Rishi Sunak has refused to apologise for record net immigration that breaks a key election promise amid growing pressure for further government action from ministers and Conservative backbench MPs.
After official figures showed the difference between the number of people coming to live in the UK and those leaving had peaked at 745,000, the prime minister said immigration needed to fall to “more sustainable” levels.
The immigration minister, Robert Jenrick, had put forward a five-point plan that included proposals to ban foreign social care workers from bringing in any dependants and a cap on the total number of visas for NHS and social care workers.
Other Tory MPs have demanded “immediate and massive” action to meet the party’s manifesto pledge to reduce the net immigration to the “tens of thousands”.
In an interview at the Nissan car plant in Sunderland, Sunak declined to comment when asked whether he would apologise for not meeting the manifesto pledge. “I’m very clear that the levels of migration are too high and they’ve got to come down to more sustainable levels,” he said.
Sunak pointed to the Office for National Statistics recording that immigration was “slowing” but said he recognised “we’ve got more to go” to bring down the number of people coming to the UK.
The ONS said on Thursday that the difference between the number of people legally arriving in Britain and those leaving was 745,000 in the year to December 2022.
The figure is three times higher than than the levels seen before Brexit, despite a Conservative party 2019 manifesto pledge to bring overall numbers down.
Many MPs on the right of the party, including the former home secretary Suella Braverman have called on Mr Sunak to honour that commitment.
Jenrick’s plan is said to include proposals to scrap the shortage occupation list, a programme that allows foreign workers to be paid 20% below the going rate in roles where there is a shortage of skilled workers.
The government’s migration advisory committee has already recommended the abolition of the list amid fears it is being used to bring cheap foreign labour into the UK.
Downing Street refused to say what Sunak makes of Jenrick’s proposals when asked by journalists, insisting No 10 would not be getting into “running commentary on policy development”.
Calls to curb the number of foreign workers in the NHS and social care are likely to be met with resistance by health officials amid chronic staff shortages across the health and care sector.
Sunak said his administration had already taken action this year by “clamping down on the number of dependents” that international students could bring with them to the UK.
“That action I took represents the single toughest measure that anyone has taken to bring down the levels of legal migration in a very long time,” he said. “So that should give people a sense of my commitment to bringing migration down. And if we see further abuse of the system, of course we’re prepared to act to do more.”
The work and pensions secretary said revised figures that showed net immigration peaked at 745,000 were “unacceptable”.
Braverman, who was home secretary for a year before she was sacked this month, said on social media: “Today’s record numbers are a slap in the face to the British public who have voted to control and reduce migration at every opportunity. We must act now to reduce migration to sustainable levels. Brexit gave us the tools. It’s time to use them.”
Her successor as home secretary, James Cleverly, told the Times: “This figure is not showing a significant increase from last year’s figures and is largely in line with our immigration statistics.”
