evidence: Looking at the recent past, The Sun said the government "handed visas to 1.3 million legal migrants in just two years", and Sir John Hayes MP said in Parliament "that 1.3 million migrants over a period of two years is a catastrophe for Britain is obvious to everyone". This 1.3 million figure refers to net migration—the difference between the number of people who have immigrated to the UK, and those who have emigrated. If we look at the number of those who actually immigrated to the UK during this time, we can see that in the two years to June 2023 nearly 2.3 million people arrived in the UK.