May: We’ll hit migrant target by 2022

THERESA May plans to cut immigration to the tens of thousands in the course of the next parliament, she signalled yesterday.

A pledge to limit net migration to the country was set out in the Tory manifesto, without a timetable.

But Mrs May told the Mail yesterday that achieving the aim in the next five years was ‘what we’re working for’.

Her comments were in response to an interview given by policing minister Brandon Lewis in which he said immigration would be reduced to the target figure by 2022.

Asked whether what Mr Lewis had said was true, she responded: ‘That’s what we’re work- ing for. We’re working to bring immigration down to the tens of thousands. But having been Home Secretary for six years this isn’t something that you can just produce the magic bullet that suddenly does everything. What you have to do is keep working at it.’

The target was introduced by David Cameron but was not achieved in the six years that Mrs May was Home Secretary and in her time as Prime Minister.

Net migration fell by 49,000 to 273,000 last year, according to official figures – the first substantial drop for more than four years.

Speaking in South Kirkby, West Yorkshire, Mrs May said: ‘The reason why we want to bring net migration down to sustainable levels, which we have set at the tens of thousands, is because of the impact that immigration has, when it’s too fast and too high and uncontrolled, on people.

‘So we believe it is right to work for those sustainable levels but what I’ve always said and we made clear in the manifesto is that you have to consistently work at it.

‘There is no single thing that you can do that suddenly creates that particular set of numbers. You’re constantly having to work at it, to look at all parts of it, and of course when we leave the EU we’ll be able to set rules for people coming from the European Union.’