Net migration has fallen. According to the latest figures from the Office for National Statistics, there has been a 69% drop compared to June last year — from an eye-watering 649,000 to a lower, but still high, 204,000.

Naturally, there’s a row over who deserves the credit. Labour, so quick to blame the Conservatives on all things economic, has been equally quick to take the plaudits for the fall, which has happened on Keir Starmer’s watch. The Tories, conversely, point out that most of the decline is a result of policy changes introduced during Rishi Sunak’s premiership.

There is some merit on both sides. The Conservatives did bring in most of the measures which have helped to drive down net immigration over the past couple of years — but that is from an absurd historic high (the “Boriswave”) which was itself a result of Tory policies.

The Government, meanwhile, deserves credit for keeping those policies in place. That is not something that should be taken for granted: be it Bridget Phillipson’s one-woman crusade against two decades of school reform or Rachel Reeves’s U-turns on tax rises and welfare, Labour inheriting good policy is no guarantee it won’t rip it up.

Whether or not any of this will pay off for the Government politically is another question. Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood is introducing a raft of new immigration restrictions, and some of these may well bear fruit by the next election in terms of lowering numbers.

But the overall numbers are still very high. According to the Office for National Statistics (ONS), just under 900,000 people immigrated to Britain in the year after last year’s election. The reason the net figure looks so comparably reasonable is due to emigration.

This poses problems, however. Firstly, a substantial share of current emigration involves EU citizens who arrived in the UK before Brexit. This is a trend that will eventually run its course, which is why the watchdog actually predicts net migration to start rising again by 2029. Secondly, another slice of emigrants are British nationals leaving the country; in the latest figures, this is about 250,000 people.

Some of this will be natural and untroubling. But to the extent it represents productive people leaving the country, for example high earners driven away by raised taxes or young professionals such as doctors seeking better opportunities overseas, it is a poor indicator of national health to which more attention should be paid.

Likewise, it means that cutting net immigration by itself will not, and should not, allay the concerns of voters concerned about integration and the pace of cultural change. If Britain imported one million new people every year but waved goodbye to one million Britons, net immigration would be zero. Yet the pace of change would be double what it would be if all the Brits stayed here and net immigration was one million.

Finally, the public’s view of immigration will also be informed by the Government’s handling of illegal migration and related issues, such as the Home Office’s use of hotels and private housing. On this front, ministers have to date made little progress and show no sign yet of making any more. The promise to stop using hotels will pay no political dividends — and save no money — if the Home Office ends up using privately-rented or social housing instead. The only thing which would make a difference is an actual change to the state’s legal obligation to house asylum seekers, of which there has been none.

Likewise, small boat crossings are unlikely to fall so long as the UK both remains incapable of effectively deporting enough of them to act as a deterrent and refuses to establish effective offshore processing, such as that used by the Australians. If Mahmood does manage to prevent the Boriswave becoming a permanent burden on the British taxpayer, she will deserve real credit. But if Labour ministers hope that will be enough to neutralise immigration as an electoral issue, they are surely mistaken.

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Henry Hill is Deputy Editor of ConservativeHome.

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