A Tory minister has confessed the Government messed up on visas and took a swipe at Rishi Sunak as he faced a mauling on immigration.
Robert Jenrick was confronted by angry Conservatives including loudmouth deputy chairman Lee Anderson, who demanded a cap on new arrivals. A Tory civil war has broken out after official figures estimated net migration hit a record 745,000 last year.
Immigration Minister Mr Jenrick appeared to take aim at the dithering PM by claiming he would have liked to put forward a plan to bring it down sooner. He told MPs: "My plan would have been brought to the House before last Christmas if I could have done."
It came after Mr Anderson told the Commons voters had "had enough" of high migration and demanded: “Isn’t it about time, minister, that we had a cap on migration and put some clear divide between us and that lot over there [Labour]?”
The demand was echoed by Tory Marco Longhi, while backbencher Sir Edward Leigh accused officials of "handing out visas like sweeties".
Claiming that mistakes were made by fast-tracking health and care workers to plug labour gaps, Mr Jenrick said: "The health and social care visa hasn't worked as well as even its proponents would have wished. Larger numbers of individuals have come to the UK including very significantly higher numbers of dependents than envisaged and there's been a displacement where British workers have left to be replaced by foreign workers."
Right-wingers lined up to voice their fury at the Government. Sir Edward said: "It's ridiculous that the care home sector is handing out visas like sweeties, employing people for starvation wages of £20,000 a year from all over the world."
Voicing support for Mr Jenrick, who is claimed to be frustrated over a lack of measures to cut immigration, Sir Edward said: "More power to his elbow because we know he's on the right side, he needs to persuade the Prime Minister now."
Mr Jenrick, challenged over rules allowing migrant workers to be paid up to 20% less if they're in a shortage occupation, admitted the current system isn't working. Meanwhile Jonathan Gullis, a member of the right-wing New Conservative group which is calling for draconian migration laws, took aim at flip-flopping Rishi Sunak.
He said: "I'm deeply concerned and confused. Because at the weekend I get the Prime Minister saying that migration is too high and needs to come down to more sustainable levels - the full fat option.
"Yesterday I get the skimmed option with the Prime Minister boasting about our competitive visa regime. Does the Cabinet members who sit round him - are they full fat, semi skimmed or skimmed?"
Mr Jenrick, who chuckled at the remark, said Mr Gullis speaks for "millions of people" and added that the public is "sick of talk" and want to see a plan. Veteran Tory Sir John Hayes, a close ally of sacked former Home Secretary Suella Braverman, voiced support for Mr Jenrick, saying: "Will he recognise that we're relying on him to sort this out because we know that he shares our concerns that it's time for British workers for British jobs?"
Shadow Home Secretary Yvette Cooper spelled out a catalogue of Tory failure that led to net migration rocketing. She told the Commons: "Net migration for work has trebled since 2019 because of their failure on skills and training, their failure to tackle record levels of long-term sickness, and people on waiting lists and the failure to make the system work.
"Social care visas have gone up from 3,000 a year to over 100,000 a year, yet ministers cut the programme for recruiting social care workers here this spring. Health visas are up but they cut medical training places last autumn.
"Visas for engineers up but engineering apprenticeship completions in the UK has halved."
She demanded that the wage loophole should be shut, concluding: "They’ve got no serious plan, just ramping up the rhetoric. No serious plan for the economy, no plan for the immigration system, and no plan for the country."
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