Here is my colleague Rajeev Syal’s story on today’s immigration figures.

At 606,000, the net migration figure for 2022 reported by the ONS this morning is still a record figure – even though it is well below some of the predictions. Net migration in the 12 months to June 2022 was 504,000.

Commenting on the figures, Jay Lindop, director of the Centre for International Migration at the ONS:

The main drivers of the increase were people coming to the UK from non-EU countries for work, study and for humanitarian purposes, including those arriving from Ukraine and Hong Kong. For the first time since using our new methods to measure migration, we have also included asylum seekers in our estimates, with around 1 in 12 non-EU migrants coming via this route.

There are some signs that the underlying drivers behind these high levels of migration are changing. As lockdown restrictions were lifted in 2021, we saw a sharp increase in students arriving.

Recent data suggests that those arriving in 2021 are now leaving the country, with the overall share of non-EU immigration for students falling in 2022.

In contrast, those arriving on humanitarian routes increased over the 12 months. Evidence also suggests immigration has slowed in recent months, potentially demonstrating the temporary nature of these events.

Here are two charts from the ONS report that give more details of the immigration figures.

This chart shows that arrivals from non-EU countries are driving the rise in immigration. (It just shows immigration figures – the headline figure is the net figure, the total number of immigrants minus the total number of people who emigrated).

And this chart shows why people are coming to the UK. Study is the biggest single reason for people getting a visa.

Net migration for 2022 was 606,000, ONS says – less than forecast, but still 118,000 higher than in 2021

In his Today programme interview Sir John Hayes, the Tory former minister who chairs the Common Sense group for rightwing government backbenchers, was asked what was wrong with high immigration, given that people were coming to the UK to do jobs that weren’t being done by British workers. He replied:

Well, it is certainly that the ease of paying workers from abroad displaces investment in domestic skills, including upskilling the existing workforce. But it also displaces investment in the modernisation of economy, and in better working practices. And the consequence is bound to inhibit productivity and damage competitiveness.

So you’re right that we should be training people, giving opportunities … and immigration doesn’t help with that. It displaces that kind of concentration.

But there’s a bigger point. You can have an economy that’s based on labour intensity, a very labour intensive economy, which is low skilled, and hope that somehow boosts growth as a whole.

But actually, what we want is a high tech, high skills economy. We want, wherever we can, to move to automation, towards modernisation, to have a more streamlined economy, because that’s the future. We’re not going to compete with China and other countries, India which have a high level of labour dependence.

This is similar to the analysis published by the Labour party yesterday, as it announced new plans intended to limit the number of work visas issued.

But when it was put to Hayes that there just were not enough Britons available to do these jobs, he suggested that people currently on sick leave, and disabled people, could fill many of the gaps. He said:

We’ve got 2.5 million people on long-term sick leave. We’ve got very many disabled people who said they want to work and can’t get jobs. We’ve got a lot of people who left the workforce during Covid, older people typically, who we need to get back into the workforce. So the argument there are no Britons for these jobs does not really stand up to the test of those figures.

Stephen Kinnock, Labour’s immigration spokesperson, told LBC this morning that the figures would today would show the government had lost control of migration. He said:

[The figures] will say that they’ve lost control of the issue. They have failed to have a strategy in place for our local labour market, and as a result of that, employers are being forced to reach for overseas immigration.

We need a much more balanced approach, ensuring that we have the immigration we need of course, but that there’s much more opportunity for skills, productivity training, workforce planning to get our economy firing on all cylinders again.

Good morning. The Office for National Statistics will publish net migration figures for 2022 within the hour, and they are expected to show a record number of people arriving – around 700,000 or more, according to estimates. Because the Conservatives have been promising to reduce immigration levels since 2010, because people at the top of government championed Brexit, which was supposed to make it easier for the UK to control immigration numbers, and because the 2019 Tory manifesto implied annual net migration would below 226,000 by the time of the next election, these numbers will be a big problem for Rishi Sunak.

On the Today programme this morning Sir John Hayes, who chairs the Common Sense group of rightwing Tory MPs and who is an ally of Suella Braverman, the home secretary, said an increase along the lines expected would not be acceptable. He said:

You can’t grow your population at 700,000 a year – where on earth are you going to house these people? We build about 180,000 new homes a year.

Of course more than a million have come because this is a net figure, if it does turn out to be 700,000.

You just can’t grow the population at that pace. The pressure it places on public services and housing … The whole government needs to work together to deal with unprecedented population growth, which just is not sustainable.

I will post more from his interview shortly.

Here is the agenda for the day.

9.30am: The ONS publishes net migration figures for 2022. At the same time, the Home Office is also publishing figures about asylum application and small boat Channel crossings.

10am: Rishi Sunak gives an interview to ITV’s This Morning.

11.30am: Downing Street holds a lobby briefing.

12pm: Humza Yousaf takes first minister’s questions at Holyrood.

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