Liz Truss has called for net migration to be cut to 100,000 in an exclusive interview with GB News.
The former prime minister told GB News: “I do believe that we should have immigration of high skilled people and stuff like telecoms. Engineers are the kind of example, but it should be more of the level of 100,000 people a year.”
Liz Truss said Rishi Sunak has not gone far enough
GB News
In 2022 net migration to Britain was a record 745,000 despite pledges from Conservative politicians to get numbers down.
Speaking to GB News, Truss called for legal migration numbers to be cut significantly.
Home Office staff have been accused of "wasting time" on diversity GettyHowever, when Truss was prime minister in September 2022 The Sunday Times reported that she wanted to ease immigration restrictions, including by lowering English language requirements, raising the cap for seasonal agricultural workers and by increasing the numbers of foreign broadband engineers coming to the UK.
Responding to the report, the former prime minister said “not everything The Sunday Times print[s] is true”.
Truss continued: “What I was very clear about is that we needed to crack down on student visas, particularly those studying at low value courses and bringing in dependents.”
“That's been one of the major drivers of legal immigration. I'm also concerned about the level of family and chain immigration into the UK.”
A Border force vessel attended the incidentPADiscussing immigration, in January the leader of the Reform Party, Richard Tice, posted on X, formerly Twitter: “No one voted for it. Yet the Tories forced it on us.”
“Now breaking point is upon us as our quality of life gets worse. Only Reform will freeze non essential immigration, 1 in 1 out.”
Truss’s comments drew criticism from some; Harrison Pitt, a senior editor at The European Conservative, told GB News: “100,000 net immigration per year is not even one in, one out—Reform’s pitiful offering.”
“The transformation of the British people into a minority in the homeland their ancestors built for them is no better for being slowed down a little."
“Until Liz Truss grasps that, her conversion to conservative ‘populism’ should be regarded as a desperate career move,” he said.
During Truss’s tenure as Secretary of State at the Department for International Trade she called for more high skilled immigration from India as a part of trade negotiations with the country.
In May 2021 the then trade minister said: “Business mobility is a key part of trade. Particularly as the UK and India are both very strong in services, you need to make sure you're able to get your professionals over to the country".
Truss said she stood by her comments, and thinks it is “justified” that more Indian business people should be able to come to the UK.
The former prime minister said: “I think there should be lower levels overall and what we're talking about in the case of these business visas is people being able to travel for business purposes in a short term way.”
Truss criticised high levels of low skilled migration and called for raising salary thresholds for people who wish to work in Britain.
“But there's no doubt in my mind that the level is far too high,” Truss said.