The Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, Rishi Sunak, has begun to introduce a series of measures aimed at restricting immigration into the country.
Home Secretary James Cleverly raised the salary limit for foreign workers to £38,000 and banned foreign welfare recipients from bringing relatives to the UK.
Conservative MPs called on the Prime Minister to offer even “tougher” measures to control the numbers and warned that “nothing is more important” to voters than immigration.
Labor accused the Conservatives of “chaotic panic”, while union leaders claimed the Prime Minister was “playing roulette with essential services” to appease the right.
Clever announced a plan to reduce legal migration and a new target of 300,000 fewer migrants per year. The plan contains the following points:
Foreign carers can no longer bring their relatives to the UK
The minimum income for family visas has been raised to the new salary threshold of £38,700
The list of scarce occupations is being revised to eliminate a 20 percent salary reduction
The possibility of a postgraduate visa, which allows students to stay for two years after completing their studies, is currently being examined
The home secretary promised the plan would lead to a significant reduction in migration after numbers rose to a record high of 745,000 in 2022, sparking outrage among Conservatives. He said the strategy would reduce annual numbers by 300,000 over the next few years.
Sunak and Cleverly have not capped the total number of visas and benefits a move that Immigration Secretary Robert Jenrick is believed to have pushed for.
The Common Sense Group chairman said the new measures were “long overdue but incredibly welcome” but warned Sunak he needed to go further, ending the postgraduate visa route and setting a general cap on migration fluids.
Rightwing leader Simon Clarke said Conservative voters had expressed “their desperation for bold action to find a solution”.