The Home Secretary was unconvincing as she refused to put a number on her new migration plan.
Yvette Cooper came unstuck this morning as she refused to spell out how many immigrants per year she wants to see come to Britain under her new plan. Ms Cooper has rejected a cap on numbers, citing David Cameron’s failure to meet his ‘tens of thousands pledge’.
However this morning she refused to give the BBC even a rough estimate of how many migrants per year may still be flooding into Britain by the time of the next general election. Asked for a simple “ball park figure”, the Home Secretary merely said she wants to see a “substantial reduction” from last year’s net migration figure of over 700,000. She told BBC Breakfast: “We’re not doing the same thing that previous Conservative governments repeatedly did. They had loads of targets and different numbers, and they ended up not meeting any of them and often doing the opposite.”
“I think that has undermined the credibility of the whole system.”
An incredulous Jon Kay exclaimed: “So no target now?”
Ms Cooper dodged the question, continuing: “We’ve already been reducing the number of visas granted and those updated figures will be produced in a couple of weeks time.”
“The particular measures we announced yesterday on the skilled worker visa, on the care worker visa and also on settlement and English language requirements are estimated to reduce visas further by another 100,000 and then we have some other measures on top of that including new workforce strategies in other key areas, including family and asylum reforms as well.”
“We’re just going to get on and do this step by step, and people will judge us by the results they see.”
Mr Kay insisted that BBC viewers would “still like some kind of figure, I think a lot of people want to know a number.”
He cited Reform UK’s policy of having immigration ‘net zero’, where the number coming in would have to roughly match the number leaving in a given year.
Ms Cooper insisted: “We’re doing this in a practical way. If you just pick targets out, nobody will believe you anymore.”
Mr Kay hit back: “You must have a target? The Home Office must have a target. You’re coming out with all these documents and plans, you’re looking at the maths all the time – you must have a target?”
Chuckling, Ms Cooper hit back that he was repeating the same question. She claimed: “There’s a reason the Conservatives did this Jon, they picked multiple targets and each time the ended ripping them up and I think it just undermined the credibility and confidence of the whole system.”