Mass immigration does NOT boost the economy, ex-minister Robert Jenrick warns as he demands Rishi Sunak cuts legal arrivals to the tens of thousands in latest attack on PM from Tory Right

Britain has not benefitted economically from mass immigration and should cut legal arrivals to the tens of thousands, Robert Jenrick warns today.

The ex-immigration minister argues that it has coincided with ‘the worst slowdown in productivity growth in Britain for over two centuries’ and ‘stagnant growth in GDP.

In a report for the Centre for Policy Studies (CPS) co-written with fellow ex-minister Neil O’Brien he claims that ‘the idea that yet more migration is the way out of economic stagnation looks increasingly hard to defend’.

As well as reducing legal immigration to ‘tens of thousands’ the report also recommends breaking up the Home Office and creating a new Department of Border Security and Immigration Control.

In a speech today Mr Jenrick – seen as a potential future Tory leader – insisted some of the ideas could be introduced before the election later this year, a move he believes would help the party’s showing.

It is the latest attack on Mr Sunak from the Tory right, despite rebels calling off efforts to unseat the PM. At the weekend Mr Jenrick’s former boss Suella Braverman also demanded the PM steer right politically. 

‘It would be unforgivable if the Government did not use the time before the general election to undo the disastrous post-Brexit liberalisations that betrayed the express wishes of the British public for lower immigration,’ Mr Jenrick wrote.

‘The changes we propose today would finally return numbers to the historical norm and deliver the highly-selective, highly-skilled immigration system voters were promised. These policies could be implemented immediately and would consign low-skilled mass migration to the past.

‘Immigration is consistently one of the top concerns of voters and they deserve a Department whose sole mission is controlling immigration and securing our borders. For far too long, the Home Office has proven incapable of doing that.’

The Tory former immigration minister has put forward more than 30 recommendations to curb migration in the CPS report.

The proposals include capping health and care visas at 30,000, scrapping the graduate route for international students, and indexing salary thresholds for visa routes in line with inflation.

Mr Jenrick, who is seen as a potential Tory leadership contender, has been ramping up pressure on Rishi Sunak over immigration.

He and fellow MPs on the Conservative right have been urging the Prime Minister to take action since revised official estimates published in November indicated the net migration figure – the difference between the number of people arriving and leaving Britain – reached a record 745,000 in 2022.

Mr Sunak has faced demands for a change of political course as MPs from both sides of the Tories hope to reverse its electoral fortunes in the wake of a drubbing in local and regional contests.

Mr Jenrick and his co-authors, Tory former minister Neil O’Brien and CPS research director Karl Williams, argue that large-scale migration has failed to deliver significant fiscal benefits while putting pressure on housing, public services and infrastructure.

‘Within government, there is a perception across multiple departments (except the Home Office) that immigration is an unqualified economic good, at least in terms of meeting the objectives of that particular department,’ they wrote.

‘That is because they oversee sectors that reap the benefits of cheap migration, while externalising the costs to elsewhere in government. And they find it all too easy to pull the migration lever as a quick fix, rather than solve underlying problems like poor technical education.’

A government spokesman said: ‘The Prime Minister and Home Secretary have been clear that current levels of migration are far too high. 

‘That is why the Government announced a plan to cut the number of migrants that would have come last year to the UK by 300,000 – the largest reduction ever.

‘This plan is working, with the latest statistics showing applications across three major visa categories are down by 24 per cent.’