Sir Keir Starmer has promised to bring down migration numbers by tightening up the rules on those allowed to come to the UK.

The prime minister promised his new plan will reduce net migration – the difference between immigration and emigration – by the end of this parliament in 2029.

Details of the plans have been published in a white paper, a government document that outlines policy proposals before being introduced as legislation.

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Sky News has combed through the white paper to bring you the details.

Language requirements

All visa routes will require people to have a certain level of English proficiency.

People coming with the main visa holders – dependents – will also have to have a basic understanding of English, which they currently do not.

The level of proficiency needed depends on the visa, with a skilled worker visa requiring at least upper intermediate level. Currently, it requires just an “intermediate” level.

To extend visas, people will have to show progression in their English.

Settled status

Currently, people have to live in the UK for five years before they can gain settled status.

Under the new plan, they will have to live in the UK for 10 years.

However, “high-contributing” individuals such as doctors and nurses could be allowed to apply for settled status after five years.

A new bereaved parent visa will be created so those in the UK who have a British or settled child that dies can get settled status immediately.

Settled status gives people the right to work and live in the UK for as long as they like, and provides them with the same rights as citizens, such as healthcare and welfare and the right to bring family members to live in the UK.

People with settled status can then choose to apply for British citizenship.

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British citizenship

People can qualify sooner for citizenship by contributing to UK society and the economy, like settled status.

The Life in the UK test will be reformed.

Social care visa

This visa, which allowed care workers to come to the UK due to a shortage, will not exist anymore.

There will be a transition period until 2028 when visa extensions and switching to the visa for those already here will be allowed.

Skilled worker visa

People wanting to come to the UK on a skilled worker visa must now have at least an undergraduate university degree. The minimum was previously A-levels.

There will also be tighter restrictions on recruitment from overseas for jobs with “critical” skills shortages, as well as strategies to incentivise employers to increase training and participation rates in the UK.

Very highly skilled people, in areas the government identifies, will be given preferential access to come to the UK legally by increasing the number of people allowed to come through the “high talent” routes such as the global talent visa, the innovator founder visa and high potential individual route.

A limited pool of refugees will be allowed to apply for employment through the skilled worker route.

Study visas

People on graduate visas will only be allowed to remain in the UK for 18 months after they finish their studies.

Currently, students finishing degrees can stay for two years if they apply for the graduate visa, or those finishing PhDs can stay for three.

Institutions sponsoring international students will have their requirements strengthened, with those close to failing their sponsor duties placed on an action plan and limits imposed on the number of new students they can recruit.

Sponsors, who can cover tuition fees and living costs, include overseas governments, UK government scholarships, UK government departments, UK universities, overseas universities, companies and charities.

Humanitarian visa

The Ukraine, Hong Kong and Afghanistan humanitarian visa routes will remain.

However, the government will review the effectiveness of sponsorship arrangements for those schemes so businesses, universities and community groups can “sustainably” sponsor those refugees.

Domestic worker visa

To help prevent modern slavery, the government will reconsider this visa, which currently allows foreign national domestic workers to visit the UK with their employer for up to six months.

Businesses

Companies wanting to bring people from abroad to work for them in the UK will have to invest in the UK first.

To prevent exploitation of low-skilled workers on temporary visas already in the UK, the government will look at making it easier for workers to move between licensed sponsors for the duration of their visa.

The right to family life

A growing number of asylum seekers have used the “right to family life” – Article 8 of the Human Rights Act – to stop their deportation.

Legislation will be introduced to “make clear it is the government and parliament that decides who should have the right to remain in the UK”.

It will set out how Article 8 should be applied in different immigration routes so “fewer cases are treated as ‘exceptional'”.

Foreign national offenders

The Home Office will be given powers to more easily take enforcement and removal action, and revoke visas in a much wider range of crimes where people did not serve jail time in other countries.

Deportation thresholds will be reviewed to take into account more than just the length of their sentence, with violence against women and girls taken more seriously.

Enforcement

Sir Keir said the immigration rules – at the border and in the system – will be more strongly enforced than before “because fair rules must be followed”.

People who claim asylum, particularly after arriving in the UK, where conditions in their home country have not materially changed, will face tighter controls, restrictions and requirements where there is evidence of abuse of the system.

Other governments will be made to play their part to stop their nationals coming to the UK, or from being returned.

Sponsors of migrant workers or students abusing the system will have financial penalties or sanctions placed on them, and they will be given more support to ensure compliance.

People on short-term visas who commit an offence will be deported “swiftly”.

Scientific and tech methods will be explored to ensure adults coming to the UK are not wrongly identified as children.

eVisas, which have now replaced physical documents, will help tackle illegal working and support raids on those overstaying their visas or on the wrong visa.

Major banks are legally obligated to refuse current accounts to individuals suspected of being in the UK illegally and to notify the Home Office. This will be extended to other financial institutions.

Nigel Farage has told Sky News he would allow some essential migration in areas with skill shortages but that numbers would be capped.

The Reform UK leader said he would announce the cap “in four years’ time” after he was pressed repeatedly by Sky’s deputy political editor Sam Coates about his manifesto pledge to freeze “non-essential” immigration.

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It was put to Mr Farage that despite his criticism of the government’s migration crackdown, allowing essential migration in his own plans is quite a big caveat given the UK’s skills shortages.

However the Clacton MP said he would allow people to plug the gaps on “time dependent work permits” rather than on longer-term visas.

He said: “Let’s take engineering, for argument’s sake. We don’t train enough engineers, we just don’t. It’s crazy.

“We’ve been pushing young people to doing social sciences degrees or whatever it is.

“So you’re an engineering company, you need somebody to come in on skills. If they come in, on a time dependent work permit, if all the right health assurances and levies have been paid and if at the end of that period of time, you leave or you’re forced to leave, then it works.”

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Reform’s manifesto, which they call a “contract”, says that “essential skills, mainly around healthcare, must be the only exception” to migration.

Pressed on how wide his exemption would be, Mr Farage said he hopes enough nurses and doctors will be trained “not to need anybody from overseas within the space of a few years”.

He said that work permits should be separate to immigration, adding: “If you get a job for an American TV station and you stay 48 hours longer than your work permit, they will smash your front door down, put you in handcuffs and deport you.

“We allow all of these routes, whether it’s coming into work, whether it’s coming as a student, we have allowed all of these to become routes for long-term migration.”

Asked if he would put a cap on his essential skills exemption, he said: “We will. I can’t tell you the numbers right now, I don’t have all the figures. What I can tell you is anyone that comes in will not be allowed to stay long-term. That’s the difference.”

Pressed if that was a commitment to a cap under a Reform UK government, he suggested he would set out further detail ahead of the next election, telling Coates: “Ask me in four years’ time, all right?”

Mr Farage was speaking after the government published an immigration white paper which pledged to ban overseas care workers as part of a package of measures to bring down net migration.

The former Brexit Party leader claimed the proposals were a “knee jerk reaction” to his party’s success at the local elections and accused the prime minister of not having the vigour to “follow them through”.

However he said he supports the “principle” of banning foreign care workers and conceded he might back some of the measures if they are put to a vote in parliament.

He said: “If it was stuff that did actually bind the government, there might be amendments on this that you would support. But I’m not convinced.”

The combination of full prisons and tight public finances has forced the government to urgently rethink its approach.

Top of the agenda for an overhaul are short sentences, which look set to give way to more community rehabilitation.

The cost argument is clear – prison is expensive. It’s around £60,000 per person per year compared to community sentences at roughly £4,500 a year.

But it’s not just saving money that is driving the change.

Research shows short custodial terms, especially for first-time offenders, can do more harm than good, compounding criminal behaviour rather than acting as a deterrent.

This is certainly the case for Charlie, who describes herself as a former “junkie, shoplifter from Leeds” and spoke to Sky News at Preston probation centre.

She was first sent down as a teenager and has been in and out of prison ever since. She says her experience behind bars exacerbated her drug use.

“In prison, I would never get clean. It’s easy, to be honest, I used to take them in myself,” she says. “I was just in a cycle of getting released, homeless, and going straight back into trap houses, drug houses, and that cycle needs to be broken.”

Eventually, she turned her life around after a court offered her drug treatment at a rehab facility.

She says that after decades of addiction and criminality, one judge’s decision was the turning point.

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“That was the moment that changed my life and I just want more judges to give more people that chance.”

Also at Preston probation centre, but on the other side of the process, is probation officer Bex, who is also sceptical about short sentences.

“They disrupt people’s lives,” she says. “So, people might lose housing because they’ve gone to prison… they come out homeless and may return to drug use and reoffending.”

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Bex has seen first-hand the value of alternative routes out of crime.

“A lot of the people we work with have had really disjointed lives. It takes a long time for them to trust someone, and there’s some really brilliant work that goes on every single day here that changes lives.”

It’s people like Bex and Charlie, and places like Preston probation centre, that are at the heart of the government’s change in direction.

:: Watch special programme on prisons on Politics Hub with Sophy Ridge at 7pm