Rudd fails to back PM’s migration pledge

AMBER Rudd yesterday refused to promise that net migration would fall to tens of thousands, despite Theresa May suggesting it will be a manifesto pledge.

During a radio interview, the Home Secretary was asked if the Conservatives would carry a similar target to the one included in their 2015 manifesto to reduce migration to the ‘tens of thousands’.

But speaking on Pienaar’s Politics on Radio 5 Live, she simply said circumstances had changed because EU free movement would end after Brexit.

She added: ‘We’re having a new manifesto, it’s not going to be identical to the last one. We’re setting it out hopefully for a five-year term. My personal view is that we need to continue to bring immigration down. I want to make sure we do it in a way that supports businesses.’

Two weeks ago the Prime Minister offered her view on reducing migration levels.

On a campaign visit, Mrs May said: ‘ We have been very clear it is important we have net migration that is in sustainable numbers. We believe sustainable numbers are the tens of thousands.’

Miss Rudd however, along with Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson and Chancellor Philip Hammond have privately urged the PM to water down the pledge or abandon it entirely, warning there is little prospect of it being delivered any time soon.

But last night a Tory source insisted the pledge would stay in the manifesto, adding: ‘The PM has been very clear that target is going to be in there, and that she wants to bring migration down.’ Defenders of the pledge say it focuses minds in Whitehall on addressing migrant numbers.

In her interview, Miss Rudd also encouraged sandwich chain Pret a Manger to recruit more British nationals after Brexit, instead of hiring so many immigrants.

She said the firm, where nearly two thirds of staff are from EU countries, should ‘make more of an effort’ to hire Britons.

Miss Rudd added: ‘I did hear that Pret a Manger had come out and said, “It’s abso- lutely essential for us to have European workers because if we don’t we’re going to have to make more of an effort to recruit in the UK”. Well, good. I’d like them to make more of an effort to recruit in the UK. So we will be trying to push them as well to do more in the UK.

‘Them and all business – so that we make sure we look after people who are otherwise unemployed in the UK better’.

Earlier this year Pret’s director of human resources said it would struggle to staff its shops after Brexit because so few British people apply for jobs. Andrea Wareham said the industry was not seen as sufficiently desirable to attract a significant number of British jobseekers. The chain employs people from 110 countries.