Migration figures are ‘too high’, says Sevenoaks MP and chief secretary to the Treasury Laura Trott

A minister has said migration figures are “too high” despite what she claimed was some of the “strongest action ever” taken by the government.

Laura Trott, the recently appointed chief secretary to the Treasury, was speaking amid a row within the Conservative Party over the latest figures.

Sevenoaks MP and government minister Laura Trott says migration figures are ‘too high’

The MP for Sevenoaks was quizzed about a reliance in Thursday’s Autumn Statement on a forecast that net migration was set to fall – which was followed shortly after by news of a record high.

It comes after the Office for National Statistics published data on the same day which showed that experts have revised up previous estimates.

In May, it said net migration – the difference between the number of people coming to live in the UK and those leaving – for 2022 had been 606,000, 139,000 lower than the true figure.

Asked if migration figures are too high while speaking to the Sunday Morning With Trevor Phillips programme on Sky News, Ms Trott said: “Yes, they are too high.

“We as a government want to bring them down to more sustainable levels. I note that the ONS said they are trending down.”

‘We as a government want to bring them down to more sustainable levels’

She adds this is why the government took “some of the strongest action ever” in May to “bring down the numbers” by reducing the number of dependants an overseas student can bring with them.

Pressed on this, Ms Trott says there have been “very specific circumstances” in recent years, with people arriving in the UK from Ukraine and Hong Kong.

But she reiterated that “obviously we need to do more” to make sure “British people are taking jobs”.

However Ms Trott declined to shed any light on what potential measures could be introduced.

Immigration minister Robert Jenrick is understood to have worked up a plan designed to appease calls from the right of the Tory party for the government to take action.

He is pushing for a ban on foreign social care workers from bringing in any dependants and a cap on the total number of NHS and social care visas.

His plan would also scrap the shortage occupation list, a programme that allows foreign workers to be paid 20% below the going rate in roles that suffer from a lack of skilled staff.

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak faces challenged over migration. Picture: Justin Tallis/PA

Ms Trott was also asked to comment on reports of a rift between Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and Home Secretary James Cleverly over the government’s controversial Rwanda asylum plan tasked with dealing with illegal migration in the form of small boats.

Mr Cleverly insisted, in an interview with The Times, that the initiative is not the “be all and end all” to stopping Channel crossings.

Whereas, Mr Sunak, in contrast, used an interview with The Mail On Sunday to stress the importance of the scheme, after the Supreme Court ruled it unlawful earlier this month.

Ms Trott, a recently promoted ally of Mr Sunak, insisted the pair were on the same page when quizzed on the matter.

“They’re both actually saying the same thing, which is that Rwanda is part of our plan,” she said.

“Both saying it is part of the plan, it is not all of the plan.”

A group of people thought to be asylum seekers are brought in to Dover. Photo: Gareth Fuller/PA

Mr Sunak has pledged not to let a “foreign court” stop flights to Rwanda, with plans for a new treaty and emergency legislation to ensure the plan is legally watertight.

It was the UK Supreme Court, rather than “a foreign court”, that dealt the latest blow to the government’s hopes of sending asylum seekers who arrive in the UK on a one-way trip to Rwanda.

But Tories are keen to ensure that the European Court of Human Rights and the Strasbourg court that rules on it will not prevent the policy, first announced in 2020, from being implemented.