framing articles relevant to your party's positioning. Approximately 12,000 words plus comparative material.

Approximately 80,000 words. Allow 6-8 hours.

Glossary of Acronyms and Terms

AASC — Asylum Accommodation and Support Contracts. Three regional contracts held by Clearsprings Ready Homes, Mears Group, and Serco from 2019, replacing the previous COMPASS contracts.

AIRE — Advice, Issue Reporting and Eligibility. National contract for asylum-seeker support helpline, held by Migrant Help.

ASSV — Acute Skills Shortage Visa. Reform UK proposed visa with mandatory domestic-worker training requirement.

B1, B2 — Common European Framework of Reference for Languages levels. B1 is intermediate (currently the Skilled Worker requirement); B2 is upper intermediate (the requirement from January 2026 for new applicants and from 2027 for ILR).

BNO — British Nationals (Overseas). Hong Kong-related citizenship status; the BNO Visa scheme operates separately from other visa routes.

Boriswave — Informal political term for the 2022-2024 net migration peak (906,000 in 2023) that occurred under previous Conservative governments.

BSAS — British Social Attitudes Survey. National survey conducted annually by NatCen Social Research.

CBI — Confederation of British Industry. Major employer body engaged in migration policy.

CTA — Common Travel Area. UK-Ireland free movement framework predating EU membership; remains in force after Brexit under the Ireland Act 1949.

DWP — Department for Work and Pensions. Administers Universal Credit and other benefits; produces immigration-status disaggregated UC statistics from Habitual Residence Test records.

ECAT — European Convention on Action Against Trafficking. Council of Europe trafficking convention; UK accession independent of ECHR membership.

ECHR — European Convention on Human Rights. Council of Europe treaty incorporated into UK law via the Human Rights Act 1998.

EUSS — EU Settlement Scheme. Post-Brexit residency scheme for EU/EEA citizens resident in the UK before 31 December 2020.

FNO — Foreign National Offender. Used in Home Office data on returns of foreign nationals convicted of criminal offences in the UK.

HMRC — His Majesty's Revenue and Customs. UK tax authority; PAYE Real-Time Information data underpins linked migration-fiscal analysis.

HRT — Habitual Residence Test. Test administered to determine eligibility for benefits including Universal Credit; used by DWP as basis for status disaggregation.

IHS — Immigration Health Surcharge. Annual fee paid by visa holders, currently £1,035 for most adults, ringfenced for NHS funding.

ILR — Indefinite Leave to Remain. UK permanent residency status; previously available after 5 years on most routes, being extended to 10 years for new applicants under "Earned Settlement."

IPPR — Institute for Public Policy Research. Centre-left think tank engaged in migration policy.

ISC — Immigration Skills Charge. Levy on employers sponsoring overseas workers; ringfenced for domestic skills funding.

JCWI — Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants. UK migration rights organisation.

KCL — King's College London. University; Bouke Klein Teeselink's October 2025 study of AI labour-market effects is a key reference.

LFS — Labour Force Survey. ONS quarterly survey; primary source for employment data.

LMEG — Labour Market Evidence Group. Body established by May 2025 Immigration White Paper to coordinate migration policy with skills and industrial strategy.

MAC — Migration Advisory Committee. Independent advisory body on migration policy; December 2025 Fiscal Impact of Immigration report is a key reference.

MEL — Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning. Framework for tracking policy outcomes.

NAO — National Audit Office. Independent public spending watchdog; May 2025 briefing on asylum accommodation contracts is a key reference.

NRPF — No Recourse to Public Funds. Visa condition preventing access to most welfare benefits and homelessness support; applies to most non-settled visa holders.

OBR — Office for Budget Responsibility. Independent fiscal watchdog; produces long-term fiscal sustainability modelling including migration projections.

ONS — Office for National Statistics. UK national statistical institute; produces migration estimates, population projections, and labour market data.

RQF — Regulated Qualifications Framework. UK qualifications level system; RQF Level 6 is graduate level. May 2025 White Paper raised Skilled Worker threshold to RQF 6.

SOC — Standard Occupational Classification. ONS occupation coding; used for visa-route eligibility determinations.

TSL — Temporary Shortage List. New mechanism replacing the Immigration Salary List; allows occupational flexibility below RQF 6 with workforce strategy requirements.

TUC — Trades Union Congress. Federation of UK trade unions; engaged in migration policy through worker-rights and wage-impact framing.

UC — Universal Credit. UK working-age welfare benefit; principal vehicle for benefit payments to working-age population.

UNHCR — UN High Commissioner for Refugees. Coordinates international refugee response and resettlement.

Earned Settlement — Labour-government framework for ILR qualifying period extension and contribution-based settlement criteria. Consultation completed 2025; finalised policy due autumn 2026.

Refugee Convention (1951) — UN Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees. Defines who is a refugee and what protections they are entitled to. UK is a signatory; obligations exist independently of ECHR.

Earned vs Provisional Settlement — Conceptual distinction between ILR with conditional rights vs full ILR. Used in some policy proposals (Earned Settlement is current Labour policy; Provisional Settlement is a hypothetical intermediate layer).

Notes on Framing and Evidence Confidence

This document is evidence-led but fiscally framed in Parts I-IV.

Parts I-IV privilege fiscal-balance analysis because that is where published data is densest. This is a legitimate analytical frame but should not be confused with neutrality. The fiscal framing produces specific weightings — it foregrounds contribution and welfare cost, while backgrounding cohesion outcomes, protection obligations, demographic dynamics, and labour-market change.

Part VI provides seven parallel framing articles that select and weight the same evidence differently. Reading the master alongside Part VI gives a more balanced view than reading Parts I-V alone.

The party briefings in Part IV are deliberately directional.

Each briefing is written from inside one party's worldview to make the strongest version of that party's case. They are not neutral comparative analyses. The structural framing (factual base, options space, deliverability concerns) is broadly consistent across briefings, but the evaluative framing is party-specific.

Reader notes flagging this appear at the start of Part IV and Part VI.

Source confidence labels.

For policy options and modelled estimates in Part II, the following confidence labels apply:

• [Source] — directly from official or peer-reviewed publication
• [Workbook calculation] — derived from source figures via published methodology
• [Policy estimate] — plausible but model-dependent; assumes specific behavioural responses
• [Speculative] — illustrative only; substantial uncertainty

Most options in the menu involve at least one estimate at the policy-estimate or speculative level. The asylum-procurement evidence base is the most robust; the lifetime fiscal projections by route are modelled; the post-ILR continuation projections are speculative.

Data gaps that affect analysis.

The principal data gaps are:

1. Post-ILR fiscal continuation. No publication tracks lifetime contribution after settlement. MAC modelling extrapolates from pre-ILR earnings trajectories; this is the single largest uncertainty in lifetime fiscal modelling.

2. DWP UC by visa route. Currently aggregated to nationality and status; visa route disaggregation is "under investigation." The Migration Fiscal Ledger proposal addresses this gap.

3. Religion in administrative data. Not collected in welfare or tax data. Cohesion analyses rely on Census 2021 religion data combined with administrative migration data; precise religion-by-route analysis is not possible.

4. Cohesion outcome measurement. No equivalent to MAC fiscal modelling for cohesion outcomes. 2016 Casey Review remains the most comprehensive UK cohesion analysis but is now nine years old.

5. AI labour-market projection. Robotics maturity in low-paid sectors is contested; estimates range from substantial automation by 2030 to persistence into the 2040s. Policy-relevant uncertainty is substantial.

These gaps are flagged in the relevant analytical sections.

This part provides comparative tools that synthesise across the evidence in Parts I and II: an options comparison matrix scoring all fourteen options on consistent dimensions; a public opinion synthesis showing where voters sit; international comparative benchmarks placing UK policy in peer-state context; and a second-generation outcomes analysis that captures the intergenerational dimension the lifetime-individual fiscal modelling under-engages with.

Stage 3: Comparative Tables and Synthesis Sections

Options Comparison Matrix

This matrix scores each of the fourteen options in Part II across consistent dimensions. Scores are qualitative ratings reflecting current evidence; readers should consult the full Part II descriptions for context.

• Net fiscal direction: ↑↑ strongly positive, ↑ positive, ~ neutral/ambiguous, ↓ negative, ↓↓ strongly negative
• Legal exposure: L low, M moderate, H high, VH very high
• Political coalition: numbered list of parties potentially supporting (L=Labour, C=Conservative, LD=LibDem, G=Green, R=Reform, RB=Restore, S=SNP, P=Plaid, D=DUP)
• Cohesion impact: + positive, ~ neutral, − negative
• Deliverability timeline: years to substantial implementation
• Evidence quality: A robust source, B partial source, C policy estimate, D speculative

#	Option	Net Fiscal	Legal	Coalition	Cohesion	Timeline	Evidence
1	Migration Fiscal Ledger publication	↑	L	All	+	1-2 yrs	A
2	Asylum procurement reform	↑↑	L	All	+	1-3 yrs	A
3	Voluntary returns scaling (×3)	↑	L	All	~	2-3 yrs	A
4	Earned Settlement implementation (5→10y)	↑	M	L,C,R,RB,D	~	3-5 yrs	B
5	30-month refugee review reversal	~	L	LD,G,S,P	+	1 yr	B
6	Safe legal routes expansion (5 country)	↓ short / ↑ long	L	LD,G,S,P	~	2-4 yrs	B
7	Right-to-work for asylum seekers	↑	L	LD,G,S,P,(some L)	+	1 yr	B
8	Danish-model integration investment	↓ short / ↑ long	L	LD,G,S,P,(some L)	++	5-10 yrs	B
9	NRPF reform / dismantling	↓ short / ↑ long	M	G,LD	+	2-3 yrs	B
10	Family route restoration	↓	L	LD,G,S,P	~	1 yr	B
11	Returns capacity expansion (enforced)	↓	M	C,R,RB	−	3-5 yrs	C
12	Numerical migration caps	~	L-M	C,R,RB	~	1-2 yrs	C
13	Retrospective ILR restriction	↓↓ short / ~ long	VH	R,RB	−−	5-10 yrs (legal)	D
14	ECHR withdrawal	~ direct / ↓↓ cascade	VH	C,R,RB	−	5-10 yrs	D

The five highest-deliverability, lowest-legal-exposure options are 1, 2, 3, 5, 7. All have A or B evidence quality. Three (1, 2, 3) have all-party potential coalition. These are the cross-partisan deliverable items.

The four highest-legal-exposure options (11, 13, 14, plus parts of 12) are concentrated in the Conservative-Reform-Restore coalition. Their deliverability is constrained by legal architecture and cascade costs that have not been fully modelled in current proposals.

The highest-cohesion-positive options (8, 9, partially 5 and 7) are concentrated in the Lib Dem-Green-SNP-Plaid coalition. Their fiscal positions are short-term negative but long-term positive, requiring political tolerance for delayed return on investment.

• Package A — Restoration: Options 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, partial 8. Cross-partisan deliverable. Net fiscal positive over Parliament. Low legal exposure.
• Package B — Restriction: Options 11, 12, 13, 14, partial 4. Conservative-Reform-Restore coalition. High legal exposure. Net fiscal uncertain due to unmodelled cascade costs.
• Package C — Investment: Options 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 1. Lib Dem-Green coalition. Short-term net negative; long-term positive. Low legal exposure.

Public Opinion and Voter Synthesis

Migration polling has been more volatile in 2024-2026 than in any period since the 2016 referendum. The picture below combines British Social Attitudes Survey, YouGov tracker, Ipsos Issues Index, and Migration Observatory polling synthesis. Specific numerical figures below are illustrative of pattern; readers should consult original sources for current figures.

Migration has been the top-ranked political issue in Ipsos Issues Index across most months from 2023 to 2026. Concern about scale is high. But specific policy preferences are more nuanced than the headline concern suggests:

• Strong majority support for high-skilled migration (Skilled Worker route is broadly popular)
• Strong majority support for international students (most polls show 70%+ acceptance)
• Strong majority opposition to mass deportation operations targeting settled residents
• Strong majority support for ECHR retention when implications are explained
• Majority support for accepting refugees from specific recognised crisis populations (Ukraine support remains majority; Afghanistan, Iran more divided)
• Strong opposition to family route minimum income requirements at current levels (most polls suggest restoration support)
• High support for English language requirements
• High support for FNO removal expansion

The pattern is "control over scale and route, decency in execution." This is closer to the integrationist-evidence-led centre than to either Reform-style maximum restriction or Green-style maximum acceptance.

Demographic and regional variation.

Age: Voters under 35 are systematically more pro-migration than voters over 65, by roughly 15-25 percentage points on most questions. The gap has widened since 2020.

Education: University graduates are more pro-migration than non-graduates, by roughly 20 percentage points on most questions.

Region: London is most pro-migration; North East and parts of Midlands are most restrictionist. Scotland is more pro-migration than England average; Wales similar to England average.

2024 vote: Reform voters are most restrictionist; Conservative voters more restrictionist than 2010-2019 Conservative voter pattern; Labour voters more divided than 2010-2019; Lib Dem and Green voters most pro-migration.

2016 vote (where available): Leave voters more restrictionist than Remain voters by ~25 percentage points on most questions, but this gap has narrowed since 2022 as economic frames have come into the migration debate.

The integration-restriction contradiction.

A consistent polling finding worth flagging: voters simultaneously support most integration measures (English language, contribution-based settlement, civic participation, public service entitlement based on contribution) AND most restrictionist headline measures (lower numbers, tighter routes, more deportations). These positions are in tension when costed:

• Integration investment at meaningful scale costs money (Danish-model equivalent ~£25-30bn/year)
• Restriction at meaningful scale produces sectoral workforce gaps (NHS, social care, agriculture)
• The combination of both at scale produces fiscal and operational strain that polling does not test for

The political opportunity, if any party can occupy it, is "managed integration with selective control" — substantial migration but with route differentiation, integration investment paired with English-language requirements, FNO removal alongside refugee protection. This position approximately matches median voter preferences but does not match any current party's headline positioning.

Where parties diverge from their voters.

• Labour voters are more pro-migration than current Labour government policy (the 30-month refugee review cycle, in particular, is unpopular with Labour-leaning voters once explained).
• Conservative voters under 50 are more pro-migration than current Conservative party positioning, but Conservative voters over 65 are more restrictionist than current positioning.
• Reform voters are roughly aligned with party positioning on restriction but more divided on ECHR withdrawal than the party platform suggests.
• Lib Dem voters are aligned with party positioning.
• Green voters are slightly less pro-migration than party positioning on numbers, but aligned on rights and integration.
• SNP voters are aligned with the party's pro-managed-migration position, with regional variation.

Migration polling is sensitive to question wording. Asking "is immigration too high" produces different responses from asking "should we admit nurses from overseas." Composite measures and tracker series with consistent wording are more reliable than individual question results.

Migration polling responses are also sensitive to recent news events. Channel deaths, asylum hotel protests, terrorism incidents, and Reform political surges all move the dial in measurable ways. Stable underlying preferences exist but headline numbers fluctuate.

The 2026 Reform local election surge has reset the polling baseline. Pre-2024 polling is now of limited current value; 2025-2026 polling is the relevant baseline.

International Comparative Benchmarks

UK migration policy is not designed in isolation. Peer comparators provide reference points for what is achievable, what produces particular outcomes, and what is genuinely difficult.

Country	Initial grant rate	Final grant rate (incl appeal)	Top source nationality grant rate
UK	42%	~67%	Sudan 96%, Eritrea 88%
Germany	53%	~71%	Syria 94%, Afghanistan 73%
France	33%	~52%	Afghanistan 79%, Syria 92%
Netherlands	42%	~58%	Syria 93%, Eritrea 87%
Canada	67%	~80%	Syria 96%, Iran 80%
Australia	32% (offshore) / 42% (onshore)	varies	varies by stream

UK grant rates are broadly mid-pack. UK final grant rates including appeal are higher than France but lower than Germany or Canada. The pattern of high grants for specific nationalities (Sudan, Eritrea, Syria) is consistent across peer states.

Country	Statutory time limit	Average length	Annual intake
UK	None	~30 days	~23,000
Germany	18 months max	~2 weeks	varies
France	90 days max (45-day base limit + 45-day extensions in specific circumstances)	~12 days	varies
Netherlands	18 months max (6 for families)	varies	varies
Canada	None (judicial review every 30 days)	varies	smaller
Australia	None	200+ days for offshore	smaller

The UK's lack of statutory time limits is an outlier within Western Europe. Combined with the 51% bail-release rate at detention exit, this represents a pattern where detention is used more frequently and for less specific removal purpose than in peer states.

Country	Returns per year	Voluntary share	Cost per return
UK	~38,000	~31%	£4,300 vol / £48,800 enf
Germany	~15,000	~50%	varies
Sweden	~7,000	~45%	varies
Canada	~9,000	~60%	varies

UK returns volumes are higher than peer states in absolute terms, partly reflecting larger total population subject to returns. Voluntary share is lower than several peer states; this represents an opportunity for fiscal optimisation.

Country	Employment rate	Notes
UK	~56%	Right-to-work delayed; status uncertainty
Sweden	~65%	Substantial integration investment
Denmark	~55% (rising under reform package)	Integration funding paired with restriction
Germany	~52%	Volume effects from 2015-2017 cohort
Canada	~75%	Selection effects via private sponsorship; integration investment

UK refugee employment is broadly mid-pack. Canada's higher rate reflects both selection effects (private sponsorship requires sponsor commitment to integration support) and substantial integration investment. Denmark's improving rate reflects the reform package combining restriction with integration investment.

Country	Methodology	Key finding
UK (MAC 2025)	HMRC PAYE + FRS, lifetime PV by route	Sharp variation by route; Skilled Worker +£689k, Family -£109k
Netherlands (CPB 2024)	Tax + benefit administrative data	Western migrants positive; non-Western variable
Germany (IAB 2024)	Linked employer-employee data	Skilled migration strongly positive
Denmark (Rockwool 2023)	Comprehensive registers	Variation by region of origin and entry route
Canada (StatCan 2024)	Linked tax + immigration data	Strong overall positive contribution

UK fiscal modelling now (post-MAC December 2025) is among the most sophisticated internationally. The administrative data linkage is comparable to Netherlands and Denmark; the route-level granularity is among the most detailed in any peer country.

Country	TFR (2024)	Old-age dependency 2025	Old-age dependency 2050
UK	1.44	33	47
Germany	1.36	36	53
France	1.65	36	49
Netherlands	1.42	33	49
Italy	1.20	38	65
Japan	1.20	50	78
US	1.62	28	38

The UK demographic profile is broadly mid-Western-European. The OBR fiscal sustainability case for migration is the same case faced by most peer states. Italy's profile is sharply more challenging than UK; Japan is the extreme case. The US is structurally different.

The UK is not exceptional in facing migration policy challenges. The MAC fiscal evidence is comparable to peer state findings. The detention practice is more permissive than peers. The integration outcomes are mid-pack. The demographic case is shared. The asylum grant rates are mid-pack with similar nationality patterns.

What is somewhat distinctive about the UK position is the political volatility (Reform's surge has no exact peer-state parallel; the 2024 Brexit-aftermath political fragmentation is unusual) and the procurement architecture for asylum accommodation (the AASC contract structure with private suppliers at scale is more privatised than most peer states). These are the genuinely UK-specific features.

Second-Generation Outcomes

The lifetime fiscal modelling in MAC December 2025 covers individual migrants. It does not fully capture the contribution of children of migrants who become British citizens. This is the single largest gap in current modelling and matters substantially for long-term fiscal projections and demographic analysis.

Educational attainment. Children of migrants in UK schools systematically outperform UK-born children of UK-born parents. ONS analysis of 2024 GCSE results: children of foreign-born parents achieved 5+ GCSEs at 9-4 grade at 73%, against 65% UK-born / UK-born average. The gap exists across most ethnic groups but varies in magnitude. Indian-heritage children show the largest positive gap; Caribbean-heritage children show smaller but positive gap. The pattern is consistent across cohorts.

Higher education. Children of foreign-born parents enter university at higher rates than UK-born / UK-born children: 49% vs 34% in the 2023-24 entry cohort. The pattern holds across most ethnic groups except Gypsy/Roma/Traveller heritage and some specific sub-populations.

Labour market entry. Children of migrants enter higher-skilled occupations at higher rates than the population average. The 2023 ONS Children of immigrants in the UK labour market analysis found employment rates broadly comparable to UK-born / UK-born average but with higher representation in graduate-level occupations.

Fiscal contribution. Modelling by Migration Observatory and IFS suggests second-generation lifetime fiscal contribution is comparable to or slightly higher than UK-born average — meaning children of migrants who become British citizens make at least the +£250,000 lifetime contribution that the OBR average UK-born worker generates. This is a substantial offset to first-generation costs in routes like Family partner (-£109,000) when intergenerational effects are counted.

Intermarriage and integration. The British Election Study and Migration Observatory data both show second-generation intermarriage rates substantially higher than first-generation. Patterns vary by ethnicity and religion: roughly 35-50% of second-generation Indian-heritage individuals intermarry; rates are lower for some other groups but rising across cohorts.

Residential mobility. Second-generation residential dispersal is greater than first-generation. The Cantle Foundation work and ONS internal migration data show measurable suburbanisation and geographic spread of second-generation populations from the original migrant arrival concentrations.

The Family route -£109,000 lifetime fiscal figure is the most-cited evidence for restricting that route. But the children of family-route migrants enter the UK-born population and contribute fiscally. If a Family route migrant has two children, and each child has the UK-born average lifetime contribution of +£250,000, the total household contribution becomes:

• Migrant: -£109,000
• Children: +£500,000 (2 × £250,000)
• Total: +£391,000

This intergenerational accounting changes the route-restriction case substantially. The MAC modelling acknowledges intergenerational effects but uses conservative assumptions; the OBR work is more explicit about long-term demographic effects of migration on subsequent generations.

Second-generation outcomes are the central evidence on whether the cohesion question is being answered well or badly. Educational attainment up; intermarriage up; residential dispersal up; labour-market integration up. These are positive cohesion indicators across most ethnic groups.

The cohesion concerns about migration that are evidence-supported relate to:

• Pace of change in specific receiving communities (where rapid demographic change has produced strain)
• Specific sub-populations with weaker integration (some family-route female arrivals with limited English; some specific cohorts)
• Discrimination experienced by visible-minority second-generation Britons (which is a host-society failure, not a migration failure)

The narrative that migration produces failed integration is not supported by the second-generation evidence. The narrative that integration works in measurable ways is supported by the second-generation evidence.

If second-generation contribution is comparable to UK-born average, migration provides demographic and fiscal contribution beyond just first-generation arrivals. The OBR sustainability modelling implicitly captures this; the explicit case for migration as a long-term demographic intervention is stronger when intergenerational effects are foregrounded.

Refugee second-generation outcomes are particularly important because first-generation refugee employment is depressed by status uncertainty, mental health prevalence, and policy environment. Refugee children, however, integrate into the UK education system at standard rates and produce comparable lifetime contribution patterns to other second-generation populations. The "burden" framing of refugee policy ignores that the children of recognised refugees become contributing British citizens at the same rate as the children of any other migrant cohort.

No major UK party currently makes the second-generation case explicit in its migration messaging. This is a missed opportunity for the integrationist position: the strongest evidence for migration's long-term value lies in second-generation outcomes, but the political framing tends to focus on first-generation immediate costs.

The Labour, Lib Dem, Green, SNP, and Plaid positions all benefit from foregrounding second-generation evidence. The Conservative-Reform-Restore positions are weakened by it; the lifetime fiscal arguments they deploy lose force when intergenerational accounting is included.

The 2025 census preparation work has identified second-generation outcomes as a research priority. ONS, Migration Observatory, and IFS have all flagged the gap. A formally commissioned cross-departmental study of second-generation lifetime fiscal contribution, comparable to the MAC December 2025 first-generation work, would close one of the largest evidence gaps in UK migration policy and is one of the most-needed evidence interventions in the field.

Part V — Master Comparative Overview

This part maps the political landscape on migration policy as it stands in May 2026. It documents where parties agree (more than commonly recognised), where they sharply differ (the ten genuine fault lines), the gravitational pulls reshaping the debate, and three scenarios for the next two years.

It explains which parties were given separate briefings in Part IV and why some were not. It includes the full party-by-party comparison tables.

Overview and Comparative Tables

UK Migration Policy: Party-by-Party Briefings — Overview

Map of the political landscape and reading guide

Date: May 2026 Purpose: Companion overview to nine separate party briefings. Maps the UK political landscape on migration policy as it stands in May 2026, after the local and devolved elections of 7-8 May. Notes parties not given separate briefings and explains why.

How the briefing set is organised

Nine separate briefings have been produced, each written from inside the worldview of the party in question. Each takes the party's stated values and political framework seriously and uses the available data to reinforce, sharpen, and stress-test the party's positions. The briefings are not neutral analyses; they are written for the party in question.

Reading any single briefing in isolation gives you a clear picture of how that party would approach migration policy on its own terms. Reading the full set gives you the comparative picture: where parties agree, where they sharply differ, and where the real political fault lines lie.

The briefings included:

• Six UK-wide parties with substantial migration platforms: Labour, Conservative, Liberal Democrats, Green, Reform UK, Restore Britain
• Three regional parties with distinctive migration positions tied to devolved or specific regional contexts: Scottish National Party, Plaid Cymru, Democratic Unionist Party

The following parties have not been given separate briefings:

• Sinn Féin — Has been largely silent on UK-wide migration policy, focusing on Republic-of-Ireland-aligned positions and Northern Ireland constitutional questions. Migration policy is not a primary engagement area.
• SDLP — Similar limited engagement with UK-wide migration policy.
• Alliance Party (NI) — Holds a liberal position broadly aligned with Liberal Democrats. The Lib Dem briefing largely covers their analytical position; specific Alliance briefing would replicate most material.
• Ulster Unionist Party — Holds a moderate unionist position closer to the DUP than to other parties, with similar Belfast/Good Friday Agreement considerations. The DUP briefing largely covers shared ground; UUP-specific briefing would mostly replicate.
• Workers Party of Britain (Galloway) — Has migration platform but limited polling support (typically <2%) and limited substantive policy depth on specific migration mechanisms. Position broadly aligned with anti-immigration framing without the analytical specification of Reform.
• Independents and very small parties — Various positions, no consistent platform across them.

If the political landscape changes substantially before 2029 (for instance, if a new party emerges with substantial polling support), additional briefings may be warranted.

The political landscape, May 2026

The 7-8 May 2026 local and devolved elections produced significant shifts that affect migration policy direction.

Reform UK gained more than 1,300 council seats, entered Holyrood and the Senedd, and surged past 30% in former Labour strongholds. Polling consistently puts Reform ahead of Labour and Conservative parties at UK level.

The Greens won 586 seats, tripled membership under Polanski's leadership, and overtook Labour and Conservatives in some polls.

The SNP retained largest-party status in Scotland but without majority (58 MSPs); pro-independence majority exists with Greens.

Plaid Cymru won historic Senedd result alongside SNP, opening triangular pro-independence framework with Sinn Féin in NI.

Labour suffered historic local losses — 1,400+ seats, with Starmer refusing to resign but facing pressure from both flanks.

The Conservative position has hardened sharply under Badenoch since November 2024, with Borders Plan, ECHR withdrawal commitment, and 150,000 deportation target.

Restore Britain converted from pressure group to party in February 2026, polling 8-9%.

The Lib Dems lost less ground than Labour at the local elections, holding their position as a smaller but coherent rights-and-coordination voice.

The political force is now distributed across at least seven parties at UK or major-region level rather than the previous two-party domination. Migration policy positions have correspondingly diversified.

Where the parties agree

Cross-party convergence is real and worth flagging — these are the most deliverable items in the policy space because they cross partisan lines:

Item	Labour	Cons	LibDem	Green	Reform	Restore	SNP	Plaid	DUP
End asylum hotels	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes (different model)	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Asylum procurement reform	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Implicit	Implicit	Yes	Yes	Yes
Voluntary returns expansion	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes (where chosen)	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
FNO removal expansion	Yes	Yes	Yes	Limited	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Smuggling-network action	Yes	Yes	Yes	Limited framing	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Anti-trafficking framework	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Skilled-migration economic value	Yes	Limited	Yes	Yes	Limited	No	Yes	Yes	Yes

Asylum procurement reform is the strongest cross-party item. The NAO £15.3bn contract overrun and £383m total supplier profit (Sept 2019 – Aug 2024) at 7% margin are documented. Open-book contracting, profit caps, and provider re-tendering have support from every major party except possibly Restore Britain (which has not engaged with this question directly).

Voluntary returns at the cost differential (£4,300 vs £48,800 enforced) is fiscally compelling regardless of values position.

Where the parties sharply differ

Ten fault lines structure the UK migration debate:

Fault line	Sharply against	Sharply for
ECHR withdrawal	Labour, LibDem, Green, SNP, Plaid	Conservative, Reform, Restore
Retrospective ILR restriction	All except Reform, Restore	Reform, Restore
Numerical caps on legal migration	Labour, LibDem, Green, SNP, Plaid	Conservative, Reform, Restore
Asylum claim ban for new illegal entrants	Labour, LibDem, Green, SNP, Plaid	Conservative, Reform, Restore
Refugee Convention adherence	Labour, LibDem, Green, SNP, Plaid	(implicit denunciation: Reform, Restore)
Family route easing	LibDem, Green, SNP, Plaid	Conservative, Reform, Restore
NRPF abolition	Green	Conservative, Reform, Restore
Integration investment	LibDem, Green	Reform, Restore
Safe legal routes expansion	LibDem, Green, SNP	Reform, Restore
Mass deportation operations	All except Reform, Restore	Reform, Restore

The pattern: Reform and Restore form a clear bloc on the most restrictive positions. Labour and the Conservatives currently sit in different positions but the Conservative trajectory under Badenoch has been towards Reform/Restore positioning. The Greens, Lib Dems, SNP, and Plaid form a clear bloc on the most permissive positions.

The DUP sits across this somewhat awkwardly — moderate on most measures, but with specific NI Belfast/Good Friday Agreement and Common Travel Area considerations that don't map cleanly onto the UK-wide spectrum.

The gravitational pulls

Three movements in the political landscape are reshaping where parties stand:

Reform's gravitational pull on the right. With Reform leading polls and Conservative voters shifting to Reform on the right flank, the Conservative position has hardened sharply. The Borders Plan announced October 2025 and the ECHR withdrawal commitment of March 2026 are responses to the Reform threat. This pull continues; the Conservatives may move further right before the next election.

Green's gravitational pull on the left. With Greens overtaking Labour in some polls and Polanski's tripling of membership, Labour faces a pincer of losing pro-migration voters to Greens and anti-migration voters to Reform. The Lib Dems and Greens together carry the rights-and-coordination position that Labour previously substantially occupied.

The squeezed centre. The civic-nationalist-integrationist position — rights-protective, contribution-based, evidence-led, ECHR-retaining — does not have a clear partisan home. Most British public polling sits closer to this position than to either Reform or Green extremes. But no major party currently champions it cleanly. Labour has moved away from it (30-month refugee reviews, Reform-pressured rhetoric); the Conservatives have moved past it (Borders Plan, ECHR withdrawal); the Lib Dems are too small to vehicle it; the Greens reject it on values; Reform and Restore are well to its right.

The regional dimensions. SNP, Plaid, and Sinn Féin have begun coordinating explicitly on constitutional questions. Migration policy is not the primary axis of this coordination but is affected by it. The Welsh and Scottish demographic case for differentiated migration accommodation has cross-party support within those nations even where unionist parties exist; this gives the regional position weight independent of pro-independence framing.

Three scenarios for the next two years

Scenario A: Labour holds. The current Labour package implements with some hardening. Migration policy remains in evidence-led-with-enforcement mode. Greens grow but don't displace at UK level. Reform peaks below government level. Conservative repositioning continues but does not gain decisive ground. Likelihood: weakening but not eliminated.

Scenario B: Conservative-Reform realignment. A general election (constitutionally due by 2029) produces either a Reform-led government, a Conservative-Reform coalition, or a Conservative government implementing substantially Reform-aligned policies under voter pressure. ECHR withdrawal becomes live. Mass deportation programme becomes operational. Legal architecture rupture begins. Belfast/Good Friday Agreement framework comes under specific pressure. Likelihood: live and growing.

Scenario C: Fragmentation. No party reaches majority. Greens, Lib Dems, Reform, Conservatives, Labour all hold significant Commons strength. Migration policy stalls in coalition negotiation. The status quo holds by default. Possible coalitions: Labour-Lib Dem-Green left bloc; Conservative-Reform-DUP right bloc; or fragmented with no stable government. Likelihood: real possibility given local election fragmentation.

The May 2026 local elections suggest Scenario A is weakening. Scenarios B and C are both live. The data position will not change substantially over this period — no major new releases expected before 2027 — so the political question dominates over the analytical one.

What the data does and does not adjudicate

The same evidence base — the workbook, the MAC December 2025 figures, the HMRC/Home Office linked data, the DWP UC by status data, the NAO asylum contract findings — supports each of these party positions when weighted against the party's particular values.

The evidence:

• Confirms strong fiscal contribution from skilled-migration routes
• Confirms weaker fiscal contribution from family and dependant routes
• Confirms substantial procurement waste in current asylum accommodation
• Confirms voluntary returns are dramatically cheaper than enforced
• Confirms employment-rate variation by immigration status
• Confirms ECHR cascade costs are unmodelled
• Confirms Refugee Convention obligations are independent of ECHR
• Confirms post-ILR fiscal continuation is the main remaining data gap

The evidence does not:

• Tell you what weight to give fiscal balance vs cohesion vs family integrity vs refugee protection
• Tell you whether reciprocity creates moral claims independent of fiscal contribution
• Tell you what level of integration investment a country should fund
• Tell you whether ECHR withdrawal is worth the cascade costs
• Tell you whether net-negative migration is desirable given demographic realities
• Tell you whether route-based or contribution-based or status-based access is more legitimate
• Tell you what Britain owes refugees, or family-route applicants, or long-term residents, or undocumented migrants

These are values questions. Each party's briefing in this set takes its values seriously and shows how the evidence would be deployed to support its direction. Disagreement happens at the values level; the evidence does not adjudicate.

How to use this briefing set

If you support a particular party: Read that party's briefing first, then the comparative report, then the briefings of the parties most opposed to your own to understand their best version. The briefings are designed to make each party's serious case; reading the opposing case helps test your own.

If you are undecided: Read the comparative report first, then the briefings of the parties closest to your values. Each briefing is internally consistent and can be evaluated on its own terms.

If you are a researcher or journalist: Read the data workbook for verification of specific claims, then the descriptive report for narrative walkthrough, then the comparative report for fault-line mapping, then individual briefings for the strongest version of each party's case.

If you are a policymaker: The options menu document remains the primary policymaker resource. The briefings show how the options would be selected differently under different party frameworks.

The complete document set

Eleven documents now constitute this evidence package:

1. the data workbook — Sourced data 2. uk_migration_policy_full_descriptive_report — Narrative walkthrough 3. uk_migration_policy_options_menu — Neutral options menu 4. what_i_would_do — Personal-view document with explicit values 5. six_party_comparative_report — Cross-party comparative 6. the Labour briefing — Labour briefing 7. the Conservative briefing — Conservative briefing 8. the Liberal Democrat briefing — Liberal Democrat briefing 9. the Green briefing — Green Party briefing 10. the Reform UK briefing — Reform UK briefing 11. the Restore Britain briefing — Restore Britain briefing 12. the SNP briefing — SNP briefing 13. the Plaid Cymru briefing — Plaid Cymru briefing 14. the DUP briefing — DUP briefing 15. party_briefings_overview — This document

Together they cover: what's true (workbook), what it means (descriptive report), what could be done (options menu), what I would do (personal view), what each party would do (briefings), how parties compare (comparative report and overview).

Different layers serve different purposes. Take what's useful from each.

End of overview.

Six-Party Comparative Detail

UK Migration Policy: Six-Party Comparative Report

What each party would do, where they agree, where they differ

Date: May 2026 (prepared after 8 May local elections) Status: Comparative analysis. Represents each party's actual stated positions as of May 2026 — fairly, not as caricature. Sourced from current party policy documents, manifestos, and leadership statements.

Author's note

Each section below is written as if briefing the leader of that party on what their party's evidence-based migration package would look like, drawing from the same data set. The aim is to show how the same evidence supports different conclusions when weighted against different values — and to do so without strawmanning anyone.

I have made an effort to present each party's argument as its serious thinkers would, not as its opponents would. That means:

• The Reform position is presented as a contribution-and-control argument, not as racism dressed up.
• The Restore Britain position is presented as a sovereignty-and-demographic argument, not as fascism dressed up. (See specific note about that party's position in Section 6.)
• The Green position is presented as a humanity-and-economic-justice argument, not as fantasy.
• The Lib Dem position is presented as a rights-and-coordination argument, not as evasion.
• Labour and Conservative positions are presented as the actual implemented and proposed policies, not as either's preferred opposition framing.

A reader who finds any party's section uncomfortable should ask whether it's because the position is misrepresented, or because the position is being represented honestly and they disagree with it. Both are legitimate reactions but they are different things.

This document does not say which party is right. It maps the terrain.

1. Labour

Stated position (as governing party, May 2026)

Labour governs migration policy through three frameworks: the May 2025 White Paper Restoring Control over the Immigration System, the December 2025 Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Act, and the March 2026 statement of changes implementing 30-month refugee status reviews. Shabana Mahmood at the Home Office (Home Secretary since 5 September 2025, succeeding Yvette Cooper) has rejected numerical caps but committed to "swift" reduction in net migration, with delivery through route-specific tightening rather than headline cuts. The November 2025 Restoring Order paper, the March 2026 statement on 30-month refugee status reviews, and the 10-year ILR baseline are Mahmood-era policy.

Net migration has fallen sharply under Labour — approximately 200,000 in the year ending June 2025, down from 649,000 a year earlier — though the Migration Observatory notes most of this fall reflects measures introduced by the previous government rather than Labour decisions.

What a Labour-aligned package looks like

Asylum procurement reform. Labour has committed to ending hotel accommodation by end of Parliament (2029). The package implements faster: open-book contracting on existing contracts, profit caps on providers, expansion of dispersal capacity through military bases (one already operating with 500-place capacity from January 2026) and local authority partnership models. Targets the £15.3bn projected contract overrun documented by NAO.

Smuggling-gang focus rather than deterrence-of-arrivals focus. The Border Security Command, the France one-in-one-out returns agreement (377 returns to France, 380 admitted to UK between August 2025 and March 2026), the German agreement on boat seizures, Iraq and Serbia transit cooperation. Labour treats this as the alternative to Conservative/Reform deterrence-by-restriction approaches.

Earned Settlement (5-to-10-year qualifying period extension). Currently in implementation, with the Home Secretary stating finalised policy in autumn 2026 and B2 English requirement aligned to 2027. The Home Affairs Committee's March 2026 report flagged adult social care implications: hundreds of thousands of care workers becoming eligible for settled status without changes.

MAC strengthening and evidence-led approach. Labour committed in its manifesto to giving MAC a stronger role; the December 2025 MAC fiscal impact report is part of the resulting evidence base.

Refugee 30-month review cycle. Implemented from March 2026. Recognised refugees receive temporary status renewable every 30 months, with up to 30 years before settlement for those who arrived without authorisation. Migration Observatory and IPPR have characterised this as "near-perpetual state of insecurity"; the government characterises it as deterring opportunistic claims.

No ECHR withdrawal. Labour has explicitly ruled out leaving the Convention.

Constraints on the Labour package

The asylum hotels timeline (2029) is binding the government to a continued cost overrun while it scales replacement capacity. Labour's vote share fell sharply in May 2026 local elections; the political pressure is to harden migration policy further to stem defections to Reform on one side and the Greens on the other. The government's social care reform interacts with care worker visa restrictions — closing overseas recruitment exposes a workforce gap that domestic supply cannot yet fill.

The 30-month refugee review cycle creates a legal exposure under Refugee Convention Articles 23 and 24 that has not yet been tested in court but will be.

What a Labour government would not do

Mass deportation operations of the Reform/Conservative type. ECHR derogation. Retrospective restriction of existing ILR holders. Numerical caps. Withdrawal from the Refugee Convention. Hostile environment expansion of the kind the Greens describe.

2. Conservative

Stated position (as official opposition, May 2026)

The Conservative Borders Plan, set out by Kemi Badenoch from October 2025 onwards, has shifted substantially from the Conservative position in government (2010-2024). The current position includes:

• Total ban on asylum claims for new illegal entrants
• Withdrawal from ECHR, ECAT, and repeal of the Human Rights Act
• Establishment of a "Removals Force" to remove 150,000 illegal immigrants per year
• Deportation of all new illegal arrivals within a week, and all foreign criminals
• End to Immigration Tribunal, Judicial Review, and legal aid for immigration cases
• Returns agreements backed by visa sanctions
• Strict numerical cap on legal migration
• Doubling of ILR qualifying period from 5 to 10 years (predates Labour's similar policy)

Badenoch's March 2026 statement explicitly endorsed ECHR withdrawal, citing inability to deport Rochdale grooming gang convicts under Article 8 as a centrepiece example.

What a Conservative package looks like

Mass returns operation. The Removals Force at £1.6 billion budget with sweeping powers including non-consensual facial recognition. The 150,000/year target is roughly four times current enforced returns. The package draws on US ICE methodology, which Badenoch has cited approvingly.

Legal architecture rupture. ECHR withdrawal under Article 58 (six months' notice). Repeal of the Human Rights Act. Withdrawal from the European Convention Against Trafficking. End of Judicial Review for immigration cases. Domestic rights framework to replace the ECHR (not yet specified).

Total asylum claim block for illegal entrants. All new illegal arrivals deported without claim consideration. This requires a destination — third-country processing arrangements with countries to be negotiated. The Conservative position does not specify these countries.

ILR qualifying period extension. From 5 to 10 years. Badenoch announced this in February 2025, predating Labour's similar policy. Conservative position frames it as protecting the welfare state from the "Boriswave" — the 2022-2024 net migration peak under their own previous government.

Numerical cap on legal migration. Specific level not published. Badenoch has committed to a cap but not to a number.

Cultural/integration framing. Badenoch has explicitly linked immigration restriction to antisemitism prevention, citing immigration "from cultures with a history of hatred against Jews" (March 2026 Jewish News interview). This aligns the Conservative position partly with civic-cohesion concerns but draws criticism for cultural-essentialist framing.

Constraints on the Conservative package

The legal cascade from ECHR withdrawal is unmodelled in any Conservative published document. Belfast/Good Friday Agreement implications, UK-EU TCA law-enforcement cooperation termination, extradition treaty effects, and business confidence consequences are acknowledged by Badenoch's own statement (the "ECHR Commission") but not costed.

The Removals Force capacity question is not resolved — current detention capacity is 2,200; current returns are ~38,000/year of which 9,914 are enforced. 150,000/year is not deliverable without major new infrastructure, agreements with destination countries, and legal authority to detain at scale.

The party is competing with Reform for the same voter base. Reform's position is more radical on most measures (rescinding existing ILR; reviewing five years of asylum grants; abolishing ILR entirely). The Conservative pitch is "tough but deliverable"; the Reform pitch is "tough and we mean it." Polling currently puts Reform ahead.

What a Conservative government would not do

The package generally rules out: pro-migration framing of any kind; safe legal routes expansion beyond very narrow categories (Hong Kong, Ukraine); integration investment of the Danish-model type; coordination-with-EU framework; ECHR retention.

It also formally rules out, though the practical implementation is contested: retrospective restriction of existing ILR holders. Badenoch's position is prospective restriction. Reform's is retrospective.

3. Reform UK

Stated position (May 2026)

Reform UK, after the 8 May 2026 local elections, controls more than 1,300 council seats and has entered Holyrood and the Senedd. Polling has it consistently leading both Labour and Conservatives. The party's positions, primarily articulated by Nigel Farage and home affairs spokesperson Zia Yusuf, are:

• Abolition of Indefinite Leave to Remain entirely
• Rescission of ILR from existing holders, replaced with five-year visa requiring £60,000 minimum salary
• Review of all asylum claims granted in last five years; revocation of leave to remain for those entering "illegally" or overstaying
• ECHR withdrawal
• "UK Deportation Command" as mass-deportation agency
• Five-year moratorium on low-skilled immigration
• Emergency brake on work and family visas
• Offshore processing of asylum seekers
• New Acute Skills Shortage Visa requiring employer to train one domestic worker per overseas hire
• Increased entrepreneur and investor routes
• Estimated saving claimed: £14.3 billion over a Parliament; £137 billion over policy lifetime

EU Settled Status holders are exempted under the Withdrawal Agreement protections, which Reform acknowledges.

What a Reform package looks like

Mass deportation as primary mechanism. UK Deportation Command operating at scale. Voluntary returns expanded; enforced returns at far higher volume than current. Detention capacity expanded. Removals to third countries pursued.

Existing ILR rescission. All current ILR holders (other than EUSS) lose status and must reapply under the new £60,000 salary visa. The data implication: with the average UK full-time wage at ~£35,000 and the Skilled Worker route median at £56,600, the £60,000 threshold removes the substantial majority of current ILR holders. Reform frames this as restoring contribution-based settlement; critics frame it as breaking the legal certainty under which migrants entered.

Asylum status reopening. Five years of granted asylum claims reviewed. Reform has not specified the criteria or process for the review. The party estimates the savings (£14.3bn / Parliament; £137bn / lifetime) but has not published the cost basis. Detention capacity (2,200 places) versus likely numbers in scope (multiple hundreds of thousands across five years) is unresolved.

Legal rupture. ECHR withdrawal. Refugee Convention engagement uncertain — Reform has not formally proposed denunciation but has proposed actions (the asylum review) that would trigger Article 23/24 violations.

Sectoral immigration. Acute Skills Shortage Visa limited to specified sectors with mandatory domestic-worker training. Investor and entrepreneur routes expanded. Effectively replaces Skilled Worker route entirely.

Constraints on the Reform package

The legal exposure is the highest of any package in this document. Article 1 of Protocol 1 ECHR (vested property rights) on ILR rescission. Article 14 on differential treatment by nationality and route. Article 8 on family separation at scale. Refugee Convention Articles 23, 24, 32, 33 on the asylum review. The package is not deliverable without ECHR withdrawal and would still face Refugee Convention exposure.

The fiscal claim (£14.3bn / Parliament) is not derived from a published model. The MAC December 2025 modelling shows Skilled Worker main applicants with +£689,000 lifetime contribution per person; rescinding ILR removes contributors as well as costs. Reform's model has not been independently scrutinised.

The detention and removals infrastructure is not yet specified. Comparable scale exists only in the US (post-2025 ICE expansion at $170bn allocation). UK capacity to replicate is constrained by detention space, judicial process, third-country agreements, and the inability to negotiate returns with hostile states (Iran, Eritrea, Afghanistan, Sudan, Syria — the largest current sources of small boat arrivals).

What a Reform government would not do

Pro-migration framing in any form. Integration investment. Refugee Convention adherence in current form. Family-route protection of the current type (Reform's £60,000 threshold and stricter family requirements would dramatically restrict family migration). Continued asylum hotel system in current form (replacement is offshore processing, not state dispersal as in Labour's plan). Engagement with international migration cooperation frameworks of EU type.

4. Liberal Democrats

Stated position (May 2026)

Ed Davey's Liberal Democrats hold the rights-and-coordination corner of the migration debate. The Lib Dem position, articulated through 2024 manifesto and subsequent statements, includes:

• UK-EU youth mobility scheme
• Reversal of family visa salary threshold increases
• Creation of safe legal routes and humanitarian visas
• Coordination with international partners on returns and joint operations
• Opposition to Reform-style mass deportation framing
• ECHR retention; opposition to derogation
• Support for international cooperation as alternative to deterrence

The party has been clear that it sees coordination — particularly with EU partners on Dublin-style returns and intelligence sharing — as the realistic mechanism for managing irregular arrivals.

What a Lib Dem package looks like

Restored EU coordination. Youth Mobility Scheme. Joint returns operations. Intelligence sharing. Re-engagement with EU asylum framework where possible post-Brexit. The package treats UK-EU isolation as the structural cause of much of the asylum-system dysfunction.

Family migration restoration. Reversal of family visa salary threshold increases. Restoration of family reunion routes for refugees. Article 8 protection maintained.

Safe legal routes expansion. Humanitarian visas. Refugee resettlement programmes funded properly. Country-specific schemes for major source countries (Sudan, Eritrea, Iran). The argument: small boat arrivals can be reduced if legal routes exist for the same protection-needs population.

Asylum hotel exit through dispersal investment. Shared with Labour but at faster pace and with more local-authority funding.

No ECHR withdrawal. No Refugee Convention denunciation. No mass deportation operation.

Returns through bilateral and EU agreements. Voluntary returns scaled at the 11x cost advantage. Enforced returns to safe countries with functional agreements.

Constraints on the Lib Dem package

The party is at low single-digit polling and has limited prospect of governing alone. Its package is therefore most relevant as a coalition position or as an influence on a Labour government under pressure.

The "coordination with EU" centrepiece depends on EU willingness to engage, which is itself contested — Migration Watch and others note that the previous Dublin arrangement saw the UK accept more transfers than it sent. EU re-engagement on asylum cooperation is not within UK unilateral control.

The safe legal routes argument has empirical support (irregular arrivals fall when legal alternatives exist) but volume implications that the party does not fully address. Resettlement schemes at the scale that would meaningfully replace small boat arrivals would require significant capacity.

What a Lib Dem government would not do

Mass deportation. ECHR withdrawal. Refugee Convention denunciation. Numerical caps. Hostile environment expansion. ILR retrospective restriction. 30-month refugee review cycle.

5. Green Party

Stated position (May 2026)

The Green Party of England and Wales, under Zack Polanski's leadership, has tripled membership since September 2025 and at the 8 May 2026 local elections won 586 seats. Polling has put the Greens ahead of both Labour and Conservatives in some recent surveys. The party's published Migration Policy is:

• Aspirational world without borders, with managed humane immigration in the interim
• All migrants treated as "citizens in waiting"
• Migration not treated as a criminal offence under any circumstances
• Three-month visitor visa for any arrival without other visa
• Settled status holders have full benefit, NHS, and student finance access on equal terms with British citizens
• All children born in UK automatically British citizens
• Statelessness commitment: once citizenship granted, cannot be removed
• Free advice and support for undocumented migrants to regularise status without penalty
• End of detention except for serious crime or national security

The Green position takes immigration as economically and morally positive, treats refugee protection as a moral commitment, and frames the asylum system's dysfunction as a political choice rather than an inherent constraint.

What a Green package looks like

Hostile environment dismantling. End of NRPF condition on visas. Removal of the deny-and-deter architecture across welfare, healthcare, schooling, and housing. Replacement with universal access for residents regardless of status, with regularisation pathways.

Asylum system humanisation. End of detention except in narrow circumstances. Right to work for asylum seekers from arrival. Family reunion expansion. End of 30-month refugee review cycle. Settlement on path equivalent to other migrants.

Climate-displacement framework. Green policy explicitly recognises climate-induced displacement as a category requiring UK reception responsibility. This is a significant departure from all other parties' positions and would expand protected categories.

Regularisation programmes. Long-term undocumented migrants given pathway to status. Inversely related to the Reform/Conservative deportation framing.

Integration investment of Danish-model type. Language training, employment programmes, residential dispersal — but funded as part of a wider redistributive economic programme rather than as a condition of restriction.

ECHR retention. Refugee Convention adherence. International cooperation on humanitarian basis.

Constraints on the Green package

The fiscal implications are significant and not fully costed in published Green materials. The MAC December 2025 modelling shows mixed lifetime fiscal contribution by route; expansion of access without contribution conditions would, on the standard fiscal modelling, produce net fiscal cost in the short and medium term.

The Green response is essentially that fiscal-balance is the wrong frame: migration is not a fiscal optimisation problem but a humanitarian and economic-justice question. This is a coherent position but it does not engage with the fiscal data on the data's own terms.

The political coalition for the Green package is relatively narrow nationally despite recent membership growth. Implementation would require either coalition with Labour (unlikely on these terms) or a much larger Green parliamentary presence than current polling suggests is achievable in 2029.

What a Green government would not do

Mass deportation. Numerical caps. ECHR withdrawal. NRPF as standard visa condition. Detention at current scale. 30-month refugee review. ILR restriction. Asylum hotels (though replacement model is community sponsorship and dispersal, not military bases). Hostile environment in any form.

6. Restore Britain

Note on this section

Restore Britain, founded by Rupert Lowe in June 2025 and converted to a political party in February 2026, sits to the right of Reform UK. The Hope Not Hate organisation has reported substantial overlap between Restore Britain's support base and existing far-right networks (former British Democratic Party, BNP, For Britain officials; Tommy Robinson endorsement; British neo-Nazi support including Patriotic Alternative leadership). The Wikipedia entry describes the party's support base as "a fragile divide on the far-right between civic nationalists on one side, and ethnic nationalists on the other."

This section presents the party's published policy positions as it states them, but the reader should be aware that the political coalition behind the party is not solely civic-nationalist. The party's leader has not consistently distanced the party from ethnonationalist support.

Stated position (May 2026)

Restore Britain's published policies (133-page mass deportation document; subsequent statements by Lowe) include:

• Net-negative immigration target (more leaving than arriving)
• Mass deportation of all undocumented residents
• ECHR withdrawal
• Referendum on reinstating capital punishment
• Banning of burqa and niqab
• Abolition of kosher and halal slaughter
• Restoration of "Christian principles"
• Substantial reduction in BBC public funding or abolition

Polling: Findoutnow in April 2026 had Restore Britain at 9% support; Reform at 21%.

What a Restore Britain package looks like

Mass deportation operation, larger than Reform's. Scope: all undocumented residents plus reversal of substantial recent settled status. Mechanism: not specified in deliverable terms.

Net-negative immigration target. Currently net migration is approximately +200,000 (year ending June 2025). Net-negative requires either large outflows or near-elimination of inflows or both. The package does not specify how this would be achieved consistent with workforce and economic continuity.

Cultural restoration agenda. Bans on specific religious practices (burqa, niqab, kosher and halal slaughter) framed as restoration of Christian-cultural primacy. This goes beyond any other party's framing into specific cultural-and-religious legislation.

Legal rupture. ECHR withdrawal. Treaty consequences accepted. Capital punishment referendum.

Constraints on the Restore Britain package

The legal exposure is the highest of any package in this document — substantially higher than Reform's. The cultural-restoration legislation (kosher/halal ban; religious dress ban) engages Article 9 ECHR (freedom of religion) and Article 14 (discrimination), and would face challenge under Refugee Convention non-refoulement provisions for the deportation operation.

The deliverability of net-negative immigration without major economic dislocation is not modelled. UK demographic structure (ageing population, low domestic fertility, sectoral labour shortage) makes net-negative migration produce major labour-market and fiscal pressures that the package does not address.

The political coalition includes elements that other parties (and members of the public) characterise as far-right or ethnonationalist. The party's position on this is contested. The reader should make their own assessment.

What a Restore Britain government would not do

Pro-migration framing of any kind. Refugee protection beyond very narrow categories. Multicultural framework recognition. Continued ECHR or Refugee Convention adherence. Religious pluralism as legal framework. International cooperation on migration of any meaningful kind.

7. Where they agree

Across this six-party spectrum, there are genuine areas of convergence that often get lost in the contestation. Worth flagging because the policy options that have cross-party support are the most deliverable.

End of asylum hotels. Labour, Conservative, Lib Dem, Reform, and Restore Britain all want this. Greens want the same outcome with different replacement model. The unit-cost case (£170/day vs £27/day) and the NAO contract overrun documentation are accepted across parties. This is the most deliverable single piece of migration policy in the political system as it stands.

Profit caps or reform on asylum accommodation contracts. Labour, Lib Dem, Green, and most likely Conservative would back this. Reform supports it implicitly through contract abolition. Restore Britain has not addressed it. The cross-partisan procurement coalition is real.

Voluntary returns expansion. Labour, Conservative, Lib Dem, Reform all support scaling voluntary returns at the 11x cost advantage over enforced returns. Greens support voluntary returns where the person chooses to return. Restore Britain prefers enforced.

MAC strengthening and evidence-led approach. Labour explicitly supports. Conservative position varies but tends to engage MAC. Lib Dems support evidence-led approach. Greens accept MAC findings selectively. Reform and Restore Britain have engaged less with MAC.

Action on smuggling networks. Labour, Conservative, Lib Dem, Reform all support — though disagree on whether this is sufficient (Labour says yes, Conservative/Reform say no). Greens prefer humanitarian framing but accept anti-smuggling action. Restore Britain prefers harder enforcement.

Tighter sponsor-licence compliance. Cross-partisan support including in many Reform-controlled local authorities now exercising the licensing function.

Fiscal data transparency. Labour, Conservative, Lib Dem, Green would all accept a Migration Fiscal Ledger with route × status breakdowns. Reform and Restore Britain might support a version that emphasises cost over contribution.

8. Where they sharply differ

The genuine fault lines, set out cleanly:

On ECHR. Labour: keep. Lib Dem: keep. Green: keep. Conservative: leave. Reform: leave. Restore Britain: leave.

On retrospective restriction of existing ILR holders. Labour: no. Conservative: no (prospective only). Lib Dem: no. Green: no. Reform: yes (rescission). Restore Britain: yes.

On numerical caps on legal migration. Labour: no. Conservative: yes (level unspecified). Lib Dem: no. Green: no. Reform: yes (emergency brake). Restore Britain: yes (net-negative).

On asylum claims from new illegal entrants. Labour: process them. Conservative: ban them. Lib Dem: process them with safe legal routes alternative. Green: process them with humanitarian framing. Reform: ban them and review existing grants. Restore Britain: ban them and reverse grants.

On Refugee Convention. Labour: keep. Conservative: keep but disapply where possible. Lib Dem: keep. Green: keep and expand. Reform: implicit denunciation through proposed actions. Restore Britain: implicit denunciation.

On Family route. Labour: maintain with current thresholds; some flexibility. Conservative: tighten further. Lib Dem: ease (reverse threshold increases). Green: ease substantially. Reform: tighten dramatically (£60,000 threshold via new visa). Restore Britain: minimal family migration.

On NRPF. Labour: maintain. Conservative: tighten. Lib Dem: narrow in vulnerable cases. Green: abolish. Reform: extend. Restore Britain: extend.

On integration investment. Labour: limited. Conservative: limited. Lib Dem: substantial. Green: substantial. Reform: minimal. Restore Britain: minimal.

On safe legal routes. Labour: capped expansion. Conservative: minimal. Lib Dem: substantial. Green: substantial. Reform: minimal. Restore Britain: minimal.

On detention. Labour: current scale. Conservative: expanded. Lib Dem: narrowed. Green: minimal except security cases. Reform: massively expanded. Restore Britain: massively expanded.

9. The gravitational pulls

Three observations on where the political force in the system is currently concentrated, drawn from the May 2026 local election results.

Reform's gravitational pull on the right. With Reform leading polls and Conservatives losing votes to it on the right flank, the Conservative position has hardened sharply since Badenoch took the leadership in November 2024. The Borders Plan announced October 2025 and the ECHR withdrawal commitment of March 2026 are responses to the Reform threat as much as to underlying policy analysis.

Green's gravitational pull on the left. With Greens overtaking both Labour and Conservatives in some polls and Polanski's tripling of membership, the Lib Dem and Labour positions face pressure from the left as well. Labour in particular faces the pincer of losing pro-migration voters to Greens and anti-migration voters to Reform.

The squeezed centre. The "Phillips/Goodhart/Frederiksen-with-investment" position outlined in the parallel what_i_would_do document — civic-nationalist, integrationist, contribution-based, ECHR-retaining — does not have a clear partisan home in the current system. Labour has moved away from it; the Conservatives have moved past it; the Lib Dems are too small to vehicle it; the Greens reject it on values. Most of the British public's polling positions cluster around it but no single party currently champions it cleanly.

10. What this means for the data

The same evidence base — the workbook, the MAC December 2025 figures, the HMRC/Home Office linked data, the DWP UC by status data, the NAO asylum contract findings — supports each of these six positions when weighted against the party's particular values.

Labour weights swift delivery and capacity-building above either deterrence-by-restriction or expansion-of-access.

The Conservatives weight rule-of-law restoration through legal-architecture rupture above continuity of the international framework.

Reform weights mass-scale enforcement and contribution gating above legal-certainty for current residents.

The Lib Dems weight international coordination and rights protection above unilateral restriction.

The Greens weight humanitarian framing and economic-justice integration above fiscal-balance optimisation.

Restore Britain weights cultural-and-demographic restoration above continuity of plural democracy in current form.

The data does not adjudicate between these. It informs each of them. Every party can find evidence in the workbook for some of its positions and against some of its positions. That is not a flaw of the data — it is the actual nature of policy choice in a society that holds multiple legitimate values in tension.

11. Three scenarios for the next two years

Scenario A: Labour holds. The current package implements with some hardening (faster hotel exit, tightened earned settlement). Migration policy remains in evidence-led-with-enforcement mode. The Greens grow but don't displace. Reform peaks below government level.

Scenario B: Conservative-Reform realignment. A general election (constitutionally due by 2029) produces either a Reform-led government, a Conservative-Reform coalition, or a Conservative government implementing substantially Reform-aligned policies under voter pressure. ECHR withdrawal becomes live. Mass deportation programme becomes operational. Legal architecture rupture begins.

Scenario C: Fragmentation. No party reaches majority. The Greens, Lib Dems, Reform, Conservatives, and Labour all hold significant Commons strength. Migration policy stalls in coalition negotiation. The status quo holds by default.

The May 2026 local elections suggest Scenario A is weakening; Scenarios B and C are both live. The data position will not change much over this period — no major new releases are expected before 2027 — so the political question dominates over the analytical one.

12. Conventions

On framing: I have tried to represent each party's serious version, not its caricature. If any party feels misrepresented, the source documents are listed for self-checking.

On the Restore Britain section: I have noted the ethnonationalist support without characterising the party's stated policy as ethnonationalist. Both the policy as stated and the support base are presented; readers can assess.

On Labour as governing party: Treated through actual implementation rather than through previous opposition rhetoric.

On polling: Polling shifts week to week. The figures in this document reflect roughly the May 2026 local election aftermath. Different snapshots would show different relative positions.

What this document does not do: Endorse any party. Adjudicate between values frameworks. Predict election outcomes. Replace the workbook or the descriptive report as evidence base — those documents remain primary; this document is interpretive.

End of document.

19. The Pre-2026 ILR Cohort ("Boriswave"): A Dedicated Analysis

What this section is

This section addresses what the gaps review correctly identified as the most politically central object of UK migration policy 2025-2030, currently named in the master document but not analysed at the depth its centrality warrants. The "Boriswave" — the cohort of migrants admitted under the substantially liberalised post-2020 framework, principally 2022-2024 — is the single largest decision facing UK migration policy this Parliament.

Scale and composition

The Home Office's own published estimates, set out in the Earned Settlement consultation document of November 2025, project that under previous ILR rules approximately 1.3 to 2.2 million migrants would have become eligible for settlement between 2026 and 2030. The central forecast is 1.6 million.

Compositionally, the cohort is dominated by two routes that were dramatically expanded in the 2020-2022 period:

The Health and Care Worker visa. Reforms removed the salary floor and added care workers to the shortage occupation list in February 2022. Between 2022 and 2024, approximately 616,000 individuals arrived through this route. The Home Secretary's November 2025 statement to the House noted that more than half of these were dependants rather than primary care workers. The original Home Office estimate of need was 6,000-40,000 jobs; the actual inflow exceeded this by an order of magnitude. Subsequent enforcement action against sponsors revealed substantial abuse — sponsorship licences revoked, workers found to be unemployed or in unrelated work, and trafficking cases.

The post-Brexit Skilled Worker route. Lower salary and skill thresholds than the previous Tier 2 system, plus the removal of the resident labour market test. Between 2021 and 2024, Skilled Worker grants ran at substantially higher volumes than the Tier 2 era. Median earnings for Skilled Worker main applicants outside health and care had median earnings of £56,600 (HMRC/Home Office linked data, May 2025) — well above both the salary threshold and the UK full-time median comparator used in this document.

Other routes (student-to-skilled-worker switches, family route, Graduate route) contribute additional volume.

Why this matters

For the fiscal frame: the MAC December 2025 modelling shows substantial route-level variation. Skilled Worker main applicants outside health and care are positive (+£689,000 lifetime per person) but Health and Care Worker dependants are negative (-£67,000) and Family partner route is negative (-£109,000). The Boriswave is disproportionately weighted toward routes with weaker fiscal performance because the Health and Care visa dependant cohort is the largest single component.

For the political frame: this cohort settling under previous rules would generate ILR grants in 2027-2029 substantially exceeding any historical UK precedent. The Home Office's central forecast peak of approximately 359,000 ILR grants in 2028 (under unchanged rules) compares with the previous peak of approximately 240,000 in 2010. Several years exceeding the 2010 peak in succession would be a fundamental shift in the UK settled population structure.

For the cohesion frame: the pace of arrival 2022-2024 was unprecedented in modern UK history. Pace effects on cohesion (per the Casey Review and the Cantle tradition) are amplified relative to either smaller cohorts arriving over the same period or this cohort arriving over a longer period. Settlement of this cohort en masse extends the pace effects from arrival into the settlement and citizenship pipeline.

For the demographic frame: the Boriswave shifts the UK working-age age structure favourably in the short term (most arrivals are working-age) but adds substantial dependants who are not currently in the workforce. Net demographic effect depends on subsequent labour market integration outcomes which are not yet measured at the cohort level.

For the protection frame: this section is mostly distinct from refugee questions because the Boriswave is overwhelmingly economic migration, not asylum-route migration. Refugee numbers in the same period are an order of magnitude smaller.

The Earned Settlement response

The Labour government's Earned Settlement framework, consulted on November 2025 to February 2026, is explicitly designed to address this cohort. Key elements as currently consulted:

• Standard ILR qualifying period extended from 5 to 10 years for most routes
• For roles below RQF Level 6 (including health and care positions), qualifying period potentially up to 15 years
• High earners (above £50,270 / £125,140 thresholds) retain shorter qualifying periods of 3-5 years
• "Earned" status linked to four pillars: character, integration (B2 English plus Life in UK), contribution (NI contributions on earnings above £12,570 for 3-5 years), and continuous residence
• Refugees on core protection: 20-year qualifying period (from the March 2026 reforms)
• Safe-and-legal-route arrivals: 10 years
• Implementation pushed from original April 2026 target to "later in 2026"

The government's published intention is explicitly to apply these changes to migrants already in the UK who have not yet obtained settled status. This is the politically and legally consequential element. Earned Settlement is not solely prospective from the date of legislation — it changes the rules under which the existing Boriswave cohort qualifies.

The Home Office's own behavioural assumption: 10-20% reduction in affected inflows from the policy package as a whole. The cohort already in the UK is the largest component the policy is designed to address.

What is contested

Whether retrospective application is lawful. The Earned Settlement consultation explicitly proposes applying changes to people already in the UK on existing visas. This raises Article 8 ECHR family life questions where settlement decisions affect British-citizen children, Article 1 of Protocol 1 questions on legitimate expectations and accrued rights, and Article 14 discrimination questions where implementation has differential effect by route or nationality. Legal challenges are highly likely; outcomes are uncertain. The legal frame is closer to "changing the rules during the qualifying period" than to "retrospective rescission" of granted status, which makes it less legally exposed than full retrospective rescission but still substantially exposed.

Whether the volume reduction is sufficient. Charlie Cole's analysis in The Critic (January 2026; The Critic is a centre-right magazine and Cole writes from a restrictionist perspective — the underlying figures verify against the Home Office command paper), working from the Home Office's own published projections, suggests that even under the "low case" scenario the 2010 peak is exceeded in 2027, 2028 and 2029. Critics from the right argue the package addresses the cohort partially but does not prevent the unprecedented settlement bulge. Critics from the left argue the package creates a status-uncertain underclass for 10-15 years with measurable integration and welfare costs.

Whether health and care workforce can be sustained. The Health and Care Worker route was closed to new overseas recruitment in July 2025. Existing workers can extend and switch but the steady-state replacement pipeline is constrained. The Home Affairs Committee March 2026 report flagged that hundreds of thousands of care workers face uncertain futures while replacement domestic workforce has not materialised at the rate required. Earned Settlement at 15 years for below-RQF6 routes (where most care workers sit) intensifies the workforce-retention question because workers face longer paths to settlement than other routes.

The political alignment

Labour: the Earned Settlement package is the central response. The framework gives Labour a serious-looking package without the legal exposure of Reform's retrospective rescission proposal, while still substantially addressing the cohort.

Conservative: The 5-to-10 year extension was a Badenoch announcement before Labour formalised it. Conservative position is broadly aligned with Labour direction but proposes harder thresholds and faster implementation. The "Boriswave" framing creates a Conservative vulnerability — these arrivals occurred under Conservative governments — that Conservative messaging has not yet fully resolved.

Reform: Proposes full ILR abolition for new applicants and rescission with re-application at £60,000 threshold for existing ILR holders. The retrospective rescission of existing ILR is the legally weakest element (existing ILR holders have stronger vested rights than people who have not yet qualified). Reform's £14.3 billion fiscal saving claim relates partly to this cohort but lacks a published model.

Restore Britain: Larger ambition than Reform, less specified mechanism. The Boriswave is treated as evidence for fundamental reset rather than addressed through specific policy.

Lib Dem, Green, SNP, Plaid: Generally oppose retrospective application of Earned Settlement, supporting prospective-only changes. Concerned about creating status-uncertain underclasses and about workforce effects in care and other sectors. Argue that fiscal projections of cohort cost are sensitive to integration assumptions that policy can affect.

DUP: Generally aligned with the contribution-based principle but with NI-specific care workforce concerns given the cross-border labour market.

What the data does and does not adjudicate

The data confirms scale (the cohort exists at the volume named), composition (dominated by Health and Care visa and Skilled Worker route), fiscal variation by sub-route (Skilled Worker main applicants positive, Health and Care dependants negative), and behavioural-response uncertainty (the 10-20% inflow reduction is a Home Office assumption, not a measurement).

The data does not adjudicate whether the Earned Settlement framework's retrospective application will survive legal challenge, whether the workforce trajectory in care can be sustained, what the cohort's actual long-term contribution will be (because it depends on subsequent earnings trajectories not yet observed), or what political consequences flow from any specific volume of 2027-2030 ILR grants.

The Boriswave is the central decision the current Parliament will take on settled population. Every party has positioned around it; the data informs but does not resolve the choice.

20. Housing Supply and Migration

What this section is

The most politically salient migration argument in 2024-2026 is housing. This section presents the comprehensive evidence on the housing-migration interaction, drawing on the Social Housing & Migration in England — Complete Evidence Review (April 2026, 77 primary sources, compiled through AI-assisted research using only published primary sources). That report's findings are integrated here with appropriate attribution; the underlying data sources (MHCLG CORE, ONS Census 2021, Migration Observatory, OBR, MAC, DWP, House of Commons Library, NatCen) are cited throughout.

The section addresses both the question that has dominated public debate (do migrants get social housing ahead of British citizens?) and the broader structural question (how does migration interact with the UK housing crisis?).

The structural backdrop

England has approximately 4.3 million social homes in 2024 — 1.2 million fewer than in 1981, when the stock peaked at around 5.5 million. The decline reflects three factors: sales under Right to Buy (at least 1.9 million homes since 1980); Large Scale Voluntary Transfers to housing associations; and persistently low rates of new social housing construction.

The National Housing Federation estimates 90,000 new social rent homes per year are needed for 15 years to meet backlog demand; in recent years, councils have delivered fewer than 8,000 annually. The Affordable Homes Programme 2026–2036 aims for 300,000 affordable homes, of which at least 180,000 would be for social rent — but this remains dependent on delivery.

At 31 March 2025:

• 1.34 million households were on housing registers (highest since 2014, up from ~1.04 million in 2010)
• ~550,000 were classified as 'in reasonable preference' (priority) categories
• National average wait: 2.9 years; in London >10 years for larger properties
• New lettings: ~263,000 per year (only 6% of stock turns over annually)

Temporary accommodation has become the most visible symptom of the supply crisis:

• 130,890 households in TA at 31 March 2025 (record high; +11.5% YoY)
• 72,680 of those households included children
• Council spending on TA: £2.84 billion in 2024/25 (+25% YoY, +118% over five years)

These are the structural facts within which migration's interaction with housing must be understood.

Who actually receives social housing

CORE (Continuous Recording of Lettings) is the government's complete census of new social housing lettings in England. It has been published annually since 2008/09 and is the only individual-level dataset on social housing lettings.

Year	Lettings	UK nationals	EEA	Non-EEA	Context
2008/09	330,000	94.1%	2.0%	3.0%	CORE series begins
2013/14	287,000	92.6%	4.3%	3.3%	EEA peak
2019/20	281,000	92.0%	3.0%	3.0%	Pre-pandemic baseline
2022/23	252,000	90.0%	4.0%	6.0%	Afghan/Ukraine drives non-EEA rise
2023/24	261,000	87.0%	4.0%	9.0%	Non-EEA peak at 9%
2024/25	263,000	88.6%	4.0%	8.0%	Most recent (MHCLG Nov 2025)

The UK national share has remained in the range 88–94% throughout. There is no period in which non-UK nationals have come close to receiving a majority — or even a substantial minority — of new lettings.

The non-EEA share roughly doubled between 2020 and 2024 (3% to 8-9%), driven primarily by Afghan resettlement (post-Taliban, August 2021) and Ukrainian humanitarian schemes (from February 2022). These are government-managed resettlement programmes, not independent arrivals through the asylum system.

The non-EEA share fell slightly from 9% to 8% in 2024/25 as Ukrainian lettings moderated.

CORE captures annual flows. Census 2021 provides the stock view:

• 7% of social housing residents held a non-UK passport in 2021 (up from 5% in 2011)
• 15% of social housing residents were born outside the UK (against ~16% foreign-born share of general population)
• The foreign-born are not over-represented in social housing relative to their population share
• Foreign-born arrivals who have since naturalised appear as UK nationals in CORE but as foreign-born in Census data

Area	Foreign-born HRP share of social housing
England & Wales	19.2%
London	47.6%
Birmingham	25.1%
Manchester	25.6%
Leicester	29.8%

The London figure has attracted particular attention. Important context: 'foreign-born' includes people who arrived decades ago and have since naturalised. When the narrower 'non-UK passport' measure is used, London's non-UK share is substantially lower than 47.6%. London hosts 40%+ of all foreign-born residents of England; its housing profile reflects its demographic profile, not preferential allocation.

Legal eligibility: who can apply

Access to social housing is governed primarily by Part VI of the Housing Act 1996 and section 115 of the Immigration and Asylum Act 1999. Two gatekeeping stages: eligibility (set nationally) and qualification (set locally). The legal barriers are already extensive.

Status	Access
UK citizen / ILR / naturalised	YES — full access
Refugee / Humanitarian Protection	YES — from date of grant
Afghan ARAP/ACRS resettlement	YES — government scheme
Ukrainian humanitarian visa	YES — if Homes for Ukraine host ends
EU Settled Status	YES (with conditions on right to reside)
EU Pre-Settled Status	YES (must demonstrate right to reside)
Work visa (Skilled Worker, H&C)	NO — NRPF, ~1.5m people
Student visa	NO — NRPF, ~600,000 people
Most family visas	NO — NRPF, ~500,000 people
Asylum seeker (claim pending)	NO — Home Office NASS, separate
Undocumented / overstayer	NO — no public funds

The NRPF condition is the mechanism that bars most recent migrants. Approximately 3.6 million people held visas with a standard NRPF condition at end-2024. Adding asylum caseload (~225,000) and estimated undocumented population (594,000–745,000), the total NRPF-equivalent population could be 4–4.5 million. The Home Office does not maintain a central NRPF register, creating data uncertainty.

Local qualification tests: 89% of English local authorities operate local connection and/or residency tests under powers granted by the Localism Act 2011. Some require one year's local connection; others require three or five years. The Conservative government consulted in January 2024 on a proposed mandatory 10-year UK connection test for non-UK/non-EEA nationals; the Labour government rejected this in September 2024.

The system extensively gatekeeps access by immigration status. The legal barriers are already substantial.

Refugees and resettlement

Refugee households as a share of new social housing lettings:

Year	Refugee lettings	% of total
2014/15	1,400	0.4%
2020/21	2,500	1.2%
2022/23	3,100	1.2%
2023/24	4,100	2.0%
2024/25	4,700	2.3%

The 2024/25 picture in detail:

• 35,700 Afghans resettled under ARAP, ACRS and associated routes by March 2025
• 223,000 Ukrainians arrived under Homes for Ukraine and Ukraine Family schemes (~130,000 remain)
• Afghan lettings 2024/25: 1,300 (0.6% of total)
• Ukrainian lettings 2024/25: 1,100 (0.5% of total)

Resettlement scheme participants are placed directly into social housing or other accommodation by local authorities, partly funded by central government grant. This is a direct government policy decision, not a product of the general waiting list.

The asylum system is entirely separate. Asylum seekers awaiting a decision are housed by the Home Office through NASS — in contracted hotels, disused military sites, or other accommodation. This is explicitly not social housing stock. The government has confirmed to Full Fact: "social housing stock is not used to accommodate supported asylum seekers."

The "move-on" period when refugees are granted status creates a documented pressure point: 28-day requirement to vacate Home Office accommodation (extended to 56 days for vulnerable groups under a December 2024 pilot). 13,190 households received local authority homelessness assistance after leaving asylum accommodation in the 12 months to March 2025. This is a real link between the asylum system and mainstream housing services — but it flows from the design of the asylum support system, not from asylum seekers accessing social housing while claims are pending.

What the data shows about migration's contribution to the housing crisis

Migration is one of multiple demand drivers, not the primary one.

Migration Observatory analysis estimates migration accounts for approximately 30-40% of net housing demand growth in England, with the remainder driven by household formation effects (smaller average household sizes), internal migration, and second-home dynamics. London migration share of demand growth is higher (perhaps 50-60%); rural Wales and Scotland lower.

The 2022-2024 net migration peak coincides with the period of sharpest rent acceleration — average UK rents rose approximately 30% between 2021 and 2025, outpacing earnings growth substantially. Causal attribution is contested but the temporal correlation is strong.

The Bank of England 2024 staff working paper on migration and housing finds migration has measurable upward pressure on rents in receiving areas, with the effect concentrated at the lower end of the rental market and stronger where supply is highly inelastic (most of South East England). The effect on owner-occupier prices is smaller.

Migration also contributes to housing supply. Construction sector workforce data (CITB, Federation of Master Builders) shows substantial migrant share of skilled trades workforce. The May 2025 White Paper RQF Level 6 threshold removes some construction roles from sponsored migration eligibility; the Temporary Shortage List mechanism may restore flexibility. The net housing effect of migration is therefore demand-positive (more people need housing) and supply-positive (more workforce builds housing). The net is contested but the demand effect is widely assessed as larger than the supply effect at current scales.

Tenancy fraud is a substantial and under-discussed factor. The Tenancy Fraud Forum (2023) estimates approximately 148,000 social homes are fraudulently occupied in England, at a cost of up to £2 billion per year. If recovered, these would add the equivalent of 56% to annual new lettings supply. There is no national data linking tenancy fraud perpetrators to nationality or immigration status; the scale is estimated, the composition unknown. This is a structural delivery failure independent of migration policy.

Universal Credit by immigration status

In July 2025, DWP published the first-ever breakdown of Universal Credit claimants by immigration status — a significant new dataset.

Group	Claimants (June 2025)	% of total
UK / Irish nationals	6.6 million	83.6%
Non-UK/Irish — total	1.26 million	16.4%
— EU Settled Status	770,000	9.7%
— Indefinite Leave to Remain	211,000	2.7%
— Other	279,000	3.5%

UK and Irish nationals account for 83.6% of all Universal Credit claimants — broadly consistent with their population share. EU nationals with settled status account for 9.7% — the largest non-UK group, reflecting the large EU population with permanent right to reside. The £10.1 billion annual UC payment to non-UK/Irish nationals (2024) represents 16% of UC spend — similar to non-UK nationals' share of the working-age population.

NRPF visa holders are explicitly excluded from UC.

Public opinion: the salience-accuracy gap

The data on public opinion reveals a persistent gap between salience and accuracy:

Finding	Figure	Source
Immigration as top public concern (Aug 2025)	48%	Ipsos Issues Index
Public estimate: asylum as % of immigration	33%	British Future/Ipsos Jul 2025
Actual: asylum as % of immigration	14%	ONS migration statistics
Think net migration INCREASED last year (it halved)	56%	British Future/Ipsos
Migrants enriched country culturally	41%	NatCen BSA 2025
'Balancer Middle' (mixed views)	49%	British Future/Ipsos 2025
'Migration Sceptics' (strongly negative)	28%	British Future/Ipsos
'Migration Liberals' (strongly positive)	18%	British Future/Ipsos
Local area housing 'more than fair share' of asylum seekers	31%	Ipsos Aug 2025

The 'Balancer Middle' (49%) is the largest group: mixed views, recognising both pressures and gains, supporting managed migration for work and study, opposing 'uncontrolled' small boat crossings. When presented with specific trade-offs, they do not favour positions that would significantly increase homelessness or remove needed workers. Only 19% of the public overall say too much legal migration is a top concern.

The salience-accuracy gap matters: the perception that asylum seekers are housed in social housing is specifically incorrect — they are barred by law and housed separately. Public debate that does not address this misperception is debating an arrangement that does not exist.

Devolved nations comparison

Nation	Social stock %	RTB status	Stock trend
England	16%	Reformed 2024	Falling
Scotland	23%	Abolished July 2016	Rising since 2018
Wales	~16%	Ended 2019	Stable
N. Ireland	~16%	Limited — still exists	Stable

Scotland provides the most instructive contrast with England. Since abolishing Right to Buy for new applications in July 2016, Scotland's social housing stock has grown every year since 2018, reaching 633,030 dwellings at March 2024 — 23% of total housing stock against England's 16%. In 2023/24, 25,423 permanent lettings were made, of which 49% went to homeless households. Scotland does not publish nationality breakdowns of new lettings comparable to England's CORE system.

Conclusions

On the specific question that triggered this evidence review (whether social housing is being systematically diverted from UK nationals to recent migrants): the evidence does not support that claim. UK nationals receive 89% of new lettings. Non-UK nationals — predominantly those granted refugee status or resettlement rights — receive 11%. The non-UK share has risen since 2021 due to specific government decisions to resettle Afghans and Ukrainians.

On the legal framework: the barriers are already substantial. ~3.6 million people on work, student and family visas are legally barred from social housing by NRPF. Asylum seekers are housed in a separate Home Office system at a cost of £4 billion per year. 89% of councils operate local connection or residency tests.

On the housing crisis: the primary driver of waiting list length, the temporary accommodation crisis (£2.84bn in 2024/25), and the housing affordability problem is structural undersupply — 1.2 million social homes lost since 1981, and chronic under-construction. Immigration accounts for approximately one-third of projected household growth; significant, but not the majority. Even zero migration would not resolve the supply gap.

On data accuracy and public debate: the public significantly overestimates asylum's role in immigration and the extent to which migrants access social housing. Addressing these misperceptions is relevant to productive policy debate.

On policy implications: the evidence does not dictate a single answer. Multiple decisions — Right to Buy, planning constraints, insufficient new build, the design of the asylum support system — have contributed to the housing crisis. These are policy questions on which the data is relevant but does not itself dictate a single direction.

Data gaps: length of time in the UK is not captured by CORE (the data point that triggered this review); individual nationality breakdown beyond UK/EEA/non-EEA is collected but not routinely published; tenancy fraud nationality breakdown is not published; long-term social housing outcomes by nationality are not tracked at individual level; private rental sector immigration impact is the least researched tenure.

Section 20 substantially based on the Social Housing & Migration in England — Complete Evidence Review (April 2026), an independent evidence assessment compiled through AI-assisted research from 77 primary sources. Original sources cited throughout; the underlying primary sources (MHCLG CORE, ONS Census 2021, Migration Observatory, OBR, MAC, DWP, House of Commons Library, NatCen, Full Fact) verify each finding.

21. Crime, Trust, and the Migration Debate

What this section is

The crime question sits at the centre of why public trust in migration policy has collapsed. This section presents the comprehensive evidence on crime and immigration in the UK, drawing substantially on UK Crime, Immigration & the Casey Audit: An Honest Account of the Evidence (March 2026, 24 primary sources, original geographic regression analysis, ~360 verified data points, compiled through AI-assisted research). That report's findings are integrated here with appropriate attribution; the underlying data sources (MoJ PNC via CMC FOIs, Casey Audit, Bell et al 2013, Home Office returns data, MoJ prison statistics, ONS, NCA) are cited throughout.

• High confidence: official published statistics with clear definitions.
• Medium confidence: official data requiring interpretation, or quality-reviewed secondary analysis.
• Low confidence: FOI-derived, modelled, unpublished, route-inferred, or denominator-sensitive claims.

1. Nationality is not immigration status. A foreign national prisoner may be a long-settled resident, a visa holder, a person with no lawful status, a failed asylum seeker, or another category. 2. Ethnicity is not nationality. Ethnicity data cannot be used as a proxy for immigration status. 3. Prison population is not all crime. Prison data reflect serious offending, remand, sentencing, sentence length, recall policy, and early-removal rules. 4. Valid rate comparison needs a reliable denominator. A per-capita rate needs a population estimate for the group being compared, plus age, sex, region, offence-type, and residence-status controls. 5. FOI-derived conviction data are useful but lower confidence. They can indicate where further official publication is needed, but should not be treated as full official statistics unless quality-assured and methodologically explained.

The section is longer than its data weight alone would suggest because the trust dimension matters as much as the data dimension. The avoidance of crime data in mainstream policy debate has been a real failure with real consequences for community safety, victim protection, and public trust in institutions. Honest engagement is overdue.

The foundational data gap

The most important fact in this debate is not a statistic. It is an absence.

Immigration status has never been recorded by UK police at the point of arrest or charge. This is not a technical limitation — every other significant personal characteristic is recorded. It is a policy choice, made and maintained across four decades, by consecutive governments of different parties.

When asked in 2025 to provide data linking crime to immigration or asylum status, the Office for National Statistics confirmed: "We have not produced any internal assessments relating to the availability or quality of data linking migration or asylum status with recorded crime." The UK Statistics Authority had made no recommendations on this gap.

This absence means the specific question at the centre of public debate — whether illegal migrants or asylum seekers are disproportionately involved in sexual offending — is not directly answerable from any existing UK dataset. The people who claim it can be answered are using proxies and presenting them as direct evidence. The people who claim the question is inherently illegitimate misunderstand that data gaps have political consequences: when you don't collect data, the gap serves whoever can most plausibly fill it with anecdote.

The trust collapse is partly a direct product of this gap. Successive governments — Conservative and Labour — have been reluctant to publish disaggregated data on offending by nationality and immigration status, which has fed the perception that uncomfortable truths are being suppressed. Where data has emerged, it has emerged through Freedom of Information requests by think tanks (Centre for Migration Control's June 2025 release), through media investigations (the Daily Mail's April 2025 sex offence arrest data by nationality), or through Parliamentary Questions — not through proactive government publication.

Each delay reinforces the perception that the data is uncomfortable. The institutional silence has produced its own consequences.

What data does exist

Despite the foundational gap, substantial data has been extracted that allows a partial picture:

Source	What it contains	Critical limitation
MoJ PNC via CMC FOI (2021-2024)	Sexual offence convictions by nationality	~30% of all convictions; no age-sex standardisation; disputed denominators for small nationalities
Met Police FOI (2018-2024)	Sexual offence proceedings by nationality	London is 26% foreign-born, not 9.3% national figure
WYP FOIs (2023-2025)	Charges for rape/sexual assault by nationality	Charges, not convictions; single force area
Dorset Police FOI 25/3692	Sexual offences by non-British suspects 2024-2025	Single force; small denominators
MoJ OMSQ Table 1_A_26 (Jul 2025)	Prison population by nationality × offence group	British vs foreign national only; no finer breakdown
Casey Audit (Jun 2025)	Grooming gang suspect ethnicity; data gaps	Two-thirds (~66%) of suspect ethnicity not recorded nationally; explicitly states national conclusions not possible
Home Office NRM quarterly	Trafficking victims by nationality	Victims, not perpetrators
Home Office FNO returns (Ret_D03)	Deportations by nationality	Post-sentence; says nothing about offending rates
MoJ OMSQ Oct-Dec 2025 (Apr 2026)	Quarterly prison population by nationality	Most recent official cut (31 March 2026); updated nationality breakdown

Most recent prison-population figures (MoJ OMSQ Oct-Dec 2025, published 30 April 2026; reference date 31 March 2026): 10,487 foreign nationals in custody in England and Wales — 3,588 on remand, 6,458 sentenced, 441 non-criminal. Foreign nationals account for 12% of the total prison population. The most common non-British nationalities were Albanian (9% of FNO prison population), Irish (7%), Polish (7%), Romanian (6%), and Indian (4%). The Albanian share has fluctuated 9-13% across recent quarterly cuts; Polish, Irish, Romanian, and Indian shares have been broadly stable.

What the conviction data actually shows

The MoJ PNC data via Centre for Migration Control FOIs shows foreign nationals accounting for 15–22% of sexual offence convictions in 2024, against approximately 9–15% of the population.

Metric	Raw figure	Confidence
FN sexual offence convictions 2024	1,118 of 7,874 (15%)	HIGH
Rape of female 16+ — FN share	155 of 720 (21.5%)	HIGH
Sexual assault on female — FN share	380 of 1,453 (28.5% excl unknowns)	HIGH
FN sexual offence conviction rate vs British	+71% higher per 10,000 (2021-23)	LOW — denominator disputed
FN conviction rate (age-sex adjusted)	Non-UK nationals slightly UNDER-represented in prison overall	HIGH (Migration Observatory FOI Sep 2025)
% change FN sexual offence convictions 2021-2024	+62% vs +39% British	HIGH

These figures are widely cited without the caveats that fundamentally qualify them.

Age and sex are not controlled for. Foreign nationals in the UK are disproportionately young adult males — the demographic group that commits more crime universally. The Migration Observatory's age-sex adjusted analysis found non-UK nationals are slightly under-represented in the overall prison population. This does not mean there is no over-representation in specific categories, but it means the aggregate gap is largely — perhaps entirely — demographic rather than behavioural.

Population denominators for small nationalities are disputed by 2-3×. CMC used an Afghan UK population estimate of approximately 12,000. Alternative estimates run to 35,000 or more. A 3× error in the denominator transforms a high per-capita rate into an ordinary one.

The PNC captures ~30% of convictions. It covers indictable offences prosecuted by the CPS only — the most serious end of the spectrum. There is no established reason to assume this selection is nationality-neutral.

The Metropolitan Police dataset has a probable data error. British charges appear recorded as zero for 2018-2020 in the CMC's Met Police spreadsheet — likely because 'United Kingdom' and 'British' were not combined. This artificially inflates the apparent FN share for the period.

What we can say with confidence: foreign nationals are over-represented in serious sexual offence convictions. The direction of this finding is consistent across multiple independent sources and survives basic scrutiny.

What we cannot say with confidence: the magnitude. The per-capita rates for specific nationalities. Whether the over-representation would survive proper age-sex standardisation with correct population denominators.

What the data suggests but cannot prove: the over-representation is concentrated in specific asylum-seeker nationality cohorts — particularly Albanian, and to a lesser but real extent Afghan and Eritrean — rather than being a general immigration phenomenon. EU working migrants do not show this pattern. This distinction is important for policy.

The Albanian signal: the strongest finding in the data

One finding is robust enough to be stated without the usual caveats. It is confirmed by six independent sources, none designed to find this result:

Source	Albanian finding	Independence
MoJ OMSQ Table 1_A_26 (Jul 2025)	11-13% of foreign national prison population — largest single nationality (MoJ OMSQ Q2 2025: 10% Albanian + 1-3% additional Kosovar varies by source; PA News Jun 2025 gives 11.1%)	Official published statistics
Home Office Ret_D03 (Oct 2025)	26% of FNO deportations — 2,481 individuals	Official quarterly returns
Lords 'Lost in Translation' (Mar 2025)	Albanian interpreter demand surged in 2023-24	Parliamentary inquiry
NCA Strategic Assessment	Albanian networks dominant in UK sexual exploitation economy	Intelligence assessment
Home Office NRM 2024	Albanians 15% of trafficking referrals — primarily trafficked by fellow Albanians	Victim referral data
Derived ratio	Materially over-represented (precise multiplier sensitive to denominator)	Illustrative calculations range ~145-195× depending on Albanian UK population estimate used; treat as low-confidence given absence of age/sex/offence-type controls

Albanian nationals are materially represented in the foreign-national prison population and in enforced-return statistics. That supports targeted enforcement, returns cooperation, and organised-crime disruption. Precise over-representation multipliers (e.g. "150×", "160×", "200×") should be treated as low-confidence illustrative calculations rather than settled findings, because they depend on Albanian UK resident-population denominators that vary by source and lack age/sex/offence-type controls. The qualitative point — that the level cannot be explained by demographics alone — is robust; the precise scaling is not. The NCA has said explicitly that Albanian networks dominate the sexual exploitation economy.

The critical distinction: Albanian over-representation is driven by organised criminal networks — it is a professional criminal enterprise, not poverty crime or integration failure. The German research showing that work rights eliminate two-thirds of the crime effect from conflict-exposed asylum seekers does not apply here. The solutions are law enforcement, bilateral deportation agreements, and financial disruption of criminal networks. These are not the solutions being proposed by most commentators on this topic.

This finding is being underdiscussed by both sides. The restrictionist camp finds it convenient but conflates it with the general immigration picture. The opposition camp finds it inconvenient and rarely addresses it head-on. The result is that the strongest and most actionable signal in the data is being used as general fuel for an immigration debate rather than as the specific law enforcement intelligence it actually represents.

The geographic correlation: original analysis

A regression of asylum seeker concentration against police-recorded sexual offence rates across 50 local authorities, controlling for deprivation using the Index of Multiple Deprivation 2019:

Model	Asylum coefficient	p-value	R²	Plain English
Bivariate (asylum only)	0.031	0.0005 ***	0.225	Significant positive correlation
Partial correlation (controlling IMD)	-0.016	0.915 (n.s.)	—	Correlation drops to zero
Full model (asylum + IMD)	-0.001	0.915 (n.s.)	0.492	Asylum vanishes; deprivation dominates; R² doubles

The finding: the bivariate correlation that drives political narrative — areas with more asylum seekers have higher sexual offence rates — is real and statistically significant. But it is entirely explained by deprivation. Once deprivation is controlled for, the asylum coefficient is statistically indistinguishable from zero.

The mechanism is straightforward: the Home Office disperses asylum seekers to the UK's most deprived local authorities. Deprived areas have higher crime rates for all offences — violence, drug, theft, sexual — driven by unemployment, overcrowding, alcohol, fragmented families, and inadequate services. These conditions pre-exist the asylum seekers. They would produce elevated crime rates with or without them.

The policy implication: if you replaced every asylum seeker in Bradford or Middlesbrough with retired schoolteachers from Hampshire, you would not expect sexual offence rates to fall to Hampshire levels. The crime is driven by the conditions of deprivation, not by who is housed in those conditions.

The grooming gang question

The grooming gang question requires more care than almost any other topic in this section, because the stakes are highest — children's safety — and the temptation to project partial data onto a national picture is strongest precisely where it would be most misleading.

Scope note: the Casey Audit is relevant to group-based child sexual exploitation and abuse, data-recording failures, institutional response, and the specific question of ethnicity and culture in that form of offending. It is not a general migration-crime evidence base and should not be used as a proxy for one. The audit concerns a specific abuse model with specific data failures and specific local evidence; generalisation to migration policy or ethnic-group claims beyond CSEA is not supported by what Casey actually established.

Finding	Implication
Two-thirds (~66%) of grooming gang suspects nationally have no ethnicity recorded	Cannot draw national conclusions from this data
The 2020 Home Office claim 'most offenders are white' is not evidenced by research or data	A ministerial statistical claim was made from data where two-thirds of suspect ethnicity was not recorded, and was wrong
Pakistani-heritage men over-represented as suspects in specific northern towns	Local pattern confirmed; NOT a national pattern
'Pakistani' removed from one suspect file during audit	Local data suppression documented in at least one case
National conclusions cannot be drawn from existing data	The specific question 'are Pakistani men nationally over-represented?' cannot be answered from existing data

Both of the following are supported by the evidence and are not contradictory:

(1) Pakistani-heritage men are over-represented as suspects in group-based child sexual exploitation in specific northern towns. This is documented in Rotherham (Op Stovewood: ~2/3 of 323 suspects), and confirmed by Casey in data from Greater Manchester, South Yorkshire, and West Yorkshire. This pattern was systematically under-investigated for years. The people responsible for that under-investigation should be held accountable.

(2) Pakistani arrest rates nationally are essentially identical to the national average (11.3 vs 11.2 per 1,000). The grooming gang pattern is localised to specific communities in specific towns, not a national Pakistani or Muslim pattern. White Irish networks operated in Telford. White British networks have been prosecuted across multiple areas. The local over-representation reflects specific cultural networks in specific places.

The political debate has mostly treated these as mutually exclusive. They are not. Holding both simultaneously — taking the local pattern seriously while refusing to project it nationally — is precisely what good analysis requires and what has been most notably absent from public debate.

Because ethnicity was not recorded for two-thirds of suspects (Casey: COCAD 2023 records self-defined ethnicity for only 34% of suspects; 66% are recorded as not declared), the national picture is genuinely unknowable from existing data. Casey recommended — and the government accepted — mandatory ethnicity and nationality recording for all CSE suspects from 2025/26. If that data is collected properly and published as official statistics by Q3 2027, we will know for the first time whether the local pattern generalises nationally.

If publication is delayed, published in a form that obscures nationality breakdowns, or quietly omitted from routine statistics, the 40-year institutional pattern will have reasserted itself. That is the correct test to apply.

The suppression question

The most accurate description of the institutional failure is this: a durable coalition of institutional interests — none of which individually required a conspiracy to maintain — produced the same outcome as deliberate suppression over 40 years.

Level	What happened	Assessment
Local (specific cases)	At least one case where 'Pakistani' was literally removed from a suspect file	Individual act of suppression. Documented. Real.
Local institutions (systemic)	Pattern of poor ethnicity recording was worst in areas where findings would be most politically uncomfortable	Institutional culture, not individual conspiracy
National statistics	2020 Home Office claim 'most offenders white' made from data where two-thirds of suspect ethnicity was not recorded, without stating the limitation	Not honest statistical communication
Policy (data gap)	Immigration status has never been recorded at arrest or charge across 40 years	Policy choice. Different governments made the same choice. Structural
Central conspiracy	Coordinated national programme to hide specific findings	NO EVIDENCE. Structural explanation is sufficient and more consistent with the pattern

It was not a cover-up in the sense of a coordinated programme with architects and instructions. It was something more insidious — an institutional culture in which the costs of finding and publishing uncomfortable data fell on the people who found it, while the costs of not finding it fell on victims who had no institutional voice. That culture produced a cover-up's results without requiring a cover-up's organisation.

This is not exculpatory. It is in some ways more serious than a conspiracy, because it has no single author to hold accountable and no single intervention that fixes it.

What causes the over-representation where it exists

This is the most important question for policy and the one most consistently avoided in the political debate. If you misidentify the cause, you prescribe the wrong treatment.

Work restrictions (German research, multiple studies 2017-2021): offering asylum seekers the right to work eliminates approximately two-thirds of the crime effect attributable to conflict exposure. Bell et al (2013): work-restricted asylum seekers in the UK increased property crime; EU migrants with full work rights reduced it. The mechanism is consistent across multiple countries and replications.

UK asylum seekers are legally barred from working for at least 12 months after their initial application, and then only in shortage occupations. The average time to initial asylum decision has exceeded 12 months for years. During this work-restriction period — which is the period captured in the conviction data — the international evidence consistently predicts elevated crime rates.

The implication: a substantial proportion of the over-representation observed in the PNC data may be reducible through a domestic policy change that has nothing to do with restricting immigration — namely, extending work rights to asylum seekers within six months of application.

The intervention is within existing Home Office powers and would cost less than the hotel accommodation programme. It would also test the international finding empirically.

This finding is absent from the restrictionist policy programme. It is also barely discussed by those on the other side of the debate. Its absence from both conversations is diagnostic.

Conflict exposure: the nationalities with the highest per-capita sexual offence conviction rates — Afghanistan, Eritrea — are countries with prolonged, intense armed conflicts. Swedish and German research consistently finds that conflict exposure is associated with elevated violence and sexual offending, and that this effect is substantially reduced (though not eliminated) by work rights and integration support.

This does not excuse offending. It identifies a mechanism that can be addressed. Young men who have witnessed or experienced severe violence, who are housed in hotels in deprived areas with no legal work, no routine, no stake in their community, and no prospect of decision, are being placed in conditions that the international criminology literature reliably predicts will produce elevated offending. This was a predictable outcome of a predictable policy. It was predicted.

The Albanian exception, again: the work restrictions and conflict exposure mechanisms do not adequately explain the Albanian signal. Albanians are not typically conflict refugees. They are not characterised by work restrictions in the way Afghan asylum seekers are. The NCA assessment is unambiguous: this is professional organised criminality operating as a business.

These are different problems. Treating them as one "immigration problem" produces policy that addresses neither.

The 18-month pipeline

One of the most striking findings is how consistently a single mechanism appears across multiple nationalities. There is an approximately 18-month lag between peaks in asylum arrivals by nationality and corresponding surges in court interpreter demand and conviction data for the same nationality.

Arrival cohort	Arrival peak	Court/prison signal	Lag
Albanian (small boats)	2021	Albanian interpreter demand surge; FNO prison share rises to 13%	~18 months
Afghan (post-Taliban)	2022	Pashto/Dari interpreter demand rising; Afghan convictions in CMC data	~18-24 months
Eritrean (ongoing)	2023-24	Tigrinya interpreter demand rising	~18 months (projected)
Iraqi Kurdish	2022-23	Sorani Kurdish interpreter demand surging 2023-24	~18 months

The 18-month lag is mechanistically explicable: 6-18 months for asylum decision, then time for offences to be investigated, charged and reach Crown Court. The government had data on arrivals. It could have predicted this pipeline. The policy response was inadequate.

Policy implication: criminal justice pressures from a given arrival cohort are not visible in courts for over a year. Current court statistics are always 18 months behind current arrivals. Restricting arrivals today would not reduce court pressure for at least 18 months — the pipeline is already full from 2024-25 arrivals. Conversely, extending work rights now could begin reducing the crime signal in courts from mid-2026 onward.

Evidence-graded conclusions

• Albanian nationals are over-represented in the UK criminal justice system at a scale that cannot be explained by demographics. This is organised criminality, not integration failure.
• The 18-month pipeline from asylum arrival to court appearance is real and consistent across multiple nationalities. It was predictable and was not adequately acted on.
• The 2020 Home Office claim that most grooming gang offenders are white was made from data where two-thirds of suspect ethnicity was not recorded, and was not evidenced by research or data.
• The geographic correlation between asylum concentration and sexual offence rates is entirely explained by deprivation clustering.
• Work rights for asylum seekers substantially reduce — the German evidence suggests by approximately two-thirds — the crime effect attributable to conflict exposure.

• Foreign nationals are over-represented in serious sexual offence convictions relative to their population share. The direction is consistent. The magnitude — the 48-86% raw over-representation figures — is substantially inflated by lack of age-sex adjustment and disputed denominators.
• Afghan and Eritrean asylum seekers appear to have elevated sexual offence conviction rates. Direction consistent; specific magnitude unreliable; causal mechanism most consistent with conflict exposure compounded by work restrictions.
• Pakistani-heritage men are over-represented as suspects in group-based CSE in specific northern towns. This is local data, not a national pattern. Both statements are simultaneously true.
• The institutional data gap was maintained by a durable coalition of institutional interests whose collective effect was identical to suppression, even if no individual component required conspiratorial intent.

• A coordinated national conspiracy to suppress immigration-crime data.
• That the grooming gang pattern in northern towns is a national Pakistani or Muslim pattern.
• That immigration restriction is the primary policy response indicated by the evidence.
• That the specific magnitude of per-capita conviction rates for Afghan, Eritrean, or other small nationality groups is reliable as stated.

What the evidence says should happen

• Extend work rights to asylum seekers within six months of initial application. German evidence shows this eliminates two-thirds of the conflict-exposure crime effect. It is within existing Home Office powers. It costs less than continued hotel accommodation. It is the most evidence-based crime-reduction intervention available.
• Accelerate asylum decisions to under six months. The work-restriction mechanism cannot be eliminated while decision timelines run to 18+ months.
• Pursue Albanian criminal networks as a law enforcement priority. The NCA has identified them. The data confirms the scale. Specific, bounded problem requiring specific, resourced enforcement.
• Publish Table 1_A_26 (nationality × offence group in prison) as a routine quarterly statistic with commentary. It was released quietly in July 2025 as a buried spreadsheet. It should be a headline statistic.

• Implement Casey's mandatory nationality recording for all CSE suspects, with published force-level compliance data.
• Aggregate and publish hotel safeguarding referral data nationally.
• Commission independent replication of the geographic correlation analysis at full 317-LA scale.
• Require the UK Statistics Authority to assess the immigration-criminal justice data gap and publish recommendations.

• Blanket visa restrictions by nationality based on current per-capita conviction rates. The denominator problems are severe enough to make these figures unreliable as policy inputs.
• Treating the grooming gang question as resolved by the Casey Audit. Casey confirmed local over-representation in specific areas and a 40-year data gap. She did not establish a national picture.
• Using deportation as the primary policy response. Deportation is appropriate after conviction. It does not prevent re-entry through irregular routes, does not address the structural causes of over-representation where it exists, and has historically not reduced FNO prison populations significantly.

Final assessment

The honest account of what the data shows:

The problem is real but concentrated. Certain asylum-seeker nationalities — primarily Albanian, and to a lesser degree Afghan and Eritrean — are genuinely over-represented in serious sexual offending. The aggregate foreign national over-representation figure is substantially inflated by methodology, but a real signal survives scrutiny. The Albanian signal is severe and documented beyond reasonable doubt.

The geographic pattern is a dispersal policy artefact. Areas with more asylum seekers have higher sexual offence rates because they are deprived areas. Once deprivation is controlled for, asylum concentration has no independent predictive power. This does not mean asylum seekers do not commit offences — they do. It means the policy prescription of geographical dispersal into deprived areas is itself a driver of whatever general crime elevation exists.

The causal mechanism points toward integration policy, not restriction. Work restrictions, conflict exposure, and conditions of hotel accommodation in deprived areas are the most consistent causal explanations for the over-representation where it exists — except for Albanian organised crime, which requires law enforcement. The strongest evidence-based intervention is extending work rights. It is the one most notably absent from the political debate.

The institutional failure was structural, not conspiratorial. The 40-year absence of this data reflects a durable coalition of institutional interests producing the same result as deliberate suppression without requiring individual conspiracy. Casey's recommendations address the symptom — mandatory recording — but not the underlying incentive structure that made the gap possible and sustainable for so long. Whether the symptom treatment holds is the empirical test of the next two years.

The political debate has been consuming evidence in the wrong direction on both sides. The left has used the institutional failure of data collection to argue there is nothing significant to see. The right has used the real signal in the data to argue for policy responses — restriction, deportation — that the evidence does not support as primary interventions. Both positions have served institutional or political interests rather than victims.

The people who have been most harmed by this debate are the women and children who were abused while institutions argued about whether to count the people abusing them; and the asylum seekers — the vast majority — who did not offend and who have been collectively stigmatised by a debate that cannot distinguish a criminal network from a refugee cohort.