In a social media advert posted to X and Facebook, Reform UK shared an image headlined “Immigration isn’t working” which cited the Office for National Statistics as it claimed: “14 million will arrive in the next 12 years.”

Evaluation

The Office for National Statistics (ONS) estimates that 10.3 million people will immigrate to the UK in the next 12 years.

The 13.7 million figure of long-term immigration covered a 15-year period between mid-2021 and mid-2036. By the time of the election campaign, three years of immigration has already passed and the remaining total for the next 12 years is 10.3 million.

The facts

The ONS regularly publishes a National Population Projection, to give those planning public policy an idea of the “potential future size” of the UK population.

As part of these calculations, it also cautions that the numbers “are not forecasts and do not attempt to predict potential changes in international migration”.

The latest projection, published in January 2024, estimates the UK population will grow by 6.6 million between mid-2021 and mid-2036.

Around 500,000 of this will come from a disparity between births and deaths (10.8 million and 10.3 million, respectively).

The remaining population growth of 6.1 million comes from the difference between 13.7 million people immigrating to the UK long-term and 7.6 million people emigrating out of the UK long-term.

The ONS breaks down these figures in its principal projection dataset, showing that over the next 12 years (from mid-2024 to mid-2036), the actual projected level of international migration inflows is 10,347,000.

It assumes a net migration figure of 315,000 each year from 2028 onwards, made up of 827,000 immigrants and 512,000 emigrants.

This follows the current period of high immigration, with a net figure of 672,000 in the year ending June 2023, driven by factors such as housing Ukrainian refugees, and migrants on health and care work visas.

Reform UK has been contacted for comment.

Links

Original post on X (archived)

Original post on Facebook (archived)

ONS: National population projections: 2021-based interim (archived)

ONS: Principal projection 2021-interim dataset [XLSX file] (archived)

ONS: Long-term international migration, provisional: year ending June 2023 (archived)