Summary

  • Official net migration figures show net migration soared by more than 50% to 318,000 last year

  • 641,000 moved to the UK in 2014, up from 526,000 in 2013. Biggest rise was in EU citizens moving to UK

  • Home Secretary Theresa May says Conservative ambition is still to get net migration below 100,000

  • David Cameron announces new immigration proposals including seizing wages of illegal immigrants

  • Leadership candidate Liz Kendall says Labour must reform public services and embrace the government's education reforms in England

Live Reporting

Matthew West and Aiden James

  1. Immigration policy 'feeding hysteria'

    Labour MP tweets...

  2. Carswell: The fundamental issue

    Douglas Carswell

    UKIP MP Douglas Carswell has expanded on his views of the government's new immigration policy.

    These measures might catch a handful of illegal people, it might mean that a small number of people get prosecuted or persecuted, but it's not actually going to do anything to control our borders. And that is because we can't control out borders if 400 million people have an automatic legal right to come here. And that's the fundamental issue, and everything else is designed to distract us from that."

  3. Number of NEETs falls

    There have been some other official figures out today which showed  one in eight young people is not in education, employment or training (NEET)

    The Office for National Statistics said the number of young people considered "NEET" is at a 10-year low, although there has been a slight rise in teenagers in this category. 

    Skills minister Nick Boles said the figures show the government's economic plan is working, though others say there is more to be done to ensure no youngster is "slipping through the cracks".

    In total, 738,000 16 to 24-year-olds (12.3%) were classed as NEET in the first three months of the year, down 174,000 on the same point in 2010.

  4. Get Involved

    Surely the main problem with immigration is the increased strain on already-stretched public services? Then taking illegal immigrants' wages away will only make them more dependent on those services - in particular the NHS when they get more unhealthy and unwell.  

    Adam, Politics Live reader

  5. Get Involved

    I am afraid the immigration bill will just serve as a pretext to harass people of Asian and African origin. 

    Unfortunately, it will not drive down immigration figures since these illegals do not make up the bulk of the immigration figures.

    Getting GPs and landlords involved is more or less a license for reckless harassment of certain migrant groups, who are here legally. It breeds discrimination.  

    How will this be implemented? It is just worrying. I wish the government can just focus on controlling immigration instead of targeting certain races and minority ethnic types under the guise of targeting illegals. 

    It is not only illegals that will be affected but majority of legals will be affected. It is a shame!

    Mutase, Politics Live reader

  6. Council houses

    The BBC's home editor tweets...

  7. Why did Labour lose?

    Ed Miliband

    BBC news special correspondent Lucy Manning has spoken to the boss of the firm who carved the #EdStone (of Labour election pledges) and former Miliband aide Bob Roberts, about the party's election loss.

    Watch the full video here.

  8. Net migration difficult to achieve

    Madeleine Sumption, director of the Migration Observatory at the University of Oxford, has reacted to today's immigration figures:

    Today's figures show how difficult it would be to reduce net migration to the 'tens of thousands'. Net migration has risen even despite new restrictions on family, work and student visas that were introduced during the last parliament."

  9. Immigration good

    National Institute of Economic and Social Research's director tweets...

  10. Can illegal migrant clampdown work?

    By Dominic Casciani, home affairs correspondent

    Dominic Casciani

    If the government is going to clampdown on illegal workers, it needs to find them. So how many illegal migrants are there in the UK? The simple truth is - nobody knows.The best that we have are a series of academic guesses using various competing techniques of estimating what's going on. The problem with all these estimates - and comparable calculations carried out by other big nations is that nobody can really say whether they mean anything at all.

    In 2012, the Home Office came close to nailing its colours to the mast when it published a paper on the subject. That analysis suggested the best guess is probably around 618,000 - but there is a huge range either side. It could be much lower - or much higher.

  11. Why people moved to UK

    The Office for National Statistics tweets...

  12. Cameron's immigration policy 'absurd'

    UKIP's leader tweets...

  13. Government immigration policies 'mad'

    UKIP's MP tweets...

  14. Immigration promises miss reality

    Labour's shadow home secretary tweets...

  15. More EU citizens employed that Brits in first quarter

    One more significant number to point out is the number of UK citizens who were in jobs in January to March 2015 compared with a year earlier. It's 279,000. So that's less than the 283,000 EU citizens (non-British) who got jobs in the UK over the same period.

  17. Romanian and Bulgarian immigration

    Romanians and Bulgarians got the full rights to move and work in the UK in January 2014. The ONS says 46,000 Romanians and Bulgarians immigrated to the UK in 2014, up from 23,000 the previous year. Of these, 35,000 were coming for work, up from 19,000 in this category the previous year.

  18. Big rise in European workers

    Another eye-catching statistic - the ONS says the latest employment statistics show estimated employment of EU nationals (excluding British) living in the UK was 283,000 higher in January to March 2015 compared with the same period a year earlier.

  19. Emigration levels

    Net migration measures the difference between the numbers of people moving the UK for a year or more and those leaving the UK for a year or more. In 2014 the ONS says an estimated 323,000 people left the UK. That's about the same level as every year since 2010. The total of people moving to the UK was 641,000, up from 526,000 in 2014. That put the net figure at 318,000 - which of course was more than three times the last government's target of cutting net migration to below 100,000.

  20. EU immigration up 67,000

    The Office for National Statistics(ONS) says 641,000 people immigrated to the UK in 2014, up from 526,000 in 2013. 

    There were "statistically significant increases" for immigration of EU (non-British) citizens (up 67,000 to 268,000) and non-EU citizens (up 42,000 to 290,000).

    Immigration of British citizens increased by 7,000 to 83,000, but this was not statistically significant, the ONS says.