The U.K. government should adopt long-term targets on immigration into the country to reduce numbers, an influential think tank has declared, even though Prime Minister Keir Starmer has already dismissed the idea of adopting a cap.
A new report from Labour Together is calling for an Australian-style national migration plan that would set “credible, long-term targets” aimed at reducing the levels of immigration, while ensuring the needs of the economy will also be met.
“If businesses genuinely need skilled workers and professions that the current British labor market can’t supply, it will get them,” the report said. “But that can’t be an open door. This government knows that unregulated labor markets don’t work.”
Net migration into the U.K. hit a record 906,000 in the year to June 2023, the highest annual total on record, official figures show.
The measure for the difference between the number of people arriving and leaving the country remains high by historic standards, according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS), but the figures have begun to come down.
The ONS said the net migration figure dropped to 728,000 in the 12 months to June 2024. The 20% drop has been attributed to the previous Conservative government, which had stopped international students and healthcare workers from bringing their relatives with them to the U.K.
Labour Together said it does not support the recent calls for a migration cap or net zero migration, labelling them instead as the “politics of presentation and gimmicks.”
Countries can exert control over who comes in, but not who goes out, so pledges to cut net migration are just empty rhetoric, critics contend.
Labour Together said the government should establish clear targets for inward migration based on an analysis of Britain’s economic needs and labor supply, which should prioritize economic migration that makes a positive fiscal contribution over the long term.
The think tank also calls for an “emergency break” if the target figures are likely to be exceeded, allowing parliament to debate and decide how to tighten specific visa routes.
The Conservative government never achieved its target of keeping net migration below 100,000, which was introduced during David Cameron’s administration.
Current Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch has pledged to implement a “strict numerical cap, with visas only for those who will make a substantial and clear overall contribution.”
If the Tories return to power, she promises to adopt a fully transparent approach that would involve publishing all the data, so the public can see the real costs and benefits of different types of migration.
Meanwhile, the prime minister has refused to be drawn into setting a target for cutting net migration despite insisting that he would deliver lower numbers.
Starmer said the British public want “a serious plan to ensure we’ve got control of our borders, not arbitrary caps, not gimmicks.”
Starmer’s chief of staff is Morgan McSweeney, the former director of Labour Together. McSweeney has been credited with masterminding the general election campaign that brought Labour to power in July.
The think tank’s current leader is Jonathan Ashworth, a former parliamentarian who was also a central figure in the election campaign. He had served for a number of years in Starmer’s shadow cabinet.