Points based system of the UK increased UK immigration

United Kingdom, 4th June: According to latest figures released by the Home Office, the PBS (points based system) of the UK immigration 
resulted in increasing number of immigrants coming to the UK.

The official data shows that instead of putting a curb on the number of immigrants moving into the UK, the PBS actually resulted in increasing the number of immigrants having UK work visas by 20 percent.

Moreover, the number of international students on the UK student visas also witnessed an increase of 30 percent in the period of first two years following introduction of points based system in the UK.

At the time of introduction of the PBS, the Labor government had made big claims that the system will help in bringing the level of UK immigration down by 12 percent or so.

As per the ONS(Office for National Statistics) figures, net immigration in the UK resulted in increasing the total population of the nation by nearly 142,000 in 2009. Also, almost half of 503,000 immigrants arriving in the UK in last year to September were from non-EU. 

Total number of non-EU migrants obtaining UK work permits went up by 20 percent in the year 2009 to 190,640 from 159,535 in 2007, the Migrationwatch revealed. These figures also include dependents also.

So, instead of reducing the number of migrants hailing from non-EU, UK immigration’s PBS has rather brought an increase in the highly educated and those possessing high skills working and living in the UK presently. The revelation is a tough challenge for the Tories who seem to be devising ways to get hold of the soaring rates of UK immigration and to bring it down to the levels of 1990s.

Sir Andrew Green of think tank Migrationwatch said that the UK immigration system is in complete chaos and is an uphill task for the new UK government.

David Cameron, during his election campaign, had promised that UK immigration would be brought down to tens of thousands.

Meanwhile, an official spokesman for government immigration, Damian Green stated that the UK government is likely to introduce an annual cap on the total number of UK work permits to be issued in order to bring down the present UK immigration to a marginal level.