Up to three-quarters of migrants arriving today should be barred from ever settling in Britain, the Conservatives said yesterday.
Shadow home secretary Chris Philp said Tory proposals to tighten settlement rules would slash the number of migrants entitled to live permanently in the UK by ‘significantly over half’.
He said that migrants who claim benefits or who are in low-paid jobs should not be entitled to ‘indefinite leave to remain’ and would be ‘required to leave’ when their visas expire.
Tory sources pointed to research suggesting that 72 per cent of migrants on skilled work visas currently work in sectors that pay less than the UK average salary.
Mr Philp said the plans could result in hundreds of thousands of migrants losing the right to settle permanently in the UK and seek British citizenship.
He said that, on current forecasts, around two million people are likely to become eligible for indefinite leave to remain in the next five years.
He said it was vital that the status, which brings the right to settle permanently and access the full benefits system, should only go to those who are ‘actually making a contribution’.
Asked how many could lose the right to stay, he replied: ‘Well it depends on the individual circumstances of those, but it would be over half. Significantly over half.’
Conservative Shadow Home Secretary said that migrants on benefits or in low paid jobs should not be entitled to ‘indefinite leave to remain’
Under Tory plans, those seeking indefinite leave to remain would have to wait ten years instead of the current five (file photo)
Under the new Tory proposals, the qualifying period for seeking indefinite leave to remain would be doubled from five years to ten.
The period before individuals can then apply for British citizenship would be increased from one year to five.
Tory leader Kemi Badenoch said the current rules had created a ‘conveyor belt’ to citizenship for those who had just arrived in the country.
She told the BBC that too many people were getting citizenship through this route and that was ‘creating a strain on public services’.
The Prime Minister’s spokesman said there was ‘very little to no evidence that citizenship acts as a pull factor for people choosing to come to the UK’.
But Mr Philp said the Tory proposals would restore fairness to the system. ‘A British passport is a privilege,’ he said. ‘We only want a limited number of migrants, who make a real contribution.’
The Conservatives have not said where they will set the minimum salary threshold for those seeking to settle permanently in the UK.
But a Tory source pointed to a Centre for Policy Studies report last year, which cited Home Office data suggesting that 72 per cent of people arriving on skilled worker visas came to occupations where the average salary was less than the mean pay of full-time workers in the UK, which then stood at £42,210.
Mr Philp said a future Conservative government would also impose an annual cap on visas which would reduce net immigration to ‘a lot lower’ than current forecasts of 350,000 a year.
