Squirming Sir Keir Starmer denied he is shying away from setting a net migration target to avoid being judged on it.
The Prime Minister insisted he was “clear”, during his reset speech in Buckinghamshire on Thursday, that record high levels of net migration must fall.
But he has repeatedly refused to set a target, leading to criticism from Nigel Farage that the problem “could get worse”.
During an uncomfortable interview with BBC Breakfast, Sir Keir said: “The missions are the big changes we want to bring about in Government. That is the real change in our country.
“There are basics of Government, which is national security, defence, border security and immigration.
“They are the basics that any Government has to do and has to do well.
“In the speech I gave yesterday, I was clear that we must tackle immigration. I was equally clear we have to drive down both legal migration, which got completely out of control, nearly a million, that has never happened before.
“But also getting irregular migration down, stopping people making that crossing across the Channel.”
Asked if he was trying to avoid being judged on migration and “shying away” from a target, Sir Keir said: “For 14 years, we had a Government who put a number on it.
“They said it is a hard cap and this is what we are going to get it down to.
“For 14 years, it simply didn’t happen. The opposite happened.
“We’re going to drive it down by tackling the root causes, which are about the number of work visas and the skills we don’t have in this country.”
Net migration hit an “astonishing” new record of 906,000 last year, heaping more pressure on housing, schools and GP surgeries.
Sir Keir has been warned Britain’s immigration crisis has led to “immense and lasting harm”.
The Office for National Statistics said net migration to the UK hit 906,000 in the year to June 2023, amid an influx of foreign students, a spike in non-EU workers, particularly in the health and social care sectors and the introduction of the Ukraine and Hong Kong refugee visa schemes.
But there was a glimmer of good news as the figures fell by 20 per cent in the year to June 2024 – to 728,000.
This was down to restrictions imposed on overseas students and care workers and an increase in the minimum salary threshold, experts said.
Analysis shows migrants from India, Nigeria, Pakistan, China and Zimbabwe made up the top five nationalities from outside the EU.
Former Home Secretary James Cleverly banned foreign care workers and students from bringing their family members with them.
And Mr Cleverly increased the minimum salary threshold needed to secure a work visa to £38,700.
Migrants must also earn £29,000 before they can bring their partners to the UK, under the changes.
The changes were predicted to bring net migration down by 300,000.
Analysing the figures, migration expert and Conservative MP Neil O’Brien warned that only “500,000” visas issued to 3.1 million people were to work in the UK.
Reform UK’s Nigel Farage told BBC Question Time last night: “We now know the truth that selective immigration can be very good, for diversity, for the economy.
“And you could argue that the decades up into the early 2000s that it was working really well.
“Now, not only is it a catastrophe for people’s way of life, not only has it denied us access to services, mass immigration is making Britain poorer, and the fact Keir Starmer doesn’t even think it is a priority shows that with these two parties, it is only going to get worse.”
