‘We’re in two minds on migration. Let’s find a way to strike a balance’

In a focus group I organised in Peterborough ahead of the EU referendum, a participant ardently championed the “fantastic work ethic” of migrants. “Lovely people,” he said to the group. “There’s a lot of rubbish talked about benefits and the fact that people can just walk into a council house, and I know that isn’t correct.​”

Moments later, he reflected on his favourite politician. “The person who talks the most sense is Nigel Farage, to be honest with you.” Warming to the theme, he said: “It just seems bizarre in this day and age that we’re still having to fork out for people coming over … And there has to be a cap. There has to be a cap.​”

This ambivalence is a longstanding feature of public opinion on migration. As the British Future thinktank has found, nearly half the public are “balancers”, falling between more extreme liberals and sceptics. This puts into sharp focus the government’s challenge as it tries to rebuild public confidence in an immigration system when it has hit rock bottom.

There is no doubt that the government was left with an unenviable inheritance on immigration. Asylum processing had virtually ground to a halt before the election. The costs of the asylum system had spiralled out of control, reaching nearly £5.4bn in 2023/24. And the new social care visa route had led to widespread abuse and exploitation of migrant workers.

Labour’s first steps in government have been to restore order to the system – cancelling the previous government’s plan to send migrants to Rwanda and speeding up asylum processing. Its recent white paper sets out new plans to bring net migration levels down – and, in fact, the latest figures suggest numbers were already falling sharply in 2024.

But if the government wants to rebuild public confidence on immigration, it will need to go beyond restoring order and set out a new agenda for reform.

First, it needs to articulate an authentic and coherent vision that forms a bridge between members of the public who welcome migration and those who are more sceptical. This means respecting the need for a carefully managed, controlled system. But it also means valuing the contributions that migration brings – to the economy, to public services, and to communities. Crucially, the vision must consider how to support the integration of people who have made the UK their home – and ensure that those who put down their roots and contribute are able to settle and become citizens.

Second, the government needs an annual immigration plan to manage the trade-offs involved in reforming migration policy and resolve differences between the Home Office and other departments.

An annual plan would create a clear framework – a bit like an annual budget – to coordinate decisions on immigration proactively, instead of making knee-jerk reactions to the latest migration statistics.

Finally, action is needed to grip some of the most persistent challenges on migration – the continuing high numbers of small boats and the use of asylum hotels. This will require ambitious reforms. A new review process should be introduced to improve the quality of asylum decisions, in order to and keep the appeals backlog under control. Spending on asylum hotels should be redirected to capital grants for local authorities to buy up more housing. And as part of the EU reset, the government Labour should explore an asylum deal, asking EU countries to process the claims of small boat arrivals in exchange for making it easier for refugees in Europe to reunite with family members in the UK.

Striking the right balance on migration is not easy, particularly for a government under political pressure from multiple directions. But there is an agenda that wins the confidence of those with the nuanced views of the man I spoke to in Peterborough – by recognising both that migration needs to be managed carefully and that people coming to the UK must be treated fairly.

Marley Morris is an associate director specialising in migration at the Institute for Public Policy Research

Photograph by Gareth Fuller/PA