Jenrick wants even tougher migration plan
ROBERT Jenrick has indicated a massive shake-up of legal migration may not go far enough.
The immigration minister said Monday’s package of reforms – billed as the biggest ever reduction of net migration – was a ‘big step forward’ but added that ‘more things may need to be done’.
He also said there was ‘merit’ in imposing a cap on overall immigration levels – a move that was absent from Home Secretary James Cleverly’s five-point plan that is expected to slash net migration by 300,000 a year.
Mr Jenrick insisted the Government is still committed to its 2019 manifesto promise to reduce net legal migration to below the 219,000 seen that year. Previously the Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and other senior Cabinet ministers have sought to move away from that pledge.
But the Government has been facing increasing pressure – including from its own backbenches – to cut net migration after new figures revealed last month that it hit a record 745,000 last year.
Mr Jenrick said: ‘I’ve been very clear that net migration is far too high and that is why we have worked so hard to bring forward this very significant set of measures.
‘More things may need to be done but this is a big step forward.’ Asked if migrant numbers should be capped, he said: ‘There are merits to ideas like that. But what matters now is action.
‘The public wants to see us actually deliver reducing levels of net migration. People are sick of talk on this topic.’
His remarks appeared to go further than those made by his boss Mr Cleverly in the Commons, when he said a cap would be ‘difficult’ to operate.
Shadow home secretary Yvette Cooper said several of the measures announced by the Government should be delayed.
Mr Sunak faced a backlash yesterday over plans to more than double the salary threshold for foreign spouses.
British citizens will have to earn at least £38,700 to sponsor foreign family members wishing to gain a visa.
But Madeleine Sumption, director of the Migration Observatory at the University of Oxford, said: ‘It’s a significant restriction. The UK is already on the more restrictive end for international family migration policies.’
Tory MP Alicia Kearns, chairwoman of the foreign affairs committee, claimed the new rules ‘risk being very unconservative’ by potentially splitting families and said she was ‘very uncomfortable’ with the plans.
The criticism came as Conservative MP Jonathan Gullis said he would like to see ex-Brexit Party leader Nigel Farage as a home secretary. The former minister said he would be ‘happy to welcome him’ into the Tory fold.