Conservatives: Chris Philp immigration speech

Thank you, Kemi for that. Let me start by saying, as Shadow Home Secretary:

Over decades, under successive Governments, immigration has been far too high.

Since 2010, net migration added 3.7 million people to our population.

That is more than the population of the whole of Wales. The equivalent of eight cities the size of Liverpool.

Annual net migration has recently exceeded 700,00 and gross arrival numbers reached 1.2 million.

Immigration at this scale is not acceptable.

And the public agrees. 64% think immigration is too high.   Just 6% think it is too low.

Professor Brian Bell, the Chair of the Independent Migration Advisory Committee, described recent levels of immigration as, and I quote, “unstainable.”

Professor Bell is right.

High immigration has placed huge strain on housing, with net migration creating demand for 120,000 new homes per year.

Public services, like healthcare, education and transport are under strain.

But it matters for our society too.

Because for a nation to succeed, we need to be united in our values and share a sense of national identity and culture.

And the truth is, this is undermined when large scale immigration occurs, especially without integration.  

Speaking honestly, I am troubled that over a million people in the UK – over a million - can't speak English either well or at all.

For some nationalities, adult workforce participation is at or below 50%, with even more stark differences for women.

In some parts of London, over a third of the population is relatively newly arrived. And in one part of east London, 73% of school children do not speak English as a first language.

Now these are real issues. Caused by high immigration, without integration. 

Now you often hear people – including Government bodies – saying we need immigration for workers and for economic growth.

But the truth is, the vast majority of recent arrivals did not come to work.  Only 15% - just 1 in 7 – of non-EU visas in the last five years were issued primarily for work purposes.

And for every worker who arrived, on average they brought an extra dependent along with them. Huge numbers of visas were issued for study and family visas, with only a minority of those ending up in work.

And even those in work often earn low wages. In 2022-23, around half of those who received so-called skilled worker visas were earning barely more than the minimum wage.  68% earned less than median earnings.

And this should concern up because recent OBR analysis showed low-wage migrant workers are fiscally negative – meaning they cost other taxpayers more than they contribute – for every single year of their life.

Now, of course, we should welcome limited numbers of high skilled workers who contribute financially or fill genuine skills gaps.

Research scientists. In financial services.  In technology.  Medicine.  Engineering – we like engineers -  and advanced manufacturing.  This can work for us.  

But mass low-skilled migration actually reduces productivity and makes public finances worse.

So, rather than businesses reaching for large numbers of cheap migrant workers to fill low-skill vacancies, we want those businesses instead to invest more in cutting edge labour-saving technology and mechanisation.

Our competitor economies like Australia, South Korea and Singapore are doing this already in sectors from agriculture, to construction to healthcare. And we in the UK can do the same.

Now it's also relevant that: over 9 million adults are economically inactive, an increase of 850,000 since the pandemic. So businesses need to recruit those people back into the workforce instead of importing low-wage migrant workers.

And the Government needs to make sure those people have the right skills and that the benefits system is toughened up to incentivise work.

Now, as Kemi said, one thing we know for sure on this: We can't trust Labour on immigration.

They have already suspended the last Conservative Government's measures to further tighten up the rules on legal migration that were due to come into effect in April next year.

Almost as soon as they were elected, they cancelled the Rwanda deterrent scheme before it even started, leading to a 23% increase in small boat crossings since the election, compared to the same time last year.

In opposition, Labour voted 134 times against measures to toughen up on illegal migration, including voting against tougher prison sentences for the people smuggling gangs they claim they want to smash.

Labour MPs and Ministers now seem reluctant to talk much about immigration at all.

The truth is, they don't have the answers.

By contrast, Conservatives in Government did take some steps to reduce net migration numbers, and as Kemi said, we may see the early effects in tomorrow's figures.

But it is also true that we need to go much further, and take tougher measures –, as Kemi set out a few moments ago, and those measures will include a hard cap on numbers and zero tolerance for illegal migration.

So, with a new Leader, the Conservatives will develop a new approach.

We will now take the time needed to develop a carefully thought-through plan that we know will work.

It is a plan that will deliver what the British people are asking for.