Uncontrolled migration risks unmanageable pressures on public services

Ihave a very clear view on immigration. It must be legal, it must be controlled and it must be fair. And fundamentally, net migration needs to come down.

My starting point is simple. It should be this country – and your government – that decides who comes here.

That’s why I have made stopping the boats one of my five priorities. We cannot allow people to come here illegally at the whim of criminal gangs. It’s not fair on those who have played by the rules. It’s not fair on those who desperately need our help but can’t get it because our asylum system is overwhelmed by people travelling here through safe countries. And it’s not fair on the British people who are having to spend nearly £6million a day to put up illegal migrants in hotels.

But it’s not just a question of legality. We can’t have uncontrolled legal migration either. That’s unfair too. It leads to unmanageable pressures on housing, schools and hospitals. And when it is too high and too fast, it can make it difficult for communities to integrate new arrivals.

That’s why in our 2019 manifesto, the Government committed to bringing down net migration. And it is why when we left the European Union, we ended decades of uncontrolled migration and introduced a new points-based system to give us full control of our borders.

This means we can now control the numbers who come here while ensuring we access the skills and talent needed by our businesses and our NHS. Indeed, more than half of the skilled workers who arrived in the past year work in health and social care.

But this new approach has also given us the ability to adjust our system to meet the changing needs of our economy and society. And the change we need now is very clear.

The ONS statistics published at the end of last year show net migration has risen significantly and is higher than it was before the pandemic. Some of this is a result of temporary factors, including a post-covid surge and our resettlement schemes for those fleeing war and persecution. Over 174,000 have come from Ukraine alone. It was right that we opened our hearts and our homes to the Ukrainian people – and this paper was right to call for it.

But part of the increase in net migration is a staggering rise in the number of dependents coming to the UK alongside international students. We have seen a more than eight-fold increase between 2019 and 2022, from 16,000 to 136,000.

The fact that we attract so many overseas students is a fantastic tribute to the strength of our world-leading universities. This is not just a source of pride for our country, it’s also a source of economic strength because those students make a vital economic contribution through their student fees and, ultimately, their wages. That’s why we set a target to host 600,000 international students – and we’ve met it almost a decade early. But this cannot come at the expense of our commitment to lower net migration.

So yesterday we set out a plan to bring down net migration with a number of steps to reform the visa system for international students.

These include removing the right to bring dependents on the student visa route unless you are on a post-graduate research programme. The numbers suggest this might be being used by some as a loophole so we will close it. We will also clamp down on unscrupulous international student agents who may be supporting inappropriate applications.

Let me be clear. These changes are not about being anti-immigrant. And we should never allow anyone to make that charge against us. No one could be prouder of our history of legal migration – from our place in the world as a sanctuary for the most in need to the generations of families who have come here, contributed here, and made their home here.

It’s a basic question of fairness and control. To me it is clear and inarguable: net migration is simply too high. And I will bring it down.

‘Those who desperately need our help can’t get it because our asylum system is overwhelmed’