The coronavirus pandemic triggered a significant drop in applications to the UK for asylum and visas in the first quarter of the year, as well as a fall in the number of people removed from the country, official figures show.
There were significant falls for work and study visas in March, in particular for Chinese nationals, and this was likely to be related to Covid-19, the Home Office said.
Work visa applications were down 3% in the first three months of the year, compared with the first quarter of 2019, and, while study visa applications were up 65% in the same period, they fell significantly in March, the Home Office said.
Overall arrivals into the UK were down 18% in the first three months of the year.
Travel restrictions were behind a fall in the number of people removed from the country – but there were still thousands of individuals removed.
The number of enforced returns was down 30% to 1,356 in the first quarter compared with the same period last year, while voluntary returns were down 37% to 2,253 and refusals at ports, where people are turned away, were down 27% to 3,405.
The number of people granted asylum in the first quarter fell 7%, while the number of applications for asylum fell 5%, which the Home Office again attributes to the pandemic.
At the end of March, there were 51,906 asylum seekers in the UK awaiting a decision on their application, up 33% on the previous year, meaning they are unable to work and are living on government support worth £5.39 a day. Of these, 31,516 had been waiting for more than six months, a 68% increase.
Christine Jardine, the Liberal Democrat home affairs spokesperson, said: “The coronavirus crisis is leaving the most vulnerable in our society at risk. We must ensure no one is left behind.
“People who’ve come to the UK having fled war or persecution should be welcomed with compassion and enabled to contribute to our society, not trapped for months on just £5.39 a day – especially now during this pandemic.”
Separate data from the Office for National Statistics showed net migration into the UK – the difference between the number of people settling in and the number leaving the country – increased by 270,000 in the year to December.
The increase was driven by a record high number of people moving to the UK long-term from non-EU countries. Last year, immigration from non-EU countries rose to 404,000, the highest it has ever been since records began in 1975. Immigration from EU countries in the same period was 196,000.
The Home Office plans to publish a more detailed report on 28 May on the impact of Covid-19 on migration, which will look at data from April of this year.