THE MP for Bromsgrove has voted for a legally-binding annual cap on immigration which failed to make it through Parliament.
The cap would have been set by Parliament, but on Monday (May 12), 293 Labour MPs voted against the Conservative Party’s plan.
Ever since he was elected in July last year, Bradley Thomas MP has consistently voted for tough measures to crackdown on illegal migration and to cut legal migration into the UK.
Mr Thomas said: “Like the majority of my constituents, I want the days of mass immigration to end. And to do that, common sense tells you our country needs a legally-binding annual immigration cap.
“That’s what I voted for, but sadly, despite their tough rhetoric, Labour MPs voted down the Conservative’s plan – showing that they are not serious about cutting immigration.
“It’s clear only the Conservatives have a credible plan to cut immigration by introducing an annual cap set by Parliament and by disapplying the Human Rights Act from immigration matters.”
The Conservatives’ bill included plans for the automatic deportation of anyone arriving into the UK illegally. As well as doubling the residency requirement for Indefinite Leave to Remain (from five to 10 years), creating new powers to revoke Indefinite Leave to Remain, disapplying the Human Rights Act from all immigration-related matters to ‘prevent foreign nationals from exploiting the court system’, increasing salary thresholds for work visas to £38,700, and introducing powers to deport all foreign criminals.
Skilled Worker visas already have an annual salary threshold of £38,700. For healthcare workers, it’s lower (£25,000, or going rate for role, whichever is higher) and for UK Expansion Worker visas, it’s higher (£48,500, or going rate for role, whichever is higher).
A list of except immigration salaries allows for a lower threshold for Skilled Worker visa applicants (£30,960).
Alongside the Conservatives plan’s, prime minister Sir Keir Starmer has been hard at work announcing his own. He came under fire from his own party for some of high remarks which including the phrase ‘we risk becoming an island of strangers, not a nation that walks forward together’.
This was coupled with a plan to make immigration ‘controlled, selective and fair’ in a bid to reduce immigration ‘substantially’.
Net migration reached 903,000 in the year to June 2023 before falling to 728,000 in mid-2024. Well above its pre-Brexit high of 329,000 in the year up to June 2015.
Proposals in the government’s white paper include raising the skills visa threshold to require a degree and higher salary, and closing the social care visa route to overseas recruitment.
Other measures include increasing English language requirements for visa holders and their dependants, narrowing list of critical shortage occupations, restricting dependants for lower skilled workers on the Temporary Shortage List and increasing salary thresholds for all visa holders seeking to bring dependents, reducing time overseas students can stay from five years to 18 months after studied finish and tighter rules on student visas, and increasing permanent settlement threshold for migrants to 10 years from five unless they are ‘high contributors’.
