Theresa May hints she will hit immigration goals within five years despite missing it for the last seven
Net migration remains well over the promised 100,000 target first set by the Tories in 2010
THERESA MAY yesterday signalled she will meet her tens of thousands immigration target within five years - despite missing it for the last seven.
After Home Office Minister Brandon Lewis said the government was aiming towards hitting the target by the end of the next parliament, the Prime Minister threw her weight behind him and said: “That’s what we’re working for.”
Net migration fell below 250,000 for the first time in three years earlier this month - but remains well over the promised 100,000 target first set by the Tories in 2010.
Despite pressure from her own Cabinet to ditch the controversial target, the Conservative manifesto kept the promise to reduce migration to the UK to a “sustainable level” in the “tens of thousands”.
Last night Mrs May was asked directly on her campaign battle bus if it was true the level of immigration would be below 100,000 by 2022 - the end of the next five year parliament.
And she hit back: “That’s what we’re working for. We’re working to bring immigration down to the tens of thousands.”
But the PM warned: “Having been home secretary for six years this isn’t something that you can just produce the magic bullet that suddenly does everything.
"What you have to do is keep working at it. It’s a consistent working at it.”
Mrs May was pushed on the target during her election campaigning in the North East after Policing Minister Brandon Lewis told the BBC: "We've said we will deliver it over the course of the next parliament."
Asked by the Daily Politics if he was “saying tens of thousands in five years time”, he stressed: "Over the course of the next parliament, yes."
And asked a third time if the government was aiming to meet the target by 2022, Mr Lewis said: "We want to see migration levels come down to sustainable levels, which we think is tens of thousands, over the course of the next parliament.
"That's whats in our manifesto," he added.
Mrs May later launched into a furious defence of her target during a campaign stop to a furniture factory on Pontefract, West Yorkshire.
She said: "The reason why we want to want to bring net migration down to sustainable levels, which we have set at the tens of thousands, is because of the impact that immigration has, when it's too fast and too high and uncontrolled, on people."
She added, "it does have an impact on people, particularly at the lower end of the income scale, in depressing wages at the lower end of the income scale, it can displace jobs and it puts pressure on public services.
And she went on: "So we believe it is right to work for those sustainable levels but what I’ve always said and we made clear in the manifesto is that you have to consistently work at it.
"There is no single thing that you can do that suddenly creates that particular set of numbers."
The last set of statistics released earlier this month revealed immigration totalled 588,000 in 2016 – adding a city the size of Sheffield to the population.
But 339,000 people left the country, including 117,000 EU citizens – the highest number for nearly a decade.
It meant net migration dropped by a quarter to 248,000.