Record numbers quit UK but even more arrive here

Published on Thursday 26 November 2009 21:40

THE number of people leaving the UK hit a record high last year – driven by Eastern European workers returning home.

But the number of new arrivals rose by even more, with in excess of half a million people coming in, official statistics showed.

Home Office minister Phil Woolas said the figures showed immigrants were coming to the UK to work and then returning home.

He said: "Our new flexible, points-based system gives us greater control over those coming to work or study from outside Europe, ensuring that only those that Britain need can come."

But the Tories called for an annual limit on the number of non-European Union workers allowed into the country. Shadow immigration minister Damian Green said: "To make the points-based system effective in cutting immigration to sensible levels, we need to have an annual limit on the numbers coming here."

Overall, migration both in and out added 163,000 to the population last year. Some 590,000 people came in and 427,000 left, half of them European migrants.