UK government likely to miss net migration target?

Promises to cut net migration to the 'tens of thousands' by the end of this parliament are highly unlikely to be delivered by current policy, according to research at the Centre on Migration, Policy and Society (COMPAS) at the University of Oxford. New analysis on their website, the Migration Observatory, has revealed that the government is set to miss the target by more than 65,000. In a commentary entitled Off Target released today, the Migration Observatory says the Conservative pledge to reduce net migration to less than 100,000 by 2015 does not correspond with the government's own estimates of how far net migration can be reduced by current policy changes. Latest figures show that net migration has increased to 242,000 (year to September 2010). The government is attempting to reduce this level by: cutting the numbers of migrants permitted to work in the UK, reducing levels of student immigration and family immigration from outside the EU; and making it harder for migrants to settle in the UK. The 242,000 figure means that the government needs to reduce net migration by over 142,000 by 2015 to achieve their goal. However, the government's own assessments estimate that changes to the work route will only cut net migration by 11,000 in 2015; and changes to the student route cut by 56,000 in 2015.