Rishi committed to cutting crossings

RISHI Sunak yesterday vowed to cut the number of migrants coming to Britain with a system that ‘works best for the UK’.

Promising to stand by pledges made in the 2019 Conservative manifesto, Downing Street said the Prime Minister was ‘committed to ensuring we have control over our borders’.

Mr Sunak will bring net migration down while ensuring that Britain has the necessary ‘skills and talents’, No 10 said.

The new PM’s official spokesman told reporters: ‘ Meeting our manifesto commitments remains important – the PM has been clear on that – and that relates to net migration as well where we’ve said that it should come down.

‘He’s committed to ensuring we have control over our borders and the public rightly expects us to control immigration and have a system that works.’

The spokesman said he was ‘not aware’ of a specific target, but that Mr Sunak was committed to seeing migration fall. He added: ‘We will be guided by the principle that we need the skills and talents both to support our economy whilst also encouraging businesses to invest in people.’ The 2019 Tory manifesto pledged there would be fewer lower-skilled migrants and overall numbers would come down.

It said: ‘Only by establishing immigration controls and ending freedom of movement will we be able to attract the highskilled workers we need.’

During the summer leadership race, Mr Sunak announced a ten-point immigration plan to ‘take back control of our borders’. He pledged to do ‘whatever it takes to get our partnership with Rwanda off the ground’, and said no adult who enters the UK illegally ‘will have a route to remain’.

Mr Sunak also wanted to tighten the definition of who qualifies for UK asylum, create an annual cap on the number of refugees accepted and increase cooperation with France to stop small boats.

No 10 was unable to confirm yesterday whether these commitments still stood now he has entered office. Home Secretary Suella Braverman gave an update ‘on ongoing work to tackle illegal immigration’ during yesterday’s Cabinet meeting.

Mr Sunak said it was ‘a complex and challenging issue but that the public rightly expected the Government to find a longlasting solution’.