The Prime
Minister began Cabinet by welcoming the passing of the Illegal
Migration Bill which, once put into operation, will ensure those
who arrive in the UK illegally will not be able to stay here and
will instead be detained and then promptly removed – ultimately
helping to stop the boats.
The Home
Secretary thanked colleagues and officials for their work in
swiftly securing her Bill’s passage through Parliament.
The
Government has already returned around 2,500 Albanians with no
right to be in the UK, with Albanians now making up just 2.5% of
arrivals this year so far - down from 28% of arrivals over the
same period in 2022.
And in March
we delivered an unprecedented multi-year agreement with France to
reduce the number of small boats crossing the
Channel.
Cabinet then
updated on delivery since the new government was formed.
The Prime
Minister said he remained confident that the government’s five
priorities matched those of the public. He said they were rightly
ambitious and challenging and that good progress was being made.
The
Chancellor provided an update on work to halve inflation, saying
that accepting the PRB recommendations and funding them through
existing budgets meant the government had secured a fair deal for
public sector workers and taxpayers without stoking
inflation.
He
highlighted recent reports from the IMF showing that the UK
economy has grown faster the UK than France, Japan and Italy
since 2010 and we have stronger long-term growth prospects than
Germany, France, and Italy for the period
2025-28.
He said the
UK was a leader in sectors due to grow rapidly in coming years
with Google confirming they would centre their research for AI at
Deepmind and Open AI opening their first overseas office in
London.
In the area
of R&D, he said BioNTech were opening a global centre for
research in Cambridge.
Cabinet
Ministers provided further updates on progress, including on the
introduction of the Long Term Workforce Plan for the NHS,
recruiting more than 20,000 new police officers and cutting
reoffending rates while increasing rape convictions to 33% and
doubling the number of prosecutions compared to
2019.
The Prime
Minister said he took confidence from the array of work taking
place across government in just a matter of months since the
start of his premiership to deliver for the public and that the
government would continue to deliver for the British people on
the things that matter most to them