Rishi Sunak was unaware of Home Office emergency break proposals on migration reportedly rejected by his predecessor, No 10 has suggested.
The Sun reported the Home Office had drawn up a policy document suggesting ministers could cap entry visas, raise fees and increase salary thresholds as “deliberate frictions” in a bid to meet the Conservatives’ 2019 manifesto pledge to reduce overall migration.
The paper said former prime minister Liz Truss rejected the proposals.
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Asked whether the prime minister could revisit the measures, Downing Street said Mr Sunak had “introduced the toughest ever action” to curb the numbers of people legally arriving into Britain.
Net migration hit a record high of 606,000 last year, driven by people from non-European Union countries arriving for work, study and humanitarian reasons.
Anticipating the figures, Mr Sunak’s government announced restrictions on most overseas students being able to bring their families and other dependants over to the UK with them.
The prime minister’s official spokesperson pointed out it was not Mr Sunak who dismissed the so-called emergency break.
Asked what Mr Sunak thought about the proposals, the official said: “I’m not sure he has seen proposals from under a previous prime minister.
“For his part, he looked at the issue of net migration and introduced the toughest ever action to reduce migration by removing the right for most international students to bring family members.
“We think the plan that we introduced struck the right balance between significantly reducing net migration numbers but also ensuring we can grow our economy.”
Emergency brake ‘gathering dust’
A Whitehall source told The Sun the emergency brake was “just sitting there gathering dust”.
“The Treasury had kittens about it but if ministers actually wanted to get the numbers down, here is how they could.”
Tories urge Sunak to cut ‘destabilising’ immigration
It comes after a group of right-wing Tory MPs put forward a 12-point plan aimed at assisting the government in meeting its manifesto pledge on migration.
The New Conservatives, made up of MPs elected since the Brexit vote and backed by party deputy chair Lee Anderson, recommended ministers close temporary visa schemes for care workers and cap the number of refugees resettling in the UK at 20,000.
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They said reducing the number of migrants coming to the country was a key part of Tory victories in so-called red wall seats in 2019, and said the current level is having “destabilising economic and cultural consequences”.