Sir Ed Davey has said legal migration is “too high” but refuses to accept his own policies would exacerbate the issue.
In an interview with Sky’s Sophy Ridge, the Liberal Democrat leader said rising immigration is “a massive broken promise” by the Conservatives and “one of the reasons why we’re seeing such disillusionment in politics”.
Watch the full interview with Sir Ed Davey on Politics Hub With Sophy Ridge tonight at 7pm
However he rejected the claim that some of his own policies, such as closer ties with Europe and a new EU Youth mobility scheme, would increase immigration further.
Asked if he thinks legal migration is too high, Sir Ed said: “Yes, I do. And you’re right to say that since we left the EU, immigration has more than doubled,completely against what the Conservatives and the Brexiteers promised.”
Pressed on what he would do to fix the issue, he said his policy to raise the minimum wage of care workers would attract “people who are currently working in an Amazon warehouse or a supermarket” to the sector, reducing the reliance on foreign staff.
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“They (the Conservatives) refuse to pay people properly and so they’ve issued hundreds of thousands of health care visas, so they’ve increased legal immigration,” he said.
“I’ve shown you a way where we wouldn’t need to do that.”
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Other Lib Dem policies include reversing the ban on care workers bringing their families to the UK and reversing the increase in income thresholds for family visas – measures announced by the Tories to cut net migration after it reached a record high last year.
The pro-Europe leader also wants to eventually re-join the Single Market and introduce a new youth mobility deal with the EU.
However he denied he was “promising everything” without being prepared to take difficult decisions.
In defence of the youth mobility scheme, he said young people “should be able to go across Europe to play, study and work”.
“Of course, that means some young EU citizens could come here, but that would be good for our universities. It would be good for our employment.”
Asked why he won’t just say he is relaxed about high immigration if he believes in people coming here, Sir Ed said: “I think it’s just been very high levels under the Conservatives… it’s more than doubled since we left the EU and that’s a massive broken promise. It’s one of the reasons why we’re seeing such disillusionment in politics.
“I think people who previously voted Conservative feel really let down…and they want to look for other parties who can beat the Conservatives and only the Liberal Democrats can in many parts of the country.”
Elsewhere in the interview, Sir Ed rejected an IFS analysis that said his manifesto would mean up to £20bn of cuts every year in unprotected departments.
He said the think tank is “right to say that the Conservatives have trashed our economy” but he hasn’t seen their analysis of his own party’s pledges.
“We are the only party putting forward a significant tax and spend programme,” he insisted.
Sir Ed also opened up on why he has decided to speak so candidly about his experience caring for his late mother, who died when he was 15, and now his teenage son John, who is disabled.
This has been a central message of his election campaign, which has otherwise been defined by wacky election stunts to get through to voters.
Sir Ed said that he and his wife Emily felt he had a “duty” to talk about it once he become leader “because it’s not about us”.
“It’s about millions of families out there who are caring for their loved ones. Our life experience will chime with lots of other people and because I think care is a critical issue that should be in this election,” he said.
Norman Tebbit, the former Tory minister who served in Margaret Thatcher’s government, has died at the age of 94.
Lord Tebbit died “peacefully at home” late on Monday night, his son William confirmed.
One of Mrs Thatcher’s most loyal cabinet ministers, he was a leading political voice throughout the turbulent 1980s.
He held the posts of employment secretary, trade secretary, Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and Conservative party chairman before resigning as an MP in 1992 after his wife was left disabled by the Provisional IRA’s bombing of the Grand Hotel in Brighton.
He considered standing for the Conservative leadership after Mrs Thatcher’s resignation in 1990, but was committed to taking care of his wife.
Image: Margaret Thatcher and Norman Tebbit in 1987 after her election victory. Pic: PA
Tory leader Kemi Badenoch called him an “icon” in British politics and was “one of the leading exponents of the philosophy we now know as Thatcherism”.
“But to many of us it was the stoicism and courage he showed in the face of terrorism, which inspired us as he rebuilt his political career after suffering terrible injuries in the Brighton bomb, and cared selflessly for his wife Margaret, who was gravely disabled in the bombing,” she wrote on X.
“He never buckled under pressure and he never compromised. Our nation has lost one of its very best today and I speak for all the Conservative family and beyond in recognising Lord Tebbit’s enormous intellect and profound sense of duty to his country.
“May he rest in peace.”
Image: Lord Tebbit and his wife Margaret stand outside the Grand Hotel in Brighton. Pic: PA
Tory grandee David Davis told Sky News Lord Tebbit was a “great working class Tory, always ready to challenge establishment conventional wisdom for the bogus nonsense it often was”.
“He was one of Thatcher’s bravest and strongest lieutenants, and a great friend,” Sir David said.
“He had to deal with the agony that the IRA visited on him and his wife, and he did so with characteristic unflinching courage. He was a great man.”
Reform leader Nigel Farage said Lord Tebbit “gave me a lot of help in my early days as an MEP”.
He was “a great man. RIP,” he added.
Image: Lord Tebbit as employment secretary in 1983 with Mrs Thatcher. Pic: PA
Born to working-class parents in north London, he was made a life peer in 1992, where he sat until he retired in 2022.
Lord Tebbit was trade secretary when he was injured in the Provisional IRA’s bombing in Brighton during the Conservative Party conference in 1984.
Five people died in the attack and Lord Tebbit’s wife, Margaret, was left paralysed from the neck down. She died in 2020 at the age of 86.
Before entering politics, his first job, aged 16, was at the Financial Times where he had his first experience of trade unions and vowed to “break the power of the closed shop”.
He then trained as a pilot with the RAF – at one point narrowly escaping from the burning cockpit of a Meteor 8 jet – before becoming the MP for Epping in 1970 then for Chingford in 1974.
Image: Lord Tebbit during an EU debate in the House of Lords in 1997. Pic: PA
As a cabinet minister, he was responsible for legislation that weakened the powers of the trade unions and the closed shop, making him the political embodiment of the Thatcherite ideology that was in full swing.
His tough approach was put to the test when riots erupted in Brixton, south London, against the backdrop of high rates of unemployment and mistrust between the black community and the police.
He was frequently misquoted as having told the unemployed to “get on your bike”, and was often referred to as “Onyerbike” for some time afterwards.
What he actually said was he grew up in the ’30s with an unemployed father who did not riot, “he got on his bike and looked for work, and he kept looking till he found it”.
The first European state visit since Brexit starts today as President Emmanuel Macron arrives at Windsor Castle.
On this episode, Sky News’ Sam Coates and Politico’s Anne McElvoy look at what’s on the agenda beyond the pomp and ceremony. Will the government get its “one in, one out” migration deal over the line?
Plus, which one of our presenters needs to make a confession about the 2008 French state visit?