Karl Williams, of the CPS, said: “Traditionally, the Treasury and much of the rest of Government have modelled immigration as an unqualified benefit to the public purse. But this is not the case.”
The report recommended abolishing the graduate route, which allows foreign students to stay for two years after getting their degrees. Instead, they could only remain if they had a graduate-level job within six months.
This would be allied to scrapping the 600,000 a year target for the number of foreign students allowed into the UK, which was set by Boris Johnson.
They recommended raising the salary thresholds for health and care workers above the national living wage, and minimum hourly wage in the care sector by 20p to 40p to help recruit more domestic workers. They also called for an immediate cap on the health and care visas set at 30,000, down from the current 250,000 in 2023.
Mr Jenrick said: “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.
“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.”
