The champagne corks won't exactly be popping in Downing Street; however, Sir Keir Starmer will certainly be breathing a sigh of relief that the Government has something more positive to report regarding immigration levels.
But although ministers will be more than happy to bask in the relatively good news around those migration figures, in truth, they can't claim any of the credit.
The drop in migration can be largely attributed to policies enacted in the dying days of the Conservative government.
The latest Office for National Statistics figures reveal that net migration fell by almost 50 per cent in the year to December 2024. During that period, it's estimated that the net migration level fell to 431,000.
It seems almost perverse that such a figure - the population of a city the size of Edinburgh - should be celebrated.
The vast majority of people in the UK would still consider such a figure to be far too high, and well north of the tens of thousands former Prime Minister David Cameron had once set as his government's migration target.
And here's another thing to consider: although net migration has fallen by almost 50 per cent, this is an estimate by the ONS and subject to later revision.
Keir Starmer will claim victory over migration - but it was the Tories who did the work - Mark White
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In fact, the last set of migration figures estimated net migration to be 728,000. That figure has now been revised up by more than 130,000 to stand at 860,000.
So, we can expect the eventual net migration figure for the year to December 2024 to be well over half a million.
Much of the fall in net migration has been driven by a decrease in immigration from non-EU nationals, due to reductions in those arriving for work and study.
And that is due to the changes implemented by the Conservatives.
An increase in salary thresholds and limitations on the number of dependants a migrant can bring with them has seen the number of work visas issued in the year to December last year fall by 39 per cent to 192,000.
Similarly, a ban on most students being able to bring family members with them has seen study visas drop by 10% to 403,000.
Indeed, the number of visas issued to the dependants of students fell by a whopping 83 per cent to stand at just 18,000 for the year to December.
And because net migration is made up of the number of people arriving in the UK compared with the numbers leaving, the emigration figures also make for interesting reading.
OPINION: Migration falls sharply, but the drop stems from late Conservative policies - not Labour’s new plans, says Mark White.
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Emigration rose by around 11 per cent to an estimated 517,000 having left the UK in the year to December 2024.
Although some leaving will undoubtedly be those who felt, for whatever reason, they no longer wanted to remain here, a significant proportion of the figure is made up of foreign students who came here in significant numbers after the pandemic, have finally completed their courses, and are now returning home.
Labour is introducing further changes in an immigration white paper, aimed at bringing legal migration down even further.
But those changes will take some time to kick in, and independent analysis estimates they're unlikely to reduce net migration levels by much more than an additional 100,000.
Sir Keir Starmer will be more than aware that, even with those changes, attempting to sell annual net migration levels of up to 400,000 as a win will be a tough sell.
