Rishi Sunak vows to bring net migration below level he ‘inherited’ upon becoming prime minister
Rishi Sunak has vowed to bring the level of net migration down to below the 500,000 figure he “inherited” as prime minister.
Mr Sunak said he was “focused” on cutting the level of net migration, which stood at 504,000 for the year to June 2022. He became prime minister in October of that year.
He is coming under increasing pressure over the issue of migration after he appeared to back away from a commitment made under his predecessor, Boris Johnson, that net migration would fall below 250,000.
Net migration is the annual number of people arriving in the UK when both immigration and emigration are taken into account.
There have been some forecasts suggesting that net migration will continue to climb to as high as a million people – despite the 2019 Conservative manifesto committing to making sure “overall numbers come down”.
At the time, net migration stood at 226,000.
In an interview with Sky News political editor Beth Rigby from the G7 summit in Japan, Mr Sunak was asked whether net migration numbers were going up or down.
Mr Sunak refused to “pre-empt” future numbers, but he said there were a “set of factors” which led to the current figure, including the UK taking in Ukrainian refugees.
Question stumps Sunak in Sky News interview – politics latest
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Rishi Sunak: The full interview
He declined to commit to reducing overall net migration to a specific level multiple times in the interview, but after repeated probing committed to bringing numbers below those when he took office.
“I’m committed to bringing down the levels of net migration that I’ve inherited,” he said.
He added: “I’m focused on bringing down the levels of legal migration, but I am also completely focused as one of my five priorities on stopping the boats and I think that is the country’s priority when it comes to migration.”
Figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) published last November showed that an estimated 504,000 more people came to the UK than left last year – a figure greater than the population of Liverpool.
The figure smashed the previous post-war net migration high of 329,000, set in 2015.
There have been jitters in the Conservative party over forecasts from the Centre for Policy Studies (CPS) that net migration could rise to between 700,000 and 997,000 for the year to December.
The ONS is expected to give its official update next week.
Speaking to Sky News on Thursday, former Tory leader Sir Iain Duncan Smith said he believed “we’ll see some very startling figures, but we have to bear down on that”.
Sir Iain said the issue of high numbers wasn’t just because of small boats in the Channel – which the prime minister has vowed to tackle as one of his five key pledges – but “about an addiction the UK has to cheap labour”.
He said that hundreds of thousands of people who are on sickness benefits could be brought back into the labour market and that technology could be used to train the workforce better, as is done in care homes in Barcelona.
“It’s only in the UK where we still are wedded to a system that requires cheap labour,” he continued.
“We’ve got to get ourselves off that addiction. That’s what Europe thinks of us. We are the cheap labour capital.”
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Beth Rigby’s analysis of her interview with PM
There have been reports of splits in the cabinet over the issue between ministers who want to see a relaxation of the rules to boost the economy and those who believe cutting numbers is a priority.
There are currently a million job vacancies in the British economy, with about seven million adults of working age not in jobs.
Home Secretary Suella Braverman told the National Conservatism conference this week that the government must bring numbers down before the next election to end Britain’s reliance on foreign workers and ease pressure on public services.
She has also previously said the government should “substantially reduce” the number of students, work visas and the number of dependants on those respective visas.
However, Chancellor Jeremy Hunt has taken a different line, suggesting to business leaders that immigration controls would be eased to plug gaps in the labour market.
Mr Hunt told the British Chambers of Commerce he was open to adding more jobs to the shortage occupation list, saying the government would be “sensible and pragmatic”.
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Meanwhile, Labour’s Anneliese Dodds said her party wanted to see an “overall reduction” in net migration but said setting a target “isn’t sensible”.
“Labour believes that setting a net migration target isn’t sensible, and it appears even Rishi Sunak knows that,” the party chair said.
She said the Conservatives have failed to create a functioning immigration system that combined a points-based system with data on the gaps in the UK workforce where upskilling and training are needed.
“At the moment, the two areas simply aren’t working together,” she said.
Pushed on whether Labour wants to see a reduction, she said where there was a “short-term” need for certain skills, more people should immigrate to fill positions but in the “medium and long-term” she wanted to see a reduction “because we would be training people up in our own country”.
Prosecutors are considering whether to bring further criminal charges against Lucy Letby over the deaths of babies at two hospitals where she worked
The Crown Prosecution Service said it had received “a full file of evidence from Cheshire Constabulary asking us to consider further allegations in relation to deaths and non-fatal collapses of babies at the Countess of Chester Hospital and Liverpool Women’s Hospital”.
“We will now carefully consider the evidence to determine whether any further criminal charges should be brought,” it added.
“As always, we will make that decision independently, based on the evidence and in line with our legal test.”
Letby, 35, was found guilty of murdering seven children and attempting to murder seven more between June 2015 and June 2016 while working in the neonatal unit of the Countess of Chester Hospital and is currently serving 15 whole-life orders.
Letby worked at the Countess of Chester Hospital and Liverpool Women’s Hospital
She is understood to have carried out two work placements at Liverpool Women’s Hospital, where she trained as a student, between October and December 2012, and January and February 2015.
Police said in December that Letby was interviewed in prison as part of an investigation into more baby deaths and non-fatal collapses.
A Cheshire Constabulary spokesperson said: “We can confirm that Cheshire Constabulary has submitted a full file of evidence to the CPS for charging advice regarding the ongoing investigation into deaths and non-fatal collapses of babies at the neo-natal units of both the Countess of Chester Hospital and the Liverpool Women’s Hospital as part of Operation Hummingbird.”
Detectives previously said the investigation was looking into the full period of time that Letby worked as a nurse, covering the period from 2012 to 2016 and including a review of 4,000 admissions of babies.
Letby’s lawyer Mark McDonald said: “The evidence of the innocence of Lucy Letby is overwhelming,” adding: “We will cross every bridge when we get to it but if Lucy is charged I know we have a whole army of internationally renowned medical experts who will totally undermine the prosecution’s unfounded allegations.”
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Three managers at the hospital where Lucy Letby worked have been arrested on suspicion of gross negligence manslaughter.
On Tuesday, it was confirmed that three managers at the Countess of Chester hospital had been arrested on suspicion of gross negligence manslaughter in a separate investigation.
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Police said the suspects, who occupied senior positions at the hospital between 2015 and 2016, have all been bailed pending further inquiries.
There is also an investigation into corporate manslaughter at the hospital, which began in October 2023.
A public inquiry has also been examining the hospital’s response to concerns raised about Letby before her arrest.
In May, it was announced the inquiry’s final report into how the former nurse was able to commit her crimes will now be published early next year.
Earlier this year, Letby’s lawyers called for the suspension of the inquiry, claiming there was “overwhelming and compelling evidence” that her convictions were unsafe.
In February, an international panel of neonatologists and paediatric specialists told reporters that poor medical care and natural causes were the reasons for the collapses and deaths.
Their evidence has been passed to the Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC), which investigates potential miscarriages of justice, and Letby’s legal team hopes her case will be referred back to the Court of Appeal.
A power outage that shut Heathrow Airport earlier this year, causing travel chaos for more than 270,000 passengers, was caused by a “catastrophic failure” of equipment in a nearby substation, according to a new report.
Experts say the fire at the North Hyde Substation, which supplies electricity to Heathrow, started following the failure of a high-voltage electrical insulator known as a bushing, before spreading.
The failure was “most likely” caused by moisture entering the equipment, according to the report.
Two chances were also missed that could have prevented the failure, experts found, the first in 2018 when a higher-than-expected level of moisture was found in oil samples.
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Moment Heathrow substation ignites
Such a reading meant “an imminent fault and that the bushing should be replaced”, according to guidance by the National Grid Electricity Transmission.
However, the report by National Energy System Operator (NESO) said the appropriate responses to such a serious issue were “not actioned”, including in 2022 when basic maintenance was postponed.
“The issue therefore went unaddressed,” the report added.
The design and configuration of the airport’s internal power network meant the loss of just one of its three supply points would “result in the loss of power to operationally critical systems, leading to a suspension of operations for a significant period”, the report added.
Heathrow – which is Europe’s biggest airport – closed for around 16 hours on 21 March following the fire, before reopening at about 6pm.
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Heathrow bosses were ‘warned about substation’
Around 1,300 flights were cancelled and more than 270,000 air passenger journeys were disrupted.
Tens of millions of pounds were lost, thousands of passengers were stranded, and questions were raised about the resilience of the UK’s infrastructure.
More than 71,000 domestic and commercial customers lost power as a result of the fire and the resulting power outage, the report said.
NEOS chief executive, Fintan Slye, said there “wasn’t the control within their [National Grid’s] asset management systems that identified that this [elevated moisture levels] got missed.
“They identified a fault, [but] for some reason the transformer didn’t immediately get pulled out of service and get repaired.
“There was no control within the system that looked back and said ‘oh, hang on a second, you forgot to do this thing over here’.”
Sky’s science and technology editor, Tom Clarke, pointed to the age of the substation’s equipment, saying “some of these things are getting really very old now, coming to the end of their natural lives, and this is an illustration of what can happen if they are not really well maintained”.
The report also highlights a lack of joined-up thinking, he said, as “grid operators don’t know who’s critical national infrastructure on the network, and they don’t have priority”.
Responding to the report’s findings, a Heathrow spokesperson said: “A combination of outdated regulation, inadequate safety mechanisms, and National Grid’s failure to maintain its infrastructure led to this catastrophic power outage.
“We expect National Grid to be carefully considering what steps they can take to ensure this isn’t repeated.
“Our own Review, led by former Cabinet Minister Ruth Kelly, identified key areas for improvement and work is already underway to implement all 28 recommendations.”
In May, Ms Kelly’s investigation revealed that the airport’s chief executive couldn’t be contacted as the crisis unfolded because his phone was on silent.
Energy Secretary Ed Miliband, who commissioned the NESO report, called it “deeply concerning”, because “known risks were not addressed by the National Grid Electricity Transmission”.
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Mr Miliband said energy regulator Ofgem, which opened an investigation on Wednesday after the report was published, is investigating “possible licence breaches relating to the development and maintenance of its electricity system at North Hyde.
“There are wider lessons to be learned from this incident. My department, working across government, will urgently consider the findings and recommendations set out by NESO and publish a response to the report in due course.”
The Metropolitan Police previously confirmed on 25 March that officers had “found no evidence to suggest that the incident was suspicious in nature”.
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