A group of UK Conservative MPs has released an alternative Conservative manifesto that calls on Rishi Sunak to reduce migration figures by about 400,000 before the next election.
The new Conservative group, formed in May by a group of Conservative MPs including Miriam Cates, Brendan Clarke-Smith, Jonathan Gullis, Danny Kruger, and Lia Nici, has produced a 12-point plan to reduce net migration to the UK.
The release of the report which took place in Westminster would put enormous pressure on the Prime Minister, who is already under fire for his handling of illegal immigrants and the Rwanda deportation scheme.
Among the ideas in the report are the removal of visas for tens of thousands of care workers, and raising the skilled work visa salary threshold – designed to reduce the amount of low-paid, unskilled labour – to £38,000.
The report also recommends ending the right of graduate students to stay in the UK for up to two years after the end of their course without a job offer, and for student visas to be “reserved for the brightest” by making only the top universities eligible.
Other measures would be to cap the amount of social housing that local authorities can provide to non-UK nationals as five per cent of the total, and to increase the immigration health surcharge to £2,700 per person per year.
This proposal came barely two months after the UK government banned foreign students studying for master’s degrees, including Nigerians, from bringing their family members to the United Kingdom.
Nigeria had the highest number of dependants (60,923) sponsored study visa holders in 2022, while India had the second highest number of dependents (38,990).
The plan, which was written by Tory MP Tom Hunt, claims Brits did not vote for mass migration, and without “swift action” the Tory party will “further erode the trust” of scores of 2019 voters.
The report says withdrawing right of entry under the Health and Care Worker scheme would cut the numbers of immigrants to Britain by 82,000.
The report recommends a maximum of 20,000 refugees would be accepted for resettlement and it also suggests caps on future humanitarian schemes such as the Ukraine, Afghanistan and Hong Kong schemes should a predicted reduction of 168,000 migrants not be realised.
The group advocated raising the income threshold to £26,200 for sponsoring a spouse to come to the UK and would increase the language requirement.
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