Immigration must be matched with investment in UK infrastructure to ease pressures

Since Brexit the number of EU workers has fallen but has been more than offset by arrivals to the UK from the rest of the world. Photograph: Paul Quayle/Alamy

Imagine that during the election campaign Rishi Sunak announced that by 2038 he expected migration to boost the population by 3.7m – more than the current number of people living in Wales. What would your response be?

It’s a question worth asking, because such an increase is precisely what has been seen since David Cameron pledged in 2010 to reduce net immigration to the tens of thousands annually. In the current parliament alone, net migration to the UK has been 2m.