The Prime Minister has used his G7 trip to Japan to weasel out of the Tories’ 2019 manifesto commitment to reduce net immigration from that year’s figure.
In 2019, net immigration stood at 226,000. Boris Johnson’s Conservative manifesto pledged: “Overall numbers will come down”.
Now Rishi Sunak has pledged to reduce net migration coming into Britain, but only from the level he inherited when becoming Prime Minister last year.
Rishi Sunak inherited net migration of 504,000, meaning by his own goals, net immigration could be twice that going into the next election than the last.
Next week the Home Office is expected to publish the figures for 2022, and experts have predicted they will show another leap in the numbers coming into the country.
READ MORE: Home Office braced for potential net migration of 1 million
Reports suggest next week’s figures will show the net influx into Britain standing between 700,000 and one million – the highest ever on record.
Mr Sunak refused to get drawn on speculation of what next week’s numbers will show, though defended last year’s record high by pointing out it included large numbers of Ukrainian refugees.
New visa schemes for people coming from Hong Kong, Afghanistan and Ukraine made up just 138,000 of last year’s 504,000 figure, however.
The Prime Minister said he is “crystal clear” about wanting net migration to come down, admitting it is “too high”.
“I am committed to bringing the levels of legal migration down, we’re very clear about that, there are a range of we’re considering, and at the same time I think people know that I’m relentlessly focussing on stopping the boats because levels of illegal migration are too high and they’ve escalated massively over the last few years.
A Cabinet split has recently opened up over immigration, however, with the Chancellor, Education Secretary, Health Secretary and Scottish Secretary disagreeing with Suella Braverman’s desire to decrease numbers.
Jeremy Hunt signalled to business leaders at the British Chamber of Commerce this week that that immigration controls would be eased further to plug labour shortages in the short-term.
Scottish Secretary Alister Jack said he’s “entirely supportive” of high levels of immigration to boost the Scottish workforce.
“We have more people economically inactive since Covid and we have to fill those jobs so I’m entirely supportive of that.”
Unlike Mr Sunak, he accepted that migration figures this year will be higher still.
This morning the Telegraph revealed that Education Secretary Gillian Keegan said she is “hugely proud” that 600,000 foreign students are now coming to the UK – an active target at the Department for Education that they’ve hit eight years early.
A departmental memo seen by the paper openly said: “The 600K target for international students is not a one-year expectation, we’re expected to deliver on it every year.”
However ministers are reportedly close to agreeing a clampdown on the number of dependents foreign students on postgraduate masters degree courses can bring to the UK, a move that would reduce net migration numbers by tens of thousands.
Earlier this week, Suella Braverman told the National Conservatism Conference that immigration is too high and numbers must come down.
