Grant Shapps has stressed the importance of post-Brexit controls on work visas after government sources confirmed that ministers are braced for a record increase in immigration figures this month.
Reports have suggested that official data will show annual net immigration of between 650,000 and 997,000 fuelled by a rise in non-EU immigration from people entering the UK to work and study.
Sources have told the Guardian that “the high end” of these figures is unlikely, but that there has been a significant rise.
The Office for National Statistics (ONS) figures are due to be published on 25 May and are expected to pile pressure on Rishi Sunak over the government’s 2019 pledge to bring down net immigration to “tens of thousands”, which he reiterated last year.
The previous record immigration level was 504,000, for the year to June 2022.
Asked about the figures, Shapps, the energy secretary, said people arriving from Ukraine and Hong Kong had added perhaps as many as 300,000 to UK immigration figures.
He told the Sophy Ridge on Sunday programme on Sky News: “This country has had a big heart. We’ve opened the country for Ukrainian refugees, for British nationals from Hong Kong.
“Take those two groups alone and it’s well over 300,000 of these numbers. And then of course we’ve had people from Syria and elsewhere.”
He said Brexit had offered the UK control over its own immigration policies, as he was repeatedly pushed on whether ministers were now relaxed about immigration to the country.
“We have a migration advisory committee that says there’s a shortage in this area or that area,” Shapps said.
“One of the advantages now with Brexit is we have control over our own policies. So we can say we want people to help with a specific sector.
“We should always make sure that we only have people come here that our rules and our policy bring here.”
Cabinet tensions over legal migration – usually between the home secretary, Suella Braverman, and the chancellor, Jeremy Hunt – have been reported for several months.
The Office for Budget Responsibility has said legal migration would help offset slower growth in productivity, while Hunt acknowledged in November that it was “very important” to the economy.
Downing Street was forced this week to reject suggestions that the prime minister was harbouring conflicting aims on the issue.
It has been reported that Braverman and Robert Jenrick, the immigration minister, had raised concerns at cabinet about the levels of legal migration.
To see off a feared backlash from MPs and the wider Conservative party, ministers are drawing up plans to stop family members from joining overseas master’s students at British universities.
The number coming under that provision has risen more than tenfold in four years, from 12,806 in 2018 to 135,788 in the year to December.
In the autumn, Braverman attempted to revive a Conservative pledge to reduce net immigration to the tens of thousands despite the failure of successive governments to hit the target.
The home secretary said she would aspire to cut the overall figure, amid a clamour from party activists to take control of immigration levels.
She said: “I think we have got to definitely substantially reduce the number of students, the number of work visas and in particular the number of dependants on those sorts of visas.”
