Politically Speaking column with Yvette Cooper MP: The numbers show Labour’s plan for immigration is working
Training in the UK is up. Recruitment from abroad is down. Net migration has halved within a year. Before the election, Labour promised to restore control, order and fairness to the immigration system. The latest figures show we are delivering results.
Both the immigration and asylum systems were left in total chaos by the previous Conservative government. Net migration had quadrupled in the space of four years – hitting a high of nearly a million. Work visas for overseas recruitment shot up, while apprenticeships and training here at home fell down. At the same time criminal gangs had been allowed to take hold along the Channel, asylum delays soared and the rules were not being respected or enforced.
Now the latest official figures show big changes following the practical reforms we’ve introduced.
Net migration has dropped from 944,000 in the peak of the Tory years to 171,000 – a drop of 82 per cent. These stats show that Labour is restoring order to a broken system step by step through sensible reforms.
A year ago, I introduced the Immigration White Paper with major reforms to reduce low skilled migration and boost training here at home.
That’s meant changing the rules so that those applying for work visas have to reach higher skills and English language requirements. The number of work visas has halved since the election. And we’ve boosted support for apprenticeships and training for workers and young people here at home. We’ve got a perfect example here on our doorstep – the new state-of-the-art construction centre at Castleford College.
Legal migration is being brought back under control because of sensible reforms, so we still get the high skills we need – including for our NHS, growing the high skills economy or overseas students at our universities, but so the system is fair and controlled.
At the same time, we are also introducing major reforms to the asylum system, with much stronger enforcement of the rules. We inherited a huge asylum backlog and the mess of the asylum hotels from the Tories. But because of reforms, the backlog is down, the number of people living in asylum hotels are down by a third from last year. And 67,000 people with no right to be in the UK have been returned.
Action is also being taken on the most serious problem of all – the small boats crossing the Channel and the criminal gangs who make huge profits from those making the journey. New counter terrorism powers to go after the gangs have now been introduced because no one should be crossing illegally. Small boat crossings are currently a third lower than this time last year and law enforcement against the gangs on the continent has now increased, but there is more to do.
For generations here in Yorkshire, our communities have welcomed people coming here legally to work in our public services, set up new businesses or fleeing persecution – from the Hungarian miners who came to work here in the pits in the 1950s to the many nurses and doctors in our local NHS, or Ukrainian families fleeing Putin’s invasion. But that is exactly why it is so important that the system is fair, controlled and properly managed, where the rules are properly respected and enforced and public confidence can be restored.