Keir Starmer gives Downing Street speech on net migration

Summary

In a speech on net migration, Keir Starmer criticizes the previous government's policies that led to a significant increase in immigration levels. Starmer emphasizes that the lack of control over immigration was by design, not by accident, and vows that his government will take a different approach by focusing on skills, welfare reform, and training local people to reduce reliance on immigration. He announces new measures, including a white paper and reforms to visa routes, aiming to substantially lower immigration numbers. Additionally, he highlights efforts to tackle issues in the asylum system, promising enhanced processing and returns, and reassures the public that his government will not rely on gimmicks but on hard work to restore order and control.

Highlights

• Starmer blames the prior government for a deliberate increase in immigration with an 'open borders' policy. 🌏
• He plans to rectify this by emphasizing skills training and reducing reliance on foreign workers. 🔧
• Efforts include new visa expectations and cracking down on rule-breaking employers. 🚫
• Initiatives like securing a border security agreement with Iraq demonstrate tangible actions. 🤝
• The aim is to bring a drastic policy shift focusing on 'graft' instead of 'gimmicks.' 💪

Key Takeaways

• Keir Starmer claims the previous government ran an 'open borders experiment,' significantly increasing immigration levels. 🌐
• He pledges to reduce immigration through a comprehensive white paper and reforms to the visa system. 📄
• Starmer criticizes the previous administration's lack of focus on local skills development and welfare reform. 🎓
• He stresses the importance of securing borders while improving the economy, NHS, and opportunities for citizens. 🚀
• New agreements and increased processing are introduced to tackle the asylum and immigration issues. 🛂

Overview

Keir Starmer didn't hold back in his fiery speech addressing the UK's rising net migration. He squarely blamed the previous government for what he described as an 'open borders experiment,' which skyrocketed immigration numbers, a move he believes was by design rather than oversight. Starmer argued that such policies left the country overly dependent on foreign labor, neglecting the growth of local skills and opportunities.

Promising to take a different path, Starmer's government plans to release a white paper soon, outlining significant reforms aimed at reducing immigration levels. With a focus on better utilizing the Migration Advisory Committee and reforming visa systems, Starmer signals a shift away from the previous policy directions, emphasizing homegrown talent and stopping the abuse of visa routes. He's calling for employers to prioritize training local workers rather than taking the 'easy answer' of hiring from abroad.

Starmer also announced agreements with international partners, such as Iraq, and improvements in processing asylum claims to reclaim control of the borders. This is presented alongside efforts to rejuvenate the NHS and boost economic growth, aiming to offer more to the average worker. His message was clear: the current government will fix past failings with hard work, detailed planning, and resolute policies, striving for a more controlled and effective immigration strategy.

Keir Starmer gives Downing Street speech on net migration Transcription

• 00:00 - 00:30 good afternoon uh when we came into office we immediately conducted an audit of the public finances and we found a 22 billion pound black hole now the independent office of national statistics has conducted vital work on the state of immigration and found the previous government were running an open borders experiment
• 00:30 - 01:00 as the on sets out nearly 1 million people came to Britain in the year ending June 2023 that is four times the migration levels compared with 2019 time and again the conservative party promised they would get the numbers down time and again they failed and now the chorus of excuses has begun
• 01:00 - 01:30 we heard that from the leader of the opposition yesterday but what we didn't hear what the British people are ow is an explanation because a failure on this scale isn't just bad luck it isn't a global Trend or taking your eye off the ball no this is a different order of failure this happened by Design not accident
• 01:30 - 02:00 policies were reformed deliberately to liberalize immigration brexit was used for that purpose to turn Britain into a one nation experiment in open borders Global Britain remember that slogan that is what they meant a policy with no support of which they then pretended wasn't happening and now they want to wave it
• 02:00 - 02:30 away with a simple we got it wrong well that's unforgivable and mark my words this government will turn the page that begins in the economy because you cannot separate this failure from their refusal to do the hard yards on skills on welfare reform on giving our young people opportunities rather the easy answers of looking
• 02:30 - 03:00 overseas because clearly the vast majority of people who entered this country did so to plug gaps in our Workforce skill shortages across the country which have left our economy hopelessly reliant on immigration 2.8 million people out of work on long-term sickness a problem ignored left to Fester one in8 young people not in employment or education or
• 03:00 - 03:30 training sectors of our economy like engineering where apprenticeships have almost halved in the last decade while visas have doubled so we're taking a different approach we will publish a white paper imminently which sets out a plan to reduce immigration the migration advisory committee is already conducting a review
• 03:30 - 04:00 and where we find clear evidence of sectors that are over reliant on immigration we will reform the points based system and make sure the applications for the relevant Visa routes whether it's the skilled worker route or the shortage occupation lists will now come with new expectations on training people here in our country we will also crack down on any abuse of the visa routs for far too long we been casual about malpractice in our
• 04:00 - 04:30 labor market which sends a clear signal overseas that we're a soft touch well no more our rules will be enforced any employers who refuse to play ball they'll be banned from hiring overseas labor and I'm pleased to announce today a new security agreement between Iraq and the UK this is a world first that will help us smash the people people smuggling gangs and secure our
• 04:30 - 05:00 borders the Home Secretary has been out in Iraq to seal this deal and we've also announced funding for Iraqi law enforcement to tackle this problem Upstream way before it reaches our Shores we're also tackling the utter mess We inherited in the home office Asylum returns up 53% in the last 12 months compared with the previous year
• 05:00 - 05:30 total returns up 34% in the last year and we will keep on going because this is the work of change and alongside the NHS and the economy securing our borders is the issue that matters to working people you know what people want from politics is not unreasonable they want order and security borders that we control an NHS that protects you an economy that offers
• 05:30 - 06:00 secure work and good opportunities not just for a few at the top but for everyone let me say directly to the people watching where the last government failed you this one will not they drove immigration numbers up we will get them down they left the NHS flat on its face we will get it Standing Tall again they made you poor
• 06:00 - 06:30 we will put more money in your pockets it won't be quick or easy but we are going to turn things around not with gimmicks but with graft a government that will not rest until the foundations are fixed borders are secure and Britain is rebuilt thank you I'll now take questions I think Chris Mason is first from the BBC
• 06:30 - 07:00 Chris thank you prime minister Chris Mason at BBC News the UK appears to have become addicted to immigration despite the fact that millions of people for years and years have indicated that they wanted to see the numbers fall why should people believe you now that you can achieve something that predecessors have not and and one other question if I may apologies um following the BBC's investigation into Muhammad alfed should there be a review or an inquiry into the work of the Metropolitan Police the
• 07:00 - 07:30 crime prosecution service that that you led into the failings that have left millions of people without the the answers and the Justice they might have wanted thank you Chris on your first point um what is clear from these figures it is really Stark and I think should shock all of us because the net migration figures in 2019 were were 184,000 and then on the figures we've now got today four years later literally
• 07:30 - 08:00 four years later 96,000 four times as many this isn't immigration that's gone up by a few thousand this is a policy under the last government that's driven immigration up to record levels a complete loss of um control um and that is why we've set out the measures I listed in the words I just said in relation to the action that we are taking but there's a fundamental problem here and that's to do with the way our economy works and the loss of
• 08:00 - 08:30 control um of immigration under the last government we are going to turn that around with the measures that I have set out um on the question of um alire look I think we need to firstly um give confidence to anybody um who wants to come forward that they should come forward and then assess the situation when we see what the final picture is thank you Chris Beth thank you thank you prime minister Beth rby Sky News um prime minister in the year to June 2020
• 08:30 - 09:00 23 uh net migration was the same amount as it was in the three years of freedom of movement up to the brexit referendum vote people feel incredibly let down by their politicians you say you want to bring it down what does that mean will you bring it down to levels of the low 100,000s that we saw in 2019 or 2013 14 15 or can you also not do that because of your need for economic growth thank
• 09:00 - 09:30 you well um Beth when you say people have been let down you're absolutely right because they were promised by the last government uh that it would get control of our borders and we had a government that completely lost control of our borders and this sort of increase is unprecedented U it's off the scale what has happened in four short uh years um the way to get it down is the hard graft not the gimmicks but the hard graft of driving it down on the skills agenda
• 09:30 - 10:00 migration advisory uh committee making sure we're cracking down on employers that are breaking the rules taking all the measures I've set out um measures that will have an impact on our immigration which I do want to come down significantly it needs to um reduce but this these numbers this this four time increase that wasn't just bad luck post brexit that was their policy and they drove immigration up and as I say we've discovered a 22 ion pound black hole we
• 10:00 - 10:30 discovered that the prisons were in far worse shape much Fuller than um we thought before the election and now today what we found is another in incredible uh Legacy failure uh which is record numbers U of immigration it's our job now to turn it around and we will thank you and Amy from ITV thanks um Amy Lewis from ITV News prime minister you um obviously today to talk about immigration are you going to set a cap on net migration and if not
• 10:30 - 11:00 how will the public know if you've been successful in delivering your promises and just a follow-up question if you don't mind on what's potentially a landmark day tomorrow with a sister dying is your view on this change since you voted on it in 2015 yeah look I want to see immigration come down significantly um and I said that before the election I said that during the election I say it again here um today um so that means um bearing down on the influences that have driven up this high with the measures that I
• 11:00 - 11:30 set out a moment ago we had a supposed cap in place for the best part of a decade and it didn't have any meaningful impact on reducing immigration so I don't think setting an arbitrary cap which is what previous governments have done is the way forward but do I want it significantly to reduce yes I do and that's what our plan will achieve um in relation to assisted dying look the vote is coming up tomorrow obviously it's a the government is neutral on this um and is a genuinely free vote for um all
• 11:30 - 12:00 members of parliament and I don't want to put pressure on them I've obviously got a huge amount of um interest and experience in this having looked at every single case for five years that was ever investigated um and um you know I will therefore be casting my vote tomorrow thank you um Chris GB uh Chris hope GB news you say you want net migration to fall significantly prime minister the OB which which forecast these numbers forecast 315,000
• 12:00 - 12:30 net migrants arriving here until 2028 2029 nearly twice the number in 2019 what level are you happy with will you cut it back to 2019 levels um and when will that happen by well um Chris that we want and intending to drive these numbers down they're far too high they signal a loss of control um and that's what these policies are designed to uh achieve and that's why the white
• 12:30 - 13:00 paper will be published imminently bringing them together as a plan I'm not going to pluck an arbitrary number because that has been tried many years in a row and it has achieved absolutely nothing and what I'm not going to do uh with the British public is adopt uh an approach which we know has not um succeeded uh and pretend that it's going to succeed I think the days of fiction and pretending there are easy answers are over uh these are the days of hard
• 13:00 - 13:30 graft thank you Chris uh Kate from times Kate mccan from times radio uh figures released today show that the Asylum system is costing 5.4 billion pounds in the last year how much of that money has been spent on Asylum hotels and can you guarantee the British public that that spend will be Zero by the end of next year thank you we must bring the um the cost of uh Asylum down um and we
• 13:30 - 14:00 have a Manifesto pledge um to bring the number of hotels down to end the use of hotels uh which we are driving hard at um the way to do that is to increase the processing of claims among the reasons that um so many people are in hotels is because for a long time the claims weren't being processed so more people arriving none of them getting protest processed and an ever increasing pool of people people that then had to be
• 14:00 - 14:30 accommodated some way or another that was completely unsustainable we've transferred a thousand staff into the processing and returns uh work of the home office so a significant redeployment of Staff in which is driving up the processing um claims and of course when it comes to returns we've returned um 9,600 since the election and we have got more um flights off in terms of the numbers on flights than there ever been done um before so it's processing in the
• 14:30 - 15:00 first place um it's making sure that we can do the Returns on the other and deploying a thousand staff into do that vital work and those that's why their numbers are so significant uh Jack at the sun Jack thank you prime minister Jack ellon from the Sun um you've spoken today largely of immigration as a matter of Economics but many voters are concerned about the cultural impact on their communities is this an argument which you are sympathetic to look I have looked at it mainly as a matter of uh
• 15:00 - 15:30 economics because if you look at the breakdown within the very high numbers we've got today very many of them are work visas but look in terms of the question you put to me I do in principle think it's right um that we should ensure that we've got the skills and training for people in this country for the jobs that we need um and that is among the drivers of this that we haven't got the skills regime in place that allows uh young people but not just young people in this country to have the skills that they need and the skills that employers want in order to um take
• 15:30 - 16:00 us where we need to on the economy I think the two don't go together because I think people in this country are entitled uh to have the opportunity of the skills here I think businesses are entitled um to know that there's a skill strategy that will actually satisfy their uh their needs and their demands Matt from the times thank you um daythan from the times you've just announced there'll be new expectations on firms to train workers other than the restrictions on
• 16:00 - 16:30 visas what incentives or sanctions will there be and are you promising British jobs for British workers well I think it's for too long we've had this over Reliance on the easy answer of recruiting from abroad and that's got to change and it's a two-way street we want to support employers of course we do we want to grow the economy and I don't want to make it more difficult for businesses but at the same time and as I've said to them previously they have to be involved I in ensuring we've got
• 16:30 - 17:00 the skills we need in this country and the places that we need them um that will come partly by devolving skills getting more employers and local Representatives involved in the uh skills strategies that we need um and so you know it is right that um we have the skills available to people who live here uh the opportunities that they want to develop their uh working lives and give the employers the skills that they need
• 17:00 - 17:30 uh near them for the jobs that they need doing thank you uh reie from the guardian reie s from the guardian I'm over here Prim um Nigel farage said that Donald Trump hates the chos deal is he right well look the chos deal is a good deal