Ministers have been urged to tackle the UK’s “brain drain” after it was revealed young people were leaving Britain in high numbers.

Some 174,000 16 to 34-year-olds left the country in the year to March, figures released by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) show.

Overall net migration - the difference between the number of people arriving to live in the UK minus those emigrating - fell to 204,000 in the year to June, down 69 per cent on the previous 12 months .

An estimated 252,000 Britons left the UK in that period. The number of skilled foreign workers coming to the UK on visas also dropped to 57,000 in the 12 months to September from 75,000 the previous year, while asylum seekers made up 44 per cent of the net number of migrants overall.

Tory MPs argued that the Lab

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