Tories WILL keep 100,000 target for net migration

THE Prime Minister yesterday unveiled a crackdown on foreign citizens exploiting the immigration system – while keeping the pledge to slash the numbers coming here to the ‘tens of thousands’.

Vowing to ‘bear down on immigration from outside the EU’, Theresa May promised tougher rules – and a fresh drive to tackle health tourism.

The Tory Party manifesto warned migration was ‘too high and too fast’, threatening social cohesion. It said that, at 273,000 in the year to September, net migration – the number of migrants arriving in the UK minus those leaving – needed to be cut to ‘sustainable levels’.

Mrs May said a raft of proposals would allow a Tory government to lower net migration to below 100,000 – but she refused to set an ‘arbitrary’ date for hitting the target.

Firms employing skilled non-EU workers would see the Immigration Skills Charge double to £2,000 a year per employee, with the cash used to train millions of apprentices.

It aims to deter businesses from avoiding ‘obligations to improve the skills of the British workforce’, and the manifesto does not rule out extending the levy to EU workers after Brexit.

Mrs May faced down a Cabinet revolt by vowing to keep foreign students in the migration figures. Removing them could slash the head- line number by more than a third, but she believes doing so would be duping the public.

The manifesto also promised tougher visa requirements for overseas students. It said: ‘We will expect students to leave the country at the end of their course, unless they meet new, higher requirements that allow them to work in Britain after their studies have concluded.’

Figures show 50,000 foreign students a year stay in the UK after completing courses.

And the Tories would raise the £18, 00 salary threshold UK citizens must meet before their non-EU spouses can gain a British visa.

The party also unveiled measures to combat health tourism. Patients would be issued an ‘NHS number’ only if they could prove they were eligible for free healthcare. This is the

ten-digit number given to all patients either at birth or when they first register with a GP.

Those without an NHS number who needed emergency care would still be treated, but given an invoice afterwards.

The Tories also promised to treble the immigration surcharge – insurance fees paid by migrants to cover the cost of NHS care. It would rise to £650, with international students paying £150.

Mrs May said: ‘In immigration, you have to be constantly working at it. There is no single thing that changes the figures in the way that you want. You have to look at all aspects of immigration.

‘What we will be able to do when we leave the EU is, of course, bring in rules and controls for people coming from those remaining countries in the European Union into the UK, which we haven’t been able to do as a member of the EU.’

Failure to control the UK’s borders – in large part due to the requirement to let in EU citizens – was the spur for millions of Brexit voters.

Lord Green of Deddington, of the MigrationWatch think-tank, said the pledges were a ‘sound basis’ for reducing the scale of immigration.

Carolyn Fairbairn, of the Confederation of British Industry, said: ‘In a global race for talent and innovation UK firms risk being left in the starting blocks because of a blunt approach to immigration. The next Government can both control migration and support prosperity.’

Foreign criminals would be fitted with electronic tags as they awaited deportation, the manifesto says, making sure they could not vanish.